Porsche Crash Fuels Fresh Attack on Rich Kids

UPDATE, May 11: Tehran Police Target Joy-riders

Tehran is still reeling from news that a young woman and the grandson of an influential ayatollah had been involved in a fatal crash, resulting in both of their deaths. Now traffic police have sent out units to deal with joy-riders, impounding dozens of luxury cars and carrying out alcohol breathalizer tests on some drivers. More on this soon. 

 

The news of the crash was shocking, not only because of the horrific nature of the fatal accident, but also because it highlighted the huge class divide in modern Iranian society, exposing the growing inequality between the rich and the poor, between the elite and the general populace.

“I didn’t know Parivash,” said the owner of one of the biggest car rooms in Qeytarieh, a plush neighborhood in northern Tehran — he asked to remain anonymous, so we will call him Jalil for this article. Like so many Iranians, he had heard about the death of the couple, and particularly about the woman, Parivash Akbarzadeh. Parivash, 20, was killed when the yellow Porsche she was driving hit a tree on Shariati Avenue. Her passenger and the owner of the car, Mohammad Hossein Rabbani-Shirazi, 21, also died several hours later from his injuries.

“But there are now so many rich kids living in Tehran,” Jalil says,  “that you’d think you were in Monaco. Four or five years ago I knew everybody who owned a Porsche.”

Jalil runs a big car sales room that offers a range of expensive cars, including the Porsche Panamera, the Maserati Quattroporte and the BMW 7 Series 2015, all of which cost over $300,000.

“We get every kind of customer,” says Jalil with an eager smile, “from successful builders and top surgeons to merchants and factory owners. I had four footballers [visit the showroom], whom I don’t want to name.”

Thousands of people left comments on Akbarzadeh’s Instagram page, most of whom criticized her for being an “opportunist”. “Our young people would do anything out of unhappiness,” says Jalil. “This innocent girl had a rich father and drove a good car but now she is a traitor to her country and they curse her after she is dead? Aren’t these people meant to be Muslims? Where does all this hatred and spite come from?”

However, contrary to popular belief, Akbarzadeh was not wealthy, but from the lower-middle neighbourhoor of Jannatabad. It was her fellow passenger, Rabbani-Shirazi, the nouveau-riche grandson of an ayatollah, who was the wealthy one.

 

Illiterate Porsche Owners

Niusha, a 20-year-old biology student, describes people who drive Porsches as “mental cases” whilst discussing the incident with her friends in a café in northern Tehran.

“I know a lot of these rich kids. The question is not whether this much money is a good or bad thing or whatever the Marxists say about it. But the fact that if you ask them the name of Afghanistan’s capital or whether Rumi was a poet or grocer, or when the coup d’état against Prime Minister Mosaddegh was, they wouldn’t know. Or ask them to come up with three simple sentences in English. These damned guys couldn’t do it. This is where it stinks.”

“They’re a bunch of useless, illiterate and lazy people who don’t know anything except about having a good time, sex, drinking, partying and drugs. But there are other things in life,” Niusha says. “What they have in common is widespread foolishness. I believe this is what makes people angry. Why do foolish people have so much money? Did you see that Parivash? Did she know anything other than how to take photos of her own figure?”

“And she didn’t have an exceptional figure,” says her friend Gelareh, laughing. “Of course, from an intellectual point of view, the point is that she didn’t have plastic surgery, which goes to show that among her crowd, she was a thinker.”

The owner of a well-known pharmacy on Jordan Street owns an olive-colored Porsche. When I tell him about my conversation with Niusha and her friends, he laughs nervously and says, “I went to university for 10 years. My father was a pharmacist, too. In the city of Arak, he owned one of the biggest drugstores so I could have had it all even if I’d failed the literacy test.”

“But my family was eager for education. Now I have my own pharmacy. It is nonsense to say that whoever owns an expensive car is illiterate. With education and hard work you can have everything. The problem is that our people like to chill out, munch on roasted seeds and speak badly of anyone who has been successful,” he adds.

In northern Tehran, the number of luxury cars on the road — those costing within the $50,000 to $500,000 range — is on the rise every day. In the upper-middle-class neighborhoods, less-expensive models like the Pride (Mazda), the Peugeot 206, the Samand and Iranian-made cars are predominant.

 

“Wasn’t the Revolution for the Downtrodden?”

Behrouz, who sells manteaux in a shopping mall in northern Tehran, explains how he and his friends feel. “These things get on your nerves. My car is a Mazda 3. I had to work very hard to buy it, saving money for five or six years.”

“I was under the impression that I had a good car but as there are so many Porsches and Maseratis on the streets, one becomes obsessed with buying one,” Behrouz says. “You know, of course, that you can never afford one. You know that all the girls go out with the boys who own them, which is frustrating to no end. They all belong to the princes and this gets even more on your nerves. You know that they’ve not worked for that money, or shed any sweat, but they have the run of the world.”

Spotting luxury cars in southern Tehran, however, which is the underprivileged part of town, is no easy feat. I stood for half an hour watching a very busy street in Naziabad and the most costly car I saw was a Ford sports car and a Hyundai Azera. Consequently, many of the residents living in the neighborhood hold negative feelings towards people who own Porsches or similar vehicles.

A member of the Society of the Followers of Martyrs, an old, tall man who fought for five years on the frontlines of the Iran-Iraq war, tells me, “My daughter told me about the death of this young woman. May she rest in peace. It is not appropriate to talk about the dead, but what we see on the streets isn’t right either, “ he says.

“I see these types of cars every day. And my daughter, who is a university student in Vanak, sees them every day. We’re content but wasn’t the revolution for the downtrodden? Was it not for their welfare? What kind of justice is this? What kind of Islam is this when a girl of 20 owns a car that costs as much as the entirety of the rent of people living in this neighborhood for a year? Instead of bothering women about wearing the hejab, they must fight this.“

Then, referring to the election of 2009, he adds, “I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember, but Mr. Moussavi came right here and delivered a speech. He said we must stop corruption and waste. But where is Mr. Mousavi now?”

On Madaen street in Naziabad, Bank Saderat closes, giving street vendors the chance to pitch up stands in front of the bank. Akbar, who has curly hair and a sunburned face, is selling food. Next to him, Ali sells cologne and across the road, Mehdi sells shirts and T-Shirts.

Akbar refuses to comment on Porsche owners. But Ali says enthusiastically, “Good for them! I yearn for a Porsche and if not that, a Mercedes. Or a Lexus.” He laughs loudly and adds, “I love cars. I have a pile of car magazines two meters high. Porsches are a very safe car. She must’ve been a really bad driver to get herself killed in it. It’s a pity people like her get access to these cars. If I had one, by God, I would rock the world.”