From Nepal to the Arab World: Is It Time for a Generational Boycott?

Nisaba Media (Amman, Jordan)

A few days ago, social media buzzed with news from Nepal: the government decided to ban social media platforms, citing the need to “protect society from harmful content,” while the judiciary hesitated to rule on appeals against the decision. The scene was familiar to anyone in our region, where authorities have long mastered the art of restriction and co-opting courts to justify oppression.

Yet what happened in Nepal was not a repeat of familiar patterns. There, young people refused to play the authority’s game or negotiate with the judiciary. A whole generation — from teenagers to people in their late 30s — took to the streets, declaring total rejection of what they saw as paternalistic, authoritarian control. They did not merely protest the “ban”; they challenged the entire system behind it: the political authority, the judiciary, and the entrenched patriarchal culture.

This moment, often described as the “Nepalese model,” represents exactly what our region has been missing for over a decade. Protests exist, anger is present, and blood has been shed in Baghdad, Beirut, Tunis, and Khartoum — but the decisive moment, the moment of generational and moral rupture, has yet to occur.

Arab Revolutions: Protest Without Rupture

When the Arab Spring erupted in Tunisia in 2010, it seemed as though the region was entering a new historical chapter. Millions flooded the streets, broke the walls of fear, and toppled regimes that seemed unshakable. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and later Syria experienced dramatic transformations. Yet it soon became clear that removing leaders did not dismantle the structures beneath them. Egypt quickly returned to military rule, Libya and Yemen descended into civil war, and Syria became a proxy battlefield for international powers. Only Tunisia maintained a fragile democratic experiment.

The second wave of protests, in Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, and Sudan, showed a more politically aware generation. Signs and slogans rejected sectarianism, corruption, and military rule. In Iraq, the 2019 Tishreen protests were historic: young people defied sectarian divides and demanded a civil state that respects their rights. In Lebanon, the “All of Them Means All of Them” movement challenged the sectarian political class.

Yet despite bloodshed and sacrifices, these movements largely failed. In Iraq, protests were brutally suppressed, leaders were assassinated, and the political system remained intact. In Lebanon, electoral processes reproduced sectarian politics. In Sudan, while Bashir was removed, a military coup soon ended the fragile civilian government. Even Tunisia, the exception, saw authoritarian tendencies resurface amid political polarization and institutional weakness.

The fundamental reason for this repeated failure is that these revolutions confronted the political system without breaking the societal and cultural structures that sustain it. They fought against certain practices, but not against the inherited values that legitimize the continuation of power.

Generations and Hidden Walls

Here lies the difference with Nepal. In Nepal, an entire generation challenged an older one. In our region, the generations are nearly indistinguishable in mindset.

In Iraq, families, tribes, schools, and religious institutions have, over two decades, conditioned young people to think like their elders. A 20-year-old’s aspirations mirror those of an 80-year-old: a government job, a modest house, a spouse, and children. Even a 13-year-old girl’s life resembles that of her grandmother three centuries ago. In Lebanon, despite repeated crises, many youth define themselves first by sect before identity or citizenship. In Tunisia, the yearning for stability often outweighs demands for liberty.

This intergenerational mimicry is not solely due to state structures. Society itself enforces it. In many Arab countries, technology — which could have been a tool for liberation — is used as a mechanism of control. Instead of banning social media, authorities encourage self-surveillance among youth: monitoring and reporting “harmful content” becomes part of everyday life. The young are transformed into censors of one another.

In effect, the moral and cultural clock has stopped. The world moves forward, but the region remains trapped in the time of grandparents and fathers. Without a clear difference between generations, the essential condition for a genuine revolution is absent: confronting the old with the new.

Toward a Third Spring: The Nepalese Lesson

If the first Arab Spring shattered fear and the second revealed the depth of crises, any potential third spring cannot succeed without achieving the kind of generational rupture seen in Nepal. And this rupture is not just about rebelling against elders; it’s about redefining the relationship between the individual and the state, the citizen and society.

