IRAN. 2018. Saleh, 36, graphic designer.
The middle class didn’t join the grass roots in the recent protests. The people who are on the streets today are not from the middle class nor sharing their aspirations and problems. The people who are protesting now are the poor and lower classes, they are having really tough financial problems. These people yell their problems with violence because they have verbal violence .
Middle class walks of the society are not active in politics every four years and then they go back home and have nothing to do with politics and trust the ballet boxes .

I am a member of a few Telegram groups which are for the classmates from my high school, My classmates are from lower classes, some can not afford decent and some are financially dependent on the giveaways of government and they all don’t have any intellectual sport , let alone read some books l. These are the people who protest violently and they can’t show their disagreement any other way. I understand them .

I don’t think about the rumor that says Iran might be the next Syria because I think there is a faction in the government which believes in diplomacy much more than war. The Iran’s nuclear deal is good example of supremacy of diplomacy over war . I think even in Syria the Iranian diplomacy has worked well, I am not talking about the military side. Iran is much more a cultural civilization than a country so within a civilization whose domain embraces parts of a continent there won’t be a civil war. I see the future of my country , financially broken, more dependent on Russia and China.

When protests broke out in dozens of cities in Iran recently, everybody had different opinions, but no one wanted to come in front of my camera. Afraid.