In this fight, religious functions will continue to develop nuanced areligious meaning. And this works both ways: a large generation of youth, we who have fled the forcing of religion on every aspect of our life, are now attending Friday prayer, attending ahya (if it had not been canceled), mobilizing our friends for Ghods day. Given that we are doing so to make a political statement and not a religious one, but nonetheless, we are attending these functions, planning them, and looking forward to them. We will stay away from Khamenei’s sermon. We have run to Rafsanjani’s. In this simple move you have an ocean of unprecedented religious, social and political interpretation.
This is going to be painful, fascinating, and all so very new.
I predict we'll start to truly see the beginning of the end when a chorus of prominent religious figures - ultimately including Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani - come out and not only denounce the regime, but publicly support the Green movement. The coup d'etat has so tarnished the concept of Velayat-e Faqih that the clerical establishment will be forced to side with a less religious (and more secular) faction in order to salvage whatever clout they will have left in the wake of the current siege. The alternative (to stand by the regime) would surely prove more costly in decades to come.
