Ali Mostofi - Iranian Astrologer and Current Affairs Commentator.

Consumption

As you know, I tend to worry about something to do with Iran, and if it becomes a weed or flower, I see what it's "blooming all about" (as the cokney saying goes), and spill my guts out.

So what has consumption to with Iran? Follow this journey.

A kid is born in Iran. His parents were given a lovely healthy baby, and they want the best in the world. They pop into the local store in Iran, and look for the best stuff. Where do they get the ideas for the best stuff?

We all watch TV, but nowadays it is the internet where people get their ideas. TV really works on lifestyle impressions. The Iranian woman, will get excited seeing shows and movies. She identifies with the roles. She wants to be like them. She tries to replicate. This is a basic need. She feels it. She is sold. She wants the best for herself and her new born. Her eyes are on the TV and internet screens. It is a dream.

The moment she takes her eyes off these screens, she looks at her room, and peers out of the window, and she gets depressed. She goes out, to change the room. She wants to buy stuff. Iranian retailers, do a great job in getting anything, this massive young population want. Smugglers import anything. The Hezbollah Party in Iran (Hezis) has failed.

So when people tell me, "What has the Iranian Opposition done? Where is it?" I tell them, look at the appetite of an Iranian. It does not consume anything that Hezis feed them. Iranians love the modern, or anything that is new. Newness is in our culture. That is what Nowruz philosophy is. Everyday is Nowruz. Do I need to back track on this? You all should be able to hook up the modern need to consume, with Nowruz philosophy. Yes this twenty thousand years philosophy as in the Zend-Avesta, is modern. It exists all the time.

Existentialism, or what it takes for you to feel alive and good, is as old as Damavand, and it makes good sense. Your Nowruzi feeling, or that "It's Christmas" feeling, is genuine and very powerful. No one has managed to stop it. Newness is like a new born child. It makes you feel alive every day. Heck you know what I mean. But the journey continues.

What happens when the Iranian retailers can no longer finance the imports? Our new born's mum, gets a phone call from her rich cousin in LA, who asks why she isn't there, where she can become a nurse, and buy loads of great stuff. This is the real journey of all third world people. Their home country fails. They want to drop it all. They plan to go to the land of opportunity. Iran loses out. Hezis have one less person to worry about. US TV and internet has one more person to consume. The US retailers, who pay for the ads on TV shows, win.

But it was not always that way. Before the French flew that Trojan horse into Iran, under the guise of democracy, Iranian consumption was huge. The economy, was expected to make Iran bigger than Korea, by the year 2000. We were going to make stuff with Made in Iran on it, as good as Made in Japan. But all those people who were going to get us there, went to western US and Canada instead. So now you know why the media companies want the word "Iran" to not be cool. They don't want our culture to thrive. They have put a rat in Iran to benefit from anything non-Iranian. You know the rest etc etc.

I feel better now. Thanks for reading this