Ali Alfoneh

Purchasing power of the average Iranian has been hollowed out.

The value of the Iranian currency is gone.

This in part means that a regular school teacher is no longer even capable of purchasing a new pair of shoes once a year.

For a relatively long time now, it's been very difficult to purchase meat for the kids.

People who can afford to purchase meat, they are too ashamed of, for example, having a barbecue in their backyard because they do not know how well or poorly the neighbor is doing.

And the smell of food would be a problem for the kids of the neighbor.

So this is the kind of disaster that Iran's middle class, the average school teacher, the fireman, the nurse, even doctors, the professional middle class teachers,

has been experiencing for the past year.

Nowadays, it is almost difficult.

It really, truly is hard to distinguish between the middle class and the poor.

There is no longer any difference.

Iran's middle class and also the poor who can afford to have a mobile phone and have access to the Internet, they can watch YouTube channels.

They see on TikTok.

The rich kids of Tehran who can afford a $10 cup of coffee at the luxury shopping malls in northern Tehran.

And even worse, on TikTok, they can see sun.

of a former ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Venezuela light up a Cuban cigar with a $100 bill.

Now, this creates resentment.

This creates anger and frustration.

And this makes people just go to the street and demand ousting of a regime which clearly is caring for its own

but is not caring for the large middle class and the poor.