Iran’s political landscape, tainted and occupied by clerics, regardless of internal or international dimensions, cannot evade the astronomical growth of class disparities. It has been emphasized consistently that class disparity is a fundamental factor that ultimately will undermine the theocratic regime of regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
The class divide is a tool in the hands of the regime to purportedly keep the backbone of the Iranian nation bent, suppressing any intellectual, physical, or professional capacity for movement, protest, or uprising. The exacerbation of class disparity and the failure to stem the tide of embezzlement, theft, and governmental looting, coupled with poverty and destitution, lie at the heart of the regime’s ideological strategy to suppress the energies of the Iranian people. This policy, under the leadership of Khamenei, is orchestrated to “preserve the regime at any cost.”
The regime’s strategy of intensifying class division not only ensnares a significant portion of the population in economic crises but also leads to the moral decay and collapse of societal culture. The aftermath of this intensification is a series of constant economic, livelihood, and existential earthquakes. These tremors disrupt family balance, ethics, and societal culture, promoting a life of destitution dictated by the government to ensure political and economic hegemony and authoritarianism.
The roots of class division in the clerical regime are glaringly evident and accessible. This trend, from the time of Ruhollah Khomeini to Khamenei, only benefits the regime’s loyalists who obey the commands of the regime’s leader. This series of loyalists has proliferated so much over the four decades that even the regime’s own ideologues can no longer deny the voluminous reality of this oligarchic structure.
The government-affiliated newspaper, Javan, associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in its issue dated April 7, 2024, made an inevitable reference to the series of plunderers, thieves, and class-dividers in the company of the corrupt core of the regime. It states:
“The class disparity is influenced by the actions of officials who, within the power oligarchy’s radius, serve their own dynasty, lineage, clan, and tribe, but when it comes to the people, either the resources are depleted, the administrative time is over, or Mr. President has gone for prayer and it’s lunchtime for the employees!”
It is observed that the lamentations of the Supreme Leader, his agents, and the Friday prayer leaders about the dire economic situation of the people are nothing but lies and deceit. While the “power oligarchy” rhetoric is disseminated by the source of the Supreme Leader, benefiting the privileged few sworn to it. This exploitation of the Iranian people’s resources is acknowledged by the government newspaper under the title “Bitter Class Disparity” with deliberate awareness and silence by the “majority of officials”:
“Different individuals, depending on their proximity, kinship, and proximity to the power core, fundamentally believe that when we are benefiting, there is no need to cry out about class disparity! Most officials are indifferent to it in various ranks.”
We have mentioned that the repercussions of continuing and intensifying class division lead to the collapse of ethics and societal culture. A collapse that the government prescribes to maintain its power and control by relying on this very collapse.
The government-affiliated newspaper Arman, in its April 7, 2024 issue under the title “The Hypocrisy of Men of Power in Women’s Clothing,” pointed to a corner of the regime’s gift of morality-destroying and class-dividing culture of the Supreme Leader’s guardianship:
“Sometimes we are in pursuit of arresting a female addict, and when we apprehend her, we realize that she is a man. In order not to be recognized, and to put it better, to gain the hearts of the people and have more income, he dresses in women’s clothing!”
The economically politicized, politically politicized, religiously politicized, and politically politicized life under clerical rule, although articulating government intervention in the minutiae of everything, reveals a broader understanding of the Iranian people’s perception of an all-devouring government. This understanding results in a call from the decisive majority of Iranian society to dismantle the foundations of the regime. The real actions and daily fervor of Iranian society against the government have such coordinates.
