On Allah’s Welfare

Subsidies, hospitals, housing projects, aid, as well as hotels and large corporations: a look at how the Bonyads of the ayatollahs and Pasdaran are run. Thirty-four years after the Iranian Revolution charity also equals big business.

From the forlorn border with Armenia to the slopes of Mount Damavand – a panorama far from the everyday chaos of Teheran – across to the desert clearings at the gates of Yazd or beyond, to the fertile valley surrounding Shiraz: in Iran it’s quite difficult to come across a panhandler. One sees misery and crisis everywhere, and the austerity of the poor suburbs that are a far cry from the ostentatious mansions of the ultra rich in the big cities. There are poor people in Iran, lots of them, but they are helped by the state. And the ‘God’s welfare’ system, compared to many other Middle Eastern welfare systems, has worked for years.

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