LAST WEEK, Nepal ousted Prime Minister Sharma Oli, who has since disappeared after the fall of his government.
The so-called “Gen Z Uprising” was caused by the government becoming butthurt over messages posted on social media, and subsequently, banned it.
The problem is that Nepal, like the Philippines, gets a lot of its income from foreign remittances. According to Grok, remittances make up about 33% (2024) of Nepal’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For comparison, the Philippines’ remittance to GDP rate is around 8%.
Now, what do you think would happen to a country, where a third of the country’s economy, if it shuts down the primary means of communications outside the country?
In Nepal, the result was the Gen Z Uprising.
True to form, after expelling the Communists who had ruled the country, they elected Judge Sushila Karki… through discord, reportedly. If this is true then my only response to that is lol.
But seriously, though, Nepal’s Gen Z uprising has echoes of our own People Power, but rather than speak about the similarities, this article will discuss the differences.
First, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was a center right figure, and People Power had undertones of being leftwing. In comparison, Oli was a Marxist, who stupidly tried to shut down the internet.
Further, People Power I was a Baby Boomer uprising, and reflected that particular generation’s mores: Freedom and liberal democracy. In contrast, Nepal’s Gen Z Uprising had a more pragmatic goal: restore access to the social media and oppose widespread corruption.
There is also Oli’s communism, and one could argue that Nepal’s uprising is right wing because of that, but I think that that government’s communist characteristics were largely incidental.
The point here is that Nepal could very well represent what future politics all over the world will look like: More pragmatic, more focused on digital free speech, less moralistic and, judging by videos of burning buildings, not shy of engaging in violence, a bit different from People Power./PN
