How can this be possible in a country with so much natural wealth and oil income?
They say a picture is worth a thousand words and these pictures are the answer to the pathetic claims by those who pretend to represent the working classes like the Socialist Workers Party with their pathetic Stalinist statistics and figures of how things have improved for the poor in Iran since the revolution blah, blah.... Makes your blood boil.
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And still there are those who defend the Islamic regime; and still, there are those who claim that since there is nothing one can do, one might as well settle with what is, in Iran.
Cowards, morons, and traitors to King Kourosh the Great.
The downfall of the ruling clerics is creeping up on them...
Lets hope soon those bricks will be replaced with toys and books and these children will never have to endure this hardship in this oil rich country
Shameful. Breaks my heart so much
Maybe you think this kind of labor never took place under the Shah? Or even under Kourosh-e bozorg? These kids are not slaves, they work to help sustain their families. Why would they be playing with toys when their family can't afford to eat? They work as a family and they live as a family.
Don't get me wrong, it's very unsettling to see it, but we also see it in many democratic Latino countries, in Africa, Russia, China, etc. It's a simple symptom of poverty, not the doing of the I.R.I. Just like it wasn't the doing of the Shah.
be salamat,
barmakid
Btw, what is the name of that song on the al-quds counter demo video?
Why should there be such poverty in our country when we have 10% of the world's oil reserves and we are the second in the world in gas reserves, and so much more natural wealth as well as skilled personnel. Its due to nothing but bad managenment and an outdated theocracy.
What makes my blood boil however is the phoney Soviet style statistics that the likes of Socialist Workers Party and Elaheh Rostami rely on when they try to convince others that the revolution has been good for the poor, bollocks it has. Iranians are worse off now comparatively to how they were 30 years ago.
Soon the Iranian people will have to sell drugs to the West to survive! Let me explain.
The oil wealth actually HAS benefitted Iran--the tens of millions of people haven't yet starved to death! In a state of nature, many Muslim countries would have be to claim more than a third or a half of its current population! With the exception of the unusually secularized Turkey, any Muslim nation with more than African-style poverty mooches off those nations with the actual skills to master nature. Currently the main way of doing so is selling oil that one neither discovers, finds an use for (independently), drills, etc. When the Islamic Republic brings itself down by cutting off subsidized food, gasoline, etc. due to alternatives to oil, the new government of liberated Iran will have to use the other method of mooching off the West, sales of narcotics, for the purpose of enjoying the minimal wealth held by neighboring Afghanistan.
So which nation should Iran model itself after? Should it specialize in cocaine sales like Colombia or opium sales like Afghanistan? A choice must be made--otherwise tens of millions of people in the great and glorious nation of Iran will starve to death!
I don't really know much about Elaheh Rostami or SWP, but I will tell you that even in the world's richest country, i.e. The United States, the same kind of poverty exists, but in a different context.
Of course if we can help these children extricate themselves from such poverty, we should. But you assume that these kids are only building bricks, when, in fact, they are also building character. My parents came out of a similar situation in Abadan, and they have nothing but good things to say about their childhood.
That said, I do believe their needs to be a redistribution of wealth in Iran and that the bazaaris power should be checked. We need something like the Shah's land reform, but this time, instead of land, it needs to be economic relief. The bazaaris need to put up their fair share, and the massive amounts of money being donated to the bonyads need to be redistributed to those in need.
Also, if SWP claims that the revolution has helped the poor, they need a reality check. To be sure, the poor are better off than they were 20 yrs ago, but that has nothing to do with IRI economic policy. What good is it if poverty has been slightly reduced while the gap between the rich and the poor in Iran has grown exponentially.
People get paid in toman but have to buy goods priced by the dollar.
I piss on the SWP and any other ideologically rigid group that claims their ideology is the remedy for Iran or that the revolution has done good for Iranians. This is not a contest between regimes or ideologies, it is a struggle to develop a shared political foundation and identity - a necessary step towards peacefully resolving all the issues we talk about.
be salamat,
barmakid
p.s. when you criticize the SWP for their "phony" statistics and then try to level criticisms against them based on ONE photo, you're kind of drinking the same kool-aid.
One more point: This kind of poverty has very much to do with our culture as much as it does with economic policy and educational oppurtuntiy.
For instance, in America those in poverty receive welfare and other government aid and never take part in working collectively for the collective benefit of the family. It's not in American culture.