The Nepalese experience reminds us that change begins when an entire generation realizes that inherited values no longer suit their era. This is what allowed Nepali youth to confront all institutions — political, judicial, and social — as part of a single authoritarian ecosystem, refusing compromise. In contrast, in the Arab world, young people still revere the same symbols that the authorities hold sacred, fear the same taboos, and aspire to identical lifestyles.

Liberation begins when these inherited norms are rejected as irrelevant, when young people confront the past not merely as history to respect, but as weight to transcend. Change is measured not only by the number of protesters in the streets, but by the ability of an entire generation to create a new temporal and moral framework.

The broader lesson of Nepal is applicable far beyond its borders. For instance, consider the role of social media and digital technology in facilitating this rupture. In Nepal, attempts to restrict digital communication only galvanized youth to challenge the state openly. By contrast, in the Arab world, social media has been both a tool for mobilization and a mechanism of surveillance. Governments have encouraged self-censorship and peer monitoring, turning the very tools of liberation into instruments of conformity.

Moreover, the demographic composition is critical. In Nepal, Generation Z commanded the streets with an unprecedented sense of entitlement over their future, challenging all aspects of governance and culture. In much of the Arab world, however, the generational continuum remains unbroken: young people share the same values, aspirations, and fears as the older generation, limiting the potential for radical change.

The revolution, therefore, becomes a revolt against conditions rather than against inherited norms, rendering it inherently partial.

Education systems, family structures, and tribal or sectarian loyalties reinforce this stasis. In Iraq, Lebanon, and other Arab countries, schools teach obedience to authority more than critical thinking, while family honor and communal expectations pressure youth to replicate the past. The moral and cognitive alignment across generations explains why, despite frequent protests, revolutions rarely achieve systemic transformation.

The Arab Spring and its aftermath illustrate the challenges of initiating true generational ruptures. In Tunisia, while the protests removed a dictator, the new democracy struggled to break from older bureaucracies and institutional habits. In Egypt, the brief democratic interlude ended with the military returning to power. Libya, Yemen, and Syria fell into protracted conflict, often exacerbated by foreign intervention, leaving the young generation trapped in cycles of instability.

The 2019–2020 protests in Iraq and Lebanon showed that youth could challenge political structures, but as soon as they encountered entrenched sectarian systems and security apparatuses, their influence waned. Sudan's fragile civilian governance crumbled under military intervention. Across the region, these examples highlight a recurring problem: revolutions confront visible structures of power but rarely challenge the deeper, inherited social values that sustain these structures.

Nepal, by contrast, demonstrates that when a generation rejects both formal institutions and inherited norms simultaneously, systemic change becomes possible. The youth there confronted the judiciary, executive, and social conventions as part of a single authoritarian ecosystem, refusing compromise. The moral and generational rupture empowered them to assert ownership over their future in a way that few Arab revolutions have achieved.

The question now is whether the Arab world can learn from Nepal. Any future wave of protests must target both political institutions and social values.

A true “third spring” would require young people to acknowledge the irrelevance of inherited norms, confront them openly, and assert alternative values suitable for a modern era. Without this, protests will continue to recycle old grievances, focusing on corruption and public services, while leaving the underlying moral and generational structures intact.

Education, technology, and civil society can help, but only if they empower youth to think independently and challenge entrenched authority. The revolution is as much about time and values as it is about policies or leaders.

Nepal shows that when a generation refuses to inherit the past uncritically, it can alter the trajectory of an entire nation. The Arab world has yet to reach this stage, but the possibility remains.

Lessons from Nepal for the Arab World

The Nepalese model is not a panacea, but it offers a crucial insight: revolutions succeed when youth can assert a moral and generational break from the past. Until that happens in the Arab world, protests will remain cyclical, and regimes will survive despite occasional upheavals. True change requires that a generation declares independence from inherited norms, challenges authority comprehensively, and creates a new temporal framework for society.

In Nepal, this break has already occurred. In the Arab world, it is waiting to happen. And until it does, revolutions may continue, but their outcomes will be constrained, incomplete, and fleeting. Only by embracing the Nepalese lesson — the courage to break with inherited values — can the Arab region witness revolutions that are not ephemeral cries, but the birth of a new social era.