COLUMN: Living life in installments

It used to be the case that ‘installment purchases’ in Iran were for life-changing buys such as a house or a car.

Now due to the policies of the Islamic Republic, people live their lives in installments.

Advertisements for installment purchases of meat, chicken, rice, everyday supermarket items, can be found on websites and in different cities across the country.

There are special conditions for these purchases.

You pay a fifth of the amount in advance and pay the rest by cheque. With some online outlets customers must provide an employment guarantee or pension, lease, electronic promissory note or bank cheques for installment purchases of products such as red meat.

Premium bread, premium nuts, poultry, sausages, fruit - all bought in instalments.

Of course installment purchase is available in developed countries, For example here in Ireland you have a mortgage or higher purchase. But it is for a house, a vehicle or a mobile home, not for the basic essentials.

In Iran food inflation is happening constantly, every single day of the week.

Meat and chicken have disappeared from dinner tables and no longer have a place in the shopping basket. Most families have given up on the idea of buying from a butcher. Those who do, they purchase in tiny amounts, usually about 300 or 400 grams.

These are people who used to buy kilos of meat before the monster of poverty that the Islamic Republic has created.
Iranians who used to buy by the kilo now buy by the grain.

This life of uncertainty has plagued the people of Iran for 44 years. There is no rich or poor, just instalment payments, people postponing today until tomorrow, this week until next week.

We have the American elections coming up and we await the outcome. Let us see if it brings an end to misery that has become part and parcel of life in Iran.

Hard to believe as it may sound but the people of Iran had a good life before the revolution.

Now they live under the shadow of the Islamic Republic, existing bit by bit, instalment payment by instalment payment.