Change in the Air: The Protests in Iran

For a while now, the people of Iran have had two things to be angry about: the economy and the government.

Years of rising costs in real estate and the price of meat have put Iranians in an awkward position. Iranians expected more than what they got. Regional experts like to talk about how Iran is not as dangerous or oppressive as some of its neighbors, and the very fact that Iranians can complain proves this. But the country is still struggling, and if you lived there, you would feel it immediately.

Iran is a hard country, and the desire to separate the economic woes from the political mess might cause one to miss the point. Both issues are intertwined, more so when outcry is met with violent repression.

The protests you have been slowly hearing about started around Dec. 28. The Islamic Revolutionary guards corps and the clerical establishment under the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are the enforcers of the repression in Iran, as well as the beneficiaries of a system that has performed poorly for everyone else. This fact is not lost on the demonstrators who have vehemently objected to the new budget by calling for an end to the current regime.

The people who are currently protesting are from the lower classes and are motivated by the lack of economic fairness and opportunities in the country. The nuclear deal, with its promise to end the sanctions that never really happened, did not appease the longstanding unemployment crisis. The 2018 budget released last month, revealed in harsh terms the regime’s desire to spend on religious institutions and foreign adventures, even though there have been cuts in cash dispersals and an increase in fuel prices, the threat of drought in the provinces, environmental degradation, and embezzlement have repeatedly incited the public.

Maybe all these issues are growing pains of a country trying to redefine its presence in a globally-minded world, or perhaps it isn’t. The truth for many Iranians is that their country has resources that their family and friends never see.

As of now, the protesters know that they won’t be able to effectively make a change to the current establishment. But what they are hoping is that their cry for change will be picked up and echoed by more and more people in the country and around the world to build enough pressure for the government to make positive changes.

The latest protests have no leaders to imprison or publicly humiliate. These demonstrations aren’t pitting the elites against one another, but everyday people against the state. If there is anything you should know as you read this article, it’s how little we know as Americans about what is happening in Iran. The current regime and its desire to censor everything, made sure of this. So the battle is a two-pronged war. One part is our foreign policy on Iran, and the other is Iran’s need to push everything under the rug.