Three-minute read
For decades, the clerical regime has relied on a cynical tactic to avoid answering to citizens’ demands: forcing people into exhaustion and despair until they accept that there is “no choice” but to endure and suffer. This deliberate strategy has infiltrated every sphere of social life—food, health, education, culture, and even the most basic needs of children.
One striking example emerges every September, when the start of the school year is marked not by opportunity, but by skyrocketing prices for stationery and school supplies.
Turning Education Into a Luxury
The state-run daily Jahan-e San’at (September 2, 2025) admitted in an article titled “The Luxury Market of Stationery”: “Recession and inflation in the stationery market have forced many sellers to change their businesses. A 50 percent inflation rate is enough to paralyze the market. Many sellers see no future and are closing shop. Price hikes are nothing new, but this year the situation is far worse.”
The regime has transformed items that should be the most basic tools of growth and learning into luxury goods, depriving children from lower-income families of their fundamental right to education. This is not only an economic crisis but a profound cultural and social one, as inequality in education deepens.
The Crisis of Education and School Dropouts in #Iran https://t.co/YfyMtonTMj
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 5, 2025
Extinguishing the Light of Culture
The assault does not end with stationery. By deliberately driving up the costs of cultural and educational goods, the regime has fueled the bankruptcy of publishers and the closure of bookstores. Jahan-e San’at admitted: “In recent years, due to reduced demand for books, bookstores merged with stationery sellers to survive. Yet, according to the Publishers’ Union, many are now canceling their licenses and abandoning the business altogether.”
This is part of a broader design: extinguishing cultural life, suppressing learning, and stifling the development of independent thought in society.
Structural Corruption and the Imports Trap
The same newspaper quoted the head of the Stationery and Engineering Supplies Union in Tehran: “Currency allocation is the number one enemy of guilds. Many shipments have been stuck at customs for 8 to 9 months. Legal imports are paralyzed, and smuggling is replacing them.”
NCRI Statement: #Iranian Regime's Education Minister Signs Disgraceful Pact with Security Forceshttps://t.co/fRjIkeHUwD
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) April 22, 2025
Thus, citizens must bear the cost of a state both incapable of managing basic trade and actively complicit in institutionalized corruption. Instead of facilitating education and culture, the regime’s machinery has become the greatest obstacle to fair distribution and access.
Billions in Looted Wealth
In another revealing piece, Jahan-e San’at acknowledged under the headline “Billions of Rials in Rent-Seeking”: “After 47 years, the Islamic Republic has failed to establish a rational, scientific, and beneficial currency system. For 37 years, it has maintained a currency system that breeds maximum rent-seeking and corruption, fueling staggering inequality.”
This rare admission highlights what the Iranian people have long known: the regime is not merely mismanaging the economy—it is built on a system of structural looting, in which wealth is siphoned to sustain networks of power and repression.
The Darkroom of the Economy
These revelations expose a regime with no interest in the nation’s welfare. The destruction of education, books, and culture is of no consequence to rulers whose only concern is preserving their grip on power and ensuring that loyal cronies continue to feed off the “darkroom of the economy.”
More footage of protest by retired educators in front of the Ministry of Education in Tehran.#IranProtestspic.twitter.com/KkhR6i4S4p
— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) September 2, 2025
As Jahan-e San’at conceded: “Ask Iran’s Customs Office to reveal the names of the main importers of something as basic as sugar, and the reality will become clear. Follow the story from the darkrooms.”
From sugar to school supplies, every basic necessity is held hostage by mafia networks tied to the regime. The goal is always the same: to suffocate society into submission under the false inevitability of “endure and suffer.”
A Society That Refuses to Accept
Yet, despite all the regime’s schemes, the outcome of these policies is not resignation but confrontation. Today, the reality of Iran is an irreconcilable conflict between the majority of society and a corrupt, authoritarian minority.
The continuation of this protracted struggle has brought the regime to a decisive point both domestically and internationally. It is clear that the clerical rulers’ days of hiding behind economic manipulation and cultural suffocation are coming to an end, as the Iranian people demand justice, freedom, and a future free from forced “endurance.”