Sunday, August 19, 2012

Why Iranian will not protest agaist increase food prices!

I just read on the online news that athlete, actors and actresses have made a charity for people in North west of Iran who have lost their home due to the recent earth quake.

According to Mr. Parviz Parastouii one of the three leading people in this charatable work, about 161,000,500 Toman has been gathered. Considering one dollar is 2000 Toman that makes it US$ 80,750 in one day of charatable work.
So far so good!
This money has been gathered in a country that an average engineer let's say makes about 1,200,000 (It might be even less) Toman per month that roughly makes about US$ 600. Considering this is fairly more than average income for many in Tehran, then you wonder who has donated so much money, or perhaps people have money for a day that they really need money! (As in Iran we say that)
Considering the price of goods and foods are comparable to Europe, then I wonder how people can donate such a fairly huge amount of money with an income below average and the prices somewhat equal or higher than some developed countries!
So, I came to this conclusion that people in Iran and particularly in Tehran are still rich and increase of prices will not lead to any unrest across the country. It might affect in some remote areas the quality of life but definitely not significantly as many may anticipate.


2 comments:

radius said...

Dear Alireza,
As a dyed-in-the-wool philantrope my suggestion would be that you should never underestimate the willingness of the poor people to help those who are even in greater need. Isn't it a shame, that with a fatal injury you can expect much more help in a small village in a poor country than in Las Vegas ? The richer the society, the less willing are the people to provide simple, direct help. They assume that the rich government/administration should take care of those in need.
Therefore I could imagine that people in Iran, even facing the worst economic situation themself at the moment, develop more privat charitable activities than people in the rich Emirates or Saudis.
By the way, if only 10% of the Iranian population has an income (i.e. about 8 million) and each donates 20 000 toman (equivalent to their average salary of half a day) one could easily get the sum of 160 mill.
In Munich we recently participated in a crowd-funding campaign for a fine exhibition/multi-media project called "Servus and Salam - an insight into Iran". (www.einblickiran.de) People donated after this campaign small amounts, between 5 and 100 Euro each. At the end the organizers had to stop the campaign when they reached 50 000 Euro. From this money a great exhibition with video material, photographies and different Persian musicians and dancers was organised.
It was a big success (and in relation to what you wrote recently: I big self-marketing event). But at the end: what counts is the impact of such an activity.
(how is Italy thee days ?)

Alireza said...

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your comment. I don't underestimate the help of poor to those who are needier. but what I wish to say is that people in Iran and specifically in Tehran are rich in comparison to Pakistan and Afghanistan. So, they should receive higher pressure to make them get unrest. I think there is larger margin of tolerance:)
Italy is good, little bit hot and humid for too long.the country is almost in halt since end of July:)) but not me! tons to do!