Crowd emotions sometimes have a strange alchemy.
In a political resistance movement, the death of a leader can at times spell the slow extinction of the activist energy of his followers, allowing the establishment to regain its footing and re-establish control.
But more often, it only serves to give fresh, decisive momentum to a mass dynamics that can thereafter overcome any obstacle.
The passing away last Saturday of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri (1922-2009) in Iran appears to be of the second category.
