Interesting to note that the teens and young adults who overthrew the government elected their new prime minister on Discord, and the military acknowledged the election and put the winner in place.
I think the reason most of us haven’t said much about this is that if you’ve been around for a while (especially since the Arab Spring) you’ll remember tons of movements that looked very similar to this and didn’t produce the kinds of populist results some alt media types always say they will. I genuinely hope for the best for them, but clearly the recent precedent, especially for these kinds of “horizontal” movements, is that they get co-opted by NGOs and turned into pro-western, liberal states, if not just collapsing right back into what they had before.
Yeah, disorganisation like this is the western colour revolutionist’s best friend, their second best friend is western social media tools being used in all their organising.
Literally holding their vote on a western intelligence controlled platform (discord). Clown hours. CIA could have spun up tens of thousands of persona management bot profiles run by 20 people in army psyops to influence that in no time at all to say nothing of just straight up altering the vote totals.
There are steps being planned to get off discord. The lightning fast development had prevented any immediate influence from foreign power but the flood of bot account has started. Now all invite links are temporarily disabled and just the current insulated server should be fine for a while.
Yeah, this is a strange event, very unique, it has all the superstructure of western colour revolutions, but none of the calling cards or hallmarks, it’s a very unique event. I hope things work out well for the people.
Instead of being a unique event, it might just be one of the first. All the ‘strange event’ are just the things we noticed from previous color revolution. But that does not make those revolution any ‘less’ revolution for the people. People from surrounding countries being inspired and imitating such revolution is not really surprising event.
Using instagram to organize, discord to discuss and Facebook to share also seem less weird if looking from the perspective of Gen z. They are using the tools available to them to achieve their goal, unaware about the dangers inherent to such tools.
It is just very unusual to see something that, if in almost any other circumstance, would be concrete evidence of a US colour revolution, but doesn’t seem to actually be the case here. It’s like using an oven to cool food down instead of heat it up, it’s just so different to how things normally go. I do hope this is the first of many such situations, the tools of empire being used against them would be fantastic. But I’m still skeptical, it’s always a risk when they use tools that could so easily be co-opted. I hope that this isn’t the case.
What’s more likely? That reality inverted itself and all patterns of history are fake, or western leftists falling for another color revolution misinfo campaign for the 100th time?
That is not a good analysis of the situation, or a good understanding of it. I guess I’ll tell my friends on the ground in Nepal (and you should tell our Nepalese users too) that they are just “western leftists” falling for another “misinfo campaign” because their damn lying eyes and ears are just tools of the US government.
This isn’t some kind of “reality inverted itself” this is people using tools they use every day to fix a problem they had after the previous government turned out to be both useless and toothless. It’s very, very dumb for them to use something like Discord to pick their new leader, but a big part of their issues was that the previous government was trying to ban things like Discord in the country, social media stuff that the average person uses every day, and doesn’t give a shit about whether the US government can influence things on it.
The worry is how easily the US government could co-opt this movement, because they are basically leaving every single door open for them to do so, and the US will probably end up using that, they just don’t seem to yet. Taking a “this is a movement by the people, but will probably become co-opted” isn’t falling for anything. It’s using the information we have to assess the situation, instead of just assuming that any time anything happens it is the Big Bad US government doing it. That’s not material analysis, it’s being scared of the monster under the bed and helps no one.
I didn’t read If We Burn to not learn from it.
My proudest moment in a while was sharing a pirated copy with some college kids that were in the right path but were definitely in need of a little examination on what kinds of movements would be effective. I even tried to even it out a bit by saying that decentralized authority and defence of a revolution is possible and forms of it exist with Rojava and the Zapatistas, but the idea of a completely non-hierarchical, nonviolent populist movement is bait.
Rojava was a US-backed front for American occupation and oil theft, who are now allied with the ISIS-Al Qaeda Zionist government. Not a great example.
Also, both Rojava and this are incredibly violent. Rojava ethnically cleansed many arabs, and these protests were burning down residential buildings and killing the wife of the PM as well as clashing with security forces. Funny how pro-west movements never get called “violent” even when they are using snipers
If i had a book to recommend to pretty much anyone calling themselves a leftist even if they arent is that one. Not cause its like the best theory stuff or whatever, but so people who haven’t read theory may think twice before fucking it up for the rest of us. It’s actually a really easy thing to explain to aplotical normies. Ive expressed this concern at work and have basically phrased it as “they overthrew the government before figuring out how to replace it and generally the last people you want in charge are the most prepared to fill that void.” Don’t rob a bank without a plan, dont use your tongue to stop a fan. It’s common fucking sense really.
Dude I remember back in the cth days that Rojava was like fucking ancom candy. Seemed like every other post had something to do with Rojava.
It’s candy cause it’s a left-aesthetic that isn’t demonized by their media apparatuses (because it’s pro-American). The radlibs wanna be left, but they have been legitimately brainwashed by American media and cannot break from it
Oh I get it, I used to stan hard for Rojava back then, too, because it’s what we did; I was just pointing out the difference in tone between the sub and lemmy.
Many people came to understand the truth about Syria
And that’s exactly the story for me. I came to realize that the “regime” narrative we were being fed in the news was a CIA talking point.