Then there's Israel, a culture more similar to Persian culture. Those in poverty work on kibbutz, i.e. collective farms, to collectively benefit off their collective labor. It's a microcosm of socialism, but also a hallmark of traditional Iranian family life.
barmakid
Barmakid,
My struggle against the SWP and the idiots it churns out is not just based on that one photo, its a long going thing, just read some of Hanif Leylabi's comments and my replies.
As for how child labour builds character and how it helped your parents in Abadan build their characters, shame they didn't apply it to you and send you to brick factories, and if it was so good, why didn't they? Perhaps if you worked in brick factories as a child then you would have been more of a doer than a talker.
kid -
"in America those in poverty receive welfare and other government aid and never take part in working collectively for the collective benefit of the family. It's not in American culture."
It USED to be in American culture; in fact it was part of our culture since the Pilgrims landed. But the more LIBERAL our country has become, the MORE handouts people are promised and grow to expect. But there is still a generation or 2 who haven't been corrupted.
It can easily become part of our culture again, and I believe it will be when the pendulum swings back.
you wont be publishing this as usual. barmakid and you poti are chips off the same old block. both stupid to max. enjoy yer debates.
Barmakid,
Child Labour in US is forbiden, children instead are required to attend school which is free. no matter how poor you are.
Yikes,
You are right about the Quakers/pilgrims. But that Pendulum you speak of, are you talking about when the Ron Paul Revolution finally comes through? :)
John,
I never said child labor was legal. And my comments weren't meant to criticize the U.S., but simply to highlight how culture (in this case, Iranian culture)is the main determinant of how poverty develops and the context in which it thrives, yes, thrives.
be salamat (peace),
barmakid
So nothing to do with bad management and disastrous policies, financial mafia, wrong priorities, widespread corruption and nepotism which lets child labour happen in such a rich country, just the Iranian culture which is responsible?!
Azarmehr: So nothing to do with bad management and disastrous policies, financial mafia, wrong priorities, widespread corruption and nepotism which lets child labour happen in such a rich country, just the Iranian culture which is responsible?!
Hidden Author: I already explained for the benefit of everyone that hardly any Muslim nation has any real wealth except what they suck up through oil and drugs! Why do you think Iran could do better than any other Muslim nation?
my god, this kid has no brain. leave him alone.
stupid Barmakid
how the hell on earth poverty in Iran has any thing to do with Iranian culture ?
claiming being an Iranian how could you say child labour has anything to do with Iranian culture?!!!!
i will not be surprise if in your next comment you say prostitution, drug addiction and ... are Iranian culture too!!!
enjoy your SALAMAT(peace) in USA
p.s: don't you really for one second think, culture of people could change and be build base on the education they receive? 70% of Iranian grown up under this brutal regime and didn't receive any cultural education and freedom. you having a privilege of living in USA are not smart enough to learn some commen sense, don't you dare talk about the others culture who lives in terrible condition like most of ordinary Iranian people.
I personally don't understand how socialists could fabricate the notion of Iran being better off economically today, than it was before the revolution.
If anything, the mollahs have restored the very same kind of primitive capitalistic society which Marx's writings were against.
Obviously you can only survive in Iran if you come from a rich family; if you are a part of the middle class - well, there is no middle class. You're just screwed.
Iran's private sector has decayed so badly that the people just eat the scraps the government leaves for them.
Cyra,
I dare to say whatever I please. I'm tired of having these nonsensical back and forths about who has the right to talk about Iranian society. We all have that right, and you are just as bad as a socialist or a mullah telling me I don't have that right because I live in the states. Get a clue.
Azarmehr,
You are twisting what I am saying. It has everything to do with "bad management and disastrous policies, financial mafia, wrong priorities, widespread corruption and nepotism which lets child labour happen in such a rich country." You are right, that's why I said the bonyads and the bazaarris, i.e. the embodiment of "nepotism" and "widespread corruption," need to put up.
What I am saying is that you can't deny that a level of economic socialism is ingrained in Iranian society - macro and micro. This is evident through many policies pursued by the late Shah and other kings before him. The best example is the Shah's White Revolution.
And at the micro level, Persians, like Israelis, who don't have a lot of financial means share their income for the collective benefit of the family. It's not like in the West; individualism does not take precedent over collectivism.
be salamat,
barmakid
Winston, hadeaghal ye bar, faghat yek bar, ye cheezy benevees keh arzesh-e khoondan dashte bash-e. Your kind is becoming less and less insignificant, you bitter old man. Obama's on the verge of winning and here you are, a loser of eternal proportions. Maybe you, aryamehr, mehrtash, and the likes of you all could sit around and jack off to your memories of the Shah.
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