Digital revolution, analog chaos
Recently: How’s Iran’s standoff with Israel and the West affecting everyday Iranians’ feelings about the regime? Trita Parsi on why nationalism is surging while Islamic Republic’s popularity continues to tank.
Today: Nepal’s government collapses days after a social-media ban triggered a Gen Z uprising. Israel strikes Hamas negotiators in Qatar during ceasefire talks, while ordering the evacuation of Gaza City. The French prime minister has resigned after a crushing confidence-vote defeat. & European governments grow weaker as political fragmentation spreads.
+ Hywel Mills, with an update on The Signal’s migration to Ghost.
& Music from Leo Chadburn ...
Nepal’s five-day collapse
On Thursday, Nepal’s government imposed a social-media ban after platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp failed to register with authorities, triggering mass demonstrations and—remarkably—the complete collapse of the political system by Tuesday evening, when Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned as protesters set parliament ablaze.
The speed and consequence of these events indicate something extraordinary: Governments rarely fall this quickly from this kind of initial provocation—yet within 120 hours things escalated to a point where 19 protesters were dead, Nepal’s Supreme Court was burning, and armed civilians were roaming the capital of Kathmandu with assault rifles while smoke from fires in the parliament, the courts, and other government buildings forced the international airport to close.
How Gen Z toppled a government
Nepal’s young protesters dismantled an entire political system in no more than a few days by weaponizing the government’s own vulnerabilities: They turned the government’s social media ban into economic warfare by severing remittance networks that connect 2 million overseas workers to families dependent on their $11 billion in annual transfers.
The revolution suggests the potential emergence of a new model of political disruption—where demonstrators can exploit elite corruption scandals, family economic dependencies, and politicians’ social media obsessions to collapse decades-old power structures, though what they build next remains an open question as constitutional lawyers warn the country now operates “beyond normal legal frameworks.”
An Israeli hit in Qatar
Israel struck members of Hamas’s leadership in Doha on Tuesday, killing chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya’s son and office manager while the group was meeting to discuss U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest ceasefire proposal—in the first direct attack on Qatar’s territory since the war began.
The strike suggests Israel may have abandoned diplomatic solutions entirely: Qatar has operated as the primary mediator between Israel and Hamas throughout the conflict, hosting Hamas’s political office at the request of the United States. Now, Israel has struck the negotiators in the capital of a close American ally while ceasefire discussions were underway.
An impossible situation in Al-Mawasi
Israel meanwhile ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate on Tuesday, threatening nearly a million residents with bombardment unless they escape to the coastal area of Al-Mawasi—which aid agencies say can’t accommodate the influx, and which itself Israel has previously bombed despite categorizing it as a “safe zone.”
The ultimatum points to an unsolvable problem at the heart of Israel’s displacement strategy: Al-Mawasi is already sheltering an enormous number of displaced people—as many as 800,000, according to Al Jazeera—in camps UN officials warn lack enough water, shelter, and medical care to sustain their current populations, let alone now to absorb the whole population of Gaza’s largest urban center.
Parliamentary arithmetic in Paris
France’s Prime Minister François Bayrou submitted his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday after losing a crushing confidence vote, with 364 legislators rejecting Bayrou’s leadership over his €44 billion austerity plan aimed at cutting France's deficit, which reached 5.8 percent of GDP in 2024.
The collapse points toward Macron’s dwindling options for governing a fractured parliament, as he faces the unappealing choice between appointing another centrist ally destined for similar failure or calling fresh elections that would likely strengthen far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s position.
- Why are so many European governments becoming so weak? Read Matthias Matthijs on the Continent’s increasing political fragmentation.
Hungry for an alternative to dystopian anger? Join a gathering of code breakers, hackers, and puzzle solvers. You’ll leave optimistic—we promise.
Change of address
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Meanwhile
Read John Jamesen Gould on what’s ahead here …
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‘Camouflage’
