Modern day slavery in Iran – The price of the Islamic revolution

The Iranian people are modern day slaves to the Islamic revolutionary system, suffering dearly so that the leadership and the rich and wealthy can enjoy these dire times in their mansions. No country is more stricken by COVID-19 than Iran. Health is expensive and Iran has the money to spend for the sick, but for some reason Tehran keeps spending it for foreign adventures and the export of the revolution even as the sanctions are kept alive.

It only needed one real crisis to all come out. The Islamic Revolution in Iran has reinstated the old ways of discrimination, growing class gaps and corruption. Although the days of the Shah are long gone and most citizens of Iran have not lived in the monarchy a single day, there is a growing understanding that it can and should be better. Mind you, COVID-19 is killing quickly almost every last one of those who remember better days. You wouldn’t like to think that this was done on purpose.

Iran is probably the country that handles Corona in the most uncaring, unsocial and inefficient way in the world. There is a clear-cut dividing line between the Iranian elite and the commoners. If you have the connections, you don’t live in the pandemic-stricken metropolis but in a mansion on the countryside. You get everything delivered and the children are home educated with classes given on Zoom with up to 5 students per meeting. Not what the rice farmers can afford, not by far.

But what to do if you are infected. Average income is 4.5 million Tuman per month, but a hospital bed costs 40 million per day. If you want to know if it’s the flue or COVID-19 you can make a test, for only 35 Euros, 20% of your monthly salary. You might go to a government hospital, in which case you will get COVID-19 anyhow, as there is no money to treat patients, no free beds. The best thing that can happen to you there is to be sent home. Either your rich or connected, get a private room in a private hospital or an IRGC hospital, get your medication paid for or have the money to pay for it, or you just get sick and die.

So how come that so little take the initiative to demand equality. It’s quite simple. Complete disinformation on all levels. Most contaminated citizens don’t have the money to get tested, so that even the official numbers are low. Statistics of international institutes show that almost every home in Iran has at least one Corona case. Iranian indigenous vaccination is possible but highly improbable. Many believe one of two stories, either there is no vaccine and they inject you with saline, or Iran buys cheap Russian vaccines, rip off the label and print some words in Farsi on it. Whatever the truth is, nobody believes the corrupted government, and for a good reason.

Whenever hospitals get visited, reporters nosing around, the staff brings out many spray bottles of disinfectant, never to be used. For all they know they are filled with water.

This goes even deeper. The TV-channels report about the importance of the medical staff, how they work hard and how they endangers themselves for the others and how they have to be rewarded. Accordingly, the leader Khamenei promised a raise of income. Promises, promises, even coming from their religious leader. The only raise is that of eye brows when even executives like Ali Reza Raisi claim that the official number of cases has to be multiplied to the power of three just to be realistic.

The government is trying to help. Every home gets about five Euros, if you have a bank account. Not that it really matters. That’s not enough for a weekly ration of bread or rice. The government just doesn’t have any money, and for a good reason. They will let you believe that US sanctions are the main reason for the budget hole causing all the monetary problems that led this critical situation. What they don’t tell is how they spend:

• at least $ 35 billion war aid and deployment of forces in Syria.
• at least $ 25 billion for the needless quarrels with KSA in Yemen.
• about $ 34 billion debt of NIOC to the Iranian banking system.
• at least another $ 15 billion for a better foothold in Iraq.

That is over a 100 billion US-Dollars gone. Add to that all the money spent on spiting the western world with a nuclear program, increasing that budget by 256%, allegedly because of the assassination of a former head of the nuclear weapons program. Add to that IRGC income from illegal oil sales going directly into the personal bank account of the “religious” leader and war mongering in the Middle-East.

Iran easily exceeds 120 billion US-Dollars in wasted money that could have helped the population dying from COVID-19, desperately in need medical care and social services even before the pandemic. With an average cost of $ 112 million to build a 120 bed hospital and run it for a year with $ 10 million, this would allow 1000 hospitals, or 200 hospitals and free COVID treatment, or 40 billion tests or any needed mixture to help their civilians.

Iran’s budget for 2020-21 stands about $ 40 billion, not equally distributed. Large provinces are simply left to their destiny, like Baluchestan, Kurdistan, East and West Azerbaijan and Chuzestan. This allows the government to keep the slaves in the major cities at bay, as instead of an average of $ 500 per capita, the citizens of the major cities suffer less of a downgrade from the $ 1034 in 2017 to about $ 850.

The situation is critical. Human rights organizations and the EU put pressure on the United States to stop the sanctions, to let Iran sell Oil and buy whatever needed to help the population, believing blindly, naively that these funds will find their way to hospitals and infirmaries. The fact is that Iran doesn’t care about the commoners, not even those serving in the regular army, heavily infested with COVID-19. Only the upper echelon is worth saving, only IRGC interests are important and only the bank accounts of the religious leadership are to be filled. It’s a sad story with a forgone conclusion. Modern day slavery takes its toll in lives from the weak and feeble.