All it takes is just one incensed group of people. Are you saying there are no people in Iran who don't care about mosques?
Of all the protests throughout the years - why now? It's worth questioning without projecting our way of life onto theirs. Religious or not, they are deeply proud of their heritage, history and culture.
That's a false dichotomy. I know plenty of America-First people that support ICE actions and are against Israel and intervention in Iran. Seriously, though, I don't see how anyone can ever, ever!, give the Nezam even a millimeter of credibility.
If you are 20 years old, and lived through the Green Movement and the Women, Life, Freedom Movement (which this current uprising seems almost continuous with that one), and you are dragged to a religious institution that supports the regime that is ruining the lives of scores of millions, you might think differently about the value of that institution.
We have to be careful to not assume that Iranians don’t distinguish between their faith, their culture and the political system. Every Iranian I’ve spoken with makes that distinction instinctively. Opposing the Islamic Republic does not mean rejecting Islam, rejecting their heritage or burning down religious sites. That interpretation reflects a very Western cultural lens, not an Iranian one. I’m saying this from Toronto - one of the largest Iranian diasporas in the world. I’m surrounded by Iranians from every background: secular, religious, monarchist, reformist, traditional, apolitical. Across all those conversations, one thing is consistent: people separate their anger at the regime from their relationship to their culture and their faith. They don’t conflate the mosque with the state the way an outsider might assume. It’s also important to remember that many of these religious institutions long predate the Islamic Revolution. They weren’t created by the regime; they were inherited by it. The mosque burning are shocking to Iranians themselves. It’s not typical behavior, and it doesn’t align with how most Iranians express dissent. When something so out of character happens, it’s reasonable to question whether it reflects genuine grassroots sentiment or whether other actors - internal or external might be exploiting the chaos. In a country with a long history of infiltration, provocation, and factional manipulation, skepticism isn’t naïve; it’s common sense.
Even during past crises - the 1999 student protests, the 2009 Green Movement, the 2019 fuel protests and the 2022 uprising; mosque burnings were extremely rare and widely viewed with suspicion by Iranians themselves. I'm not saying the protests aren't warranted - I'm saying the west trying to artificially amplify them actually ruins it for those who are legitimately protesting which helps further entrench the current government. Sustained peaceful protests would have had a much more effective effect than infiltrating them and going overboard with the violence. Iranians see through it
Oh ... sorry ... missed the mosque burning part. I don't doubt there are foreign actors on the ground ... or it could be a random group of people. I am sure a country that big you're gonna have some anti religious people as much as you might say they respect their religious symbols and culture. I mean, at some point you're going to create resentment on a group of people. Could also be the Mullahs doing it trying to pin it on the protestors to somehow break them up.
That doesn't mean the church now is the same as the one before. When the church becomes the mouthpiece of the government and the government is hated, then the church is going to be hated too. We're seeing the effect of governmental capture of the churches here in America as well, where preachers become overtly MAGA and young people, turned off by that message, are now not attending.
Islam is not a monolith, yet many mosques in Iran are essentially a mouthpiece for the republic. That, and this is a country of 90 f********ing million people comprising many distinct cultures and ethnicities who don’t sign onto the type of Islam, if they espouse Islam at all, that the republic is forcing on the entire population. And on top of that, those minority groups are specifically targeted by the regime for violent crackdown when they protest the absolute shit treatment they get from the state. But, you know, you do you. I’ve actually read long form books on Iran and its complexities. The burning of the mosques being attributed to Mossad is incredibly dismissive of the terrible horror Iranians are living under. The kids have no hope. Same with The parents of those disappeared and murdered by the state. Maybe they are desperate because the IRGC has killed so many children and young adults. It is something you can explain away if you think things might someday improve. But when they kill your kids, what is the point anymore?
This channel is really good, here he provides a good summary on Iran and the different context. He also advance the theory that the former president was assassinated by the IRGC. Highly recommended For those interested, his prediction on an hypothetical war between Iran and the US. He got his VP prediction (pre-election) wrong.
The issue is that you’re mapping an American dynamic onto a society that operates very differently. In the US, when churches get too political, young people tend to leave because religion there is treated as a personal choice and often overlaps with political identity. Iran isn’t structured the same way. Many mosques and religious spaces long predate the Islamic Republic and are tied to family history, neighborhood identity and cultural continuity. Even people who oppose the government often still see those spaces as part of their heritage and not as political extensions of the state. So the American analogy doesn’t really hold. It assumes Iranians relate to their religious institutions the same way Americans relate to politicized churches, when in reality the cultural, historical and social context is completely different. When you actually talk to Iranians like I have in places Toronto, you hear a very consistent distinction between opposing the regime and rejecting their own religious or cultural spaces. That nuance gets lost when we try to force an American framework onto Iranian realities. @teammellieIRANfan I'm assuming you're Iranian, perhaps you could provide some insights?
I think you need to appreciate that the Iranians in Canada might be holding onto the idea of Iran that no longer exists in the way they want to remember it. How many conversations do you have with Iranians who have lived in Iran the last decade or so? I guarantee you that their analysis is vastly different from the people who left around 2010 or earlier, even if they have family still there.
I find this argument bizarre. In a country of 80-90 million people, surely you can find some hundreds who who would be less inclined to respect religious buildings?
You're talking less than less than less than 1% - so you can't be surprised when people raise an eyebrow at the burning of mosques, let alone people around them letting them do it.
Because that is what it takes. How many people do you think that you need in order to set fire to a building? A million?
FWIW, in the diaspora, Iranians are particularly secular. In 2008 they were 42% Muslim, in 2012 that dropped to 31%. I'm going to hazard that there are a lot of privately secular Iranians in Iran.
Some are complaining about an Israel flag seen with the mob. You don't think Iranians know that's a big middle finger to the regime?
This doesn't pass the smell test. Where would an Iranian protester get an Israeli flag? As soon as the protester pulls out the Israeli flag, wouldn't the other protesters turn on him (assuming it's a him)? I mean, these guys are protesting the Iranian regime, that doesn't mean they think Israel is cool - Israel is probably one of a very few things they dislike more than their own regime. If it's not home grown protesters, but instead Israeli agents who are fanning the flames of these protests, why would they show an Israeli flag and give themselves away? It sounds like disinformation at best, or if it's real, a false flag - ha ha, see what I did there?
I agree with the latter part, but disagree with the earlier part about Israel. I don't have any concrete evidence, but from what I gather online and from talking to half a dozen ex pats here, Iranians, especially younger generation, hold no ill will towards Israel whatsoever. In fact, they don't give a shit about Israel. I don't know what the Gaza war has done to that opinion, but there are videos out there of college students walking around both Israeli and US flags that were laid out on the ground for them to step on.
AFAIK Iranians in general don't care about Palestine. This is coming anecdotally from a friend of mine. In fact many resent them because the Iranian leadership has spent money supporting them while there are plenty of domestic problems to worry about. And there are many who do support Israel in the sense that they want to take the regime down. Basically ... the enemy of my enemy. But obviously, they don't want to be bombed to Hell.