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Comment by trompetenaccoun | Hacker News Reader

Independent of points for or against their rule, the ageist argument makes little sense. 25 year olds are generally politically naive and easily manipulated. The average person in their twenties has no idea about economics, geopolitics or other such topics that are important to understand for running a country. When you look at uprisings against ancient leaders in countries with very young populations, they regularly end up even worse then before, sadly. Take Sudan as an example.

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GP didn't say that 25 years should become the elected leaders. But Sheikh Hasina (the current PM since 2008) was the leader of the opposition in 1986 at 39 years old [1], and then first became PM in 1996 at 49 years old. The ones who were PM from 1986 to today were all born in the 1940s [2].

Same is the case in Pakistan. Every prime minister since 1988 was born in the 40s or early 50s [3]. India's PMs have, on the other hand, been from even an older generation [4].

This post-independence generation captured all the political power in their 40s, and refuse to give it up 40 years later. Is it not reasonable to demand that the PM and Cabinet today are largely in their 40s?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Hasina

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Ban...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Pak...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_Ind...

Bangladesh is a democracy with free and fair elections.

If people wanted younger leaders they would have voted for them.

A revolution because you lost at the ballot box is ridiculous.

It’s not comparable to Pakistan where not a single Prime Minister has ever completed a full term and the country has been led explicitly by the military for decades and implicitly by the military for its entire existence.

> Bangladesh is a democracy with free and fair elections.

[citation needed]

You should perhaps check what just happened in the January elections in Bangladesh. The opposition parties did not compete because they didn't think the elections were fair. The result was [1]

> The Awami League, led by incumbent Sheikh Hasina, won the election for the fourth consecutive time with less than 40% of the eligible voters voting according to an Election Commission, which is run by the ruling political party.[5][2][6][7] The party won 224 seats while independent candidates, most of whom were Awami League members propped up as dummy candidates to give a semblance of competition, won 62 seats.

You can click back to the last few elections on wiki, and see how much evidence there is of unfree/rigged elections in Bangladesh.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Bangladeshi_general_elect...

If that's the lens you're looking at, the majority of uprisings in history have ended up worse than they started. Bangladesh is struggling with a democracy that has degraded into authoritarian gerontocracy. It's not as simple as young people dumb old people experienced, there's a lot of issues involved.

^^^ this.

Revolutions turn into civil wars.

We forget but this is the sad reality.

This doesn't mean the students in Gulistan Maidan are wrong, but "Allah, Suriya, y Bashar" and the converse means a 15 year civil war like in Syria or 15 miles away from Chittagong in Myanmar (aka Asian Syria/Libya)

Khuda ki kasm - please walk off this brink Bangladesh (if someone Hasina adjacent is reading).

I am not sure why you are being downvoted but a "youth" revolt will most certainly end up the country in a worst state than it is right now. Much more worse.

Revolutions are always made by young, are not they?

Age profiles of countries are very different around the world. The median age in France is 41, in Sudan it's 18! Just think about what a median age of 18 means - half their population is even younger than that. So when you have Yellow Vests trying to shut down the government in Europe, those are a very different age group compared to Sudanese kids taking to the streets.

I think I can guess why the comment is controversial. Some may have taken it as an authoritarianism apology, which isn't the intention. It's rather a reminder that things are more complex than just rooting for what intuitively feels right, because the average Westerners has little understanding of how such countries work. Since my point is the average citizen doesn't even sufficiently understand, and surely you will agree you understand less about Bangladesh than a student who grew up there.

There are many such examples. Taking out Gaddafi has not proven to be positive for Libya. Sometimes the "old witch" is actually the lesser evil. I'm talking strictly about politics in terms of practical reality, not what we wish were true. Of course we all root for the people to win and then they live happily ever after.

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