Oh absolutely, I just thought “fucking of course they did” when I read a bunch of gen zs used discord to elect a prime minister. Cool as shit, honestly.
Please don’t use discord to coup a government
7000 people voted in that “election” I bet 70% of them are bots
Yes I also hope for the best here, but just being some form of inspiration for youth worldwide is fine for me.
Getting co-opted by NGOs and turning into pro-western, liberal state is not really a downgrade from before since that was the situation before the revolution.
Nepal has been a playing field for US and India, and with the increasing influence of US (accepting MCC by govt) things were bound to explode.
Every surrounding counties are getting unstable, and just being done with whole thing feels peaceful now. the government being. overthrown by people’s movement is such a relief since the alternative movement was going to be pro-Monarchy. there is a hope for left now, a leftist revolution overthrowing the ‘Nepal Communist Party - United Marxist-Leninist’ was just not possible.
It’s not “co-opted”. It’s activated, funded and organized by pro-west NGOs. Top to bottom it reeks from the very outset.
A government tried to ban social media and then a spontaneous uprising quickly installed a new prime minister using social media. I’m not going to speculate because I don’t know enough about the situation (or Nepal in general tbh), but just those basic facts are concerning imo
Ban American social media after it was being used to foment a western NGO backed coup*
Elections on social media? I’m out glhf
if I’m ever in a revolution, and I see a westerner hyping it up like an avengers or a fast and furious movie, I’m going to kill myself.
Better hope this site gets taken down before any revolution you’re in then.
Just overthrow the government when they are sleeping lol
In that case its a color revolution and you need to go for another overthrow
well nepal clearly wasn’t ready for revolution either because this entire thing hinges on the assent of the military.
which yeah, probably means the military is scared of the movement and doesn’t think they could outright rule with opposition, but it totally rules out comparison to more militaristic nations. a thermonuclear weapon being used on DC is more likely than the JCS assenting to an informal election following a mob unseating the US government
Nepal Army might have been the only capable institution and the only one to suffer no damage. They were and are the most respected institution even now.
Executive, Legislative and Judiciary structure all were target to some extend. So military was forced to intervene and could have absolutely taken power (on pretense of temporary solution) but instead immediately approached the disorganized masses to ask for our representative. That was a major reason for the quick formation of a unified front since we had one day to present our representative. The use of discord was also for same reason. Everything was moving very fast and we used tools that were immediately available to us
Tools that the organizers were trained to use at NED funded “anti-corruption” and “youth” seminars, attended by Hong Kong protesters and Free Tibet posters. Tools created by Jack Dorsey.
i’m not trying to be a dick but the military can bide their time until it’s settled down and utilize the irregular mode of voting to make the election invalid.
that will be acceptable to the UN unless the new government cozies up enough to china to receive their SC veto
I think Lenin did say that brevity is the soul of revolution.
Where do folks find reliable English language information about what has been happening in Nepal?
There are not really reliable sources available, even the Nepali media feels off
I only trust news from three sources for now
- Nepal Army
- Gen-Z movement official channel (fb, insta, discord)
- RONB - fb page
mostly from 2 nepalis i follow in twitter pre-mass protests
Wouldn’t that just make it military rule with a publicly acceptable face?
In a way, all rule is military rule.
Slightly more seriously, it would only be “military rule” if the military selected the prime minister, in my opinion.
all political shit flows out of the barrel of the military
NSFW (text, no visuals) violence tag:
spoiler
Watched a video of a Nepalese man scoop the brains of a dead man into his hand and hold it in front of security forces, screaming at them to stop the violence. It was one of the most hideous and heartbreaking things you can see.
I do not see the vast cohort of Burgers doing that level of shit anytime soon.
Burgerreichers want nothing more than to have a liberal enough government that they can sleep politically, watch TV, eat burger
@xarm@hexbear.net is our resident nepali afaik
What are good sources to read about this?
Didn’t they burn a woman alive?
She was supposedly in the house that was burned. We have zero confirmation, and zero confirmation that this is an organic protest.
confirmation that this is an organic protest
I am very skeptical of the movement, but what would a confirmation of its authenticity look like?
While we’re at it, I think part of the problem with these very decentralized/spontaneous movements is that a genuine, organic one is completely indistinguishable from one that is infiltrated and manipulated by bad actors. Euromaidan is a perfect example: whatever organic grassroots support the movement had at first got transmuted into a fascist coup and the structure stayed the same so it never lost legitimacy in the eyes of Western media (well, maybe part of the problem is that Western media loves nazis)
Ah ok good to know it hasn’t been confirmed. As usual, the organic nature is complicated. Of course the protesters have some legitimate concerns but there is also always foreign NGOs influencing and hoping to get a certain outcome that benefits western nations
Chatgpt pol certainly is SUS af
Organic protests are a bad idea.
Occupy Nepal Street
Why?
Because they never worked and never will
Neither the government nor the protesters were exactly peaceful, dozens died and hundreds are still hospitalized. A lot more protesters died than any other group, though.
I don’t know, this is honestly the first I’ve heard of it. I just thought it was funny they used Discord to do the election.
Yeah we have a Nepalese news mega poster who has been updating about it there.
I saw an article yesterday about ex PMs wife getting burned to death in a building
