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Revolution Gen Z

Nepal, revolution, internet, Gen Z

It began as online outrage. 

Nepal’s government had banned social media, fearing the extremity of sentiment that might be expressed against the regime, but what followed that ban brought down the government. The general mood of protest escalated into nationwide demonstrations, clashes with security forces, and the storming of government buildings, resulting in at least 74 deaths and over 2000 injuries.

But this was not an organized coup. It developed so swiftly from youth protest to the fall of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s government* that it sure seemed to be spontaneous, taking just a few weeks’ time (or days’, depending where you set the starting point.)

Interestingly, the government the protesters ousted was communist, as in Marxist-​Leninist — but both the ruling CPN-​UML and the Maoist Centre are less ideologically rigid than traditional Marxist parties, focusing on nationalism, development, and power-​sharing rather than the totalitarian push for utopia.

That is, the commies went straight to the corruption part of the long arc of socialism.

And that’s what young people objected to, focusing special ire on “nepo baby” status examples, the scions of wealthy rulers living life extra-large. 

But the low employment rates also mattered, as did the censorship of the Internet, upon which so many Nepalese economically depended. 

In fact, the momentum of Nepal’s uprising appears to have been largely driven by domestic digital activism on TikTok and Discord. 

It’s not called the “Gen Z Revolution” for nothing.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Protesters battled security forces on September 8; by the next day the parliament building and other government offices were in flames and the prime minister had resigned. The social media ban was lifted. The army imposed a nationwide curfew on the 10th; Sushila Karki, 73-​year-​old former Supreme Court Chief Justice became Nepal’s first female prime minister on September 12, 2025.

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Wealth Versus Disaster

Nepal Earthquake

Poverty kills.

In “The Tragedy of Nepal,” aerospace engineer Rand Simberg explains why industry-​deniers striving to block economic progress in the name of blocking “climate change” do no favor to the poorest countries of the world.

Human beings cannot prevent disasters like the earthquake that recently struck Nepal. We can, though, mitigate their destructiveness … by being as economically free as possible and, therefore, as rich as possible.

And thus able to afford more durable — even antifragile — structures and infrastructure.

The same capital-​intensive achievements that protect us when Mother Nature is quiescent also protect us when she’s at her worst. Buildings are more likely to withstand a quake when constructed of the best possible materials and designs. But the most robust safeguards can be the norm only when we are free and wealthy enough to engage in the industrial processes required to produce them.

This is a familiar point. But it bears repeating because it is not familiar enough to discourage foes of a vague threat called “climate change” — nothing new in earth’s history — from also ranging themselves against industrial production.

Industry-​deniers assert that we can manipulate climate trends for the better if only we radically curb our carbon-​emitting impact on the atmosphere. But attempts to enact this fantasy will only make it ever harder to grapple with vagaries of nature commonplace long before the rise of civilizations.

Human survival requires the opposite policy. It requires full freedom to build nature-​transforming industries — and buildings, and all the other man-​made bulwarks of our lives and future.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Nepal Earthquake