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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

I hope it works out for them. In my home country students overthrow the government and put a Nobel Prize winning economist in charge. Now GDP growth has collapsed and the security situation has become precarious.

I’m also reminded of Ashraf Ghani, the last President of Afghanistan, who was a professor and wrote a book “Fixing Failed States.” He ended up fleeing the country like a coward as it collapsed.

It’s notable that students played a major role in the 1979 Iranian revolution that ended up putting the Ayatollah in power. In fact to my knowledge, student-led revolutions have never produced a long term positive outcome. Any examples?

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There are several examples of positive student-led revolutions. In the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, the student-led protest organizations were the driving force for change. [1]

The mass protests that toppled the military regime in South Korea in 1987 was also led in large part by students and faculty members, who later became prominent leaders. [2]

This has also happened twice in Serbia now. Milošević was defeated in 2000 thanks in large part to Otpor, a student-led organization [2].

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8363827.stm

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_Democratic_Struggle#Stude...

[3] https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/bringing-down-dictator#1

Are you actually from former Czechoslovakia? Because I've lived there during those years and it wasn't as much student-led, just generally young people-led. Some of them were students, many were not. Of course CIA had its share of working but that is to be expected, literally their primary mission.

The only reason it wasn't ended quickly by army in bloodshed (and army leaders all declared that they stand fully behind government and tanks were ready) was that ruling party politicians at power were not hardcore fanatics and understood it would be often fathers fighting against sons, or childhood friends against each other... civil war. It was allowed to happen from above, however non-romantic this reality is. It was also happening in times when iron curtain was visibly falling apart all around including Soviet union, 5 years before it would be crushed like nothing.

Its fine to have romantic view on the world, but for better understanding of the actual world out there and humans living in it, where we come from and where we go this isn't very helpful.

While Milošević was, for many reasons, bad, what came after him was worse.

Few examples:

* Those who replaced him/his regime have implemented the Washington Consensus which gave the final blow to the already weakened economy (after ten years of Western sanctions, wars in the 90s and the 1999 NATO aggression).

* Serbia and Montenegro got separated, making Serbia a land-locked country.

* "Kosovo" was "recognized" by NATO (and its servants) in violation of UNSC Resolution 1244.

Otpor was a Western-made coup d'état crew which it later used in other places (Arab Spring, Georgia - or anywhere else where governments don't align with Western interests, to put it mildly). USAID, NED, IRI and NDI (to only name the known US backers) gave (at least) 41 million dollars to Otpor.

Although not quite the archetypical example of what people think of when hearing "student-led revolution", since you already mention Afghanistan, it's worth pointing out that "Taliban" literally means "students".

GDP is linked to stability, an economist can't alter that, it just takes time post-revolution. Having the army run the country would improve security and stability and GDP, but then you've got the army running the country, which perhaps hasn't been going so well for another nearby country, the one that probably causes the security anxieties I imagine.

There is no Nobel Prize for economics: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/

Alfred Nobel did not name economics in his will and it only started to be given out 70 years later by a bank in memory of Nobel.

Putting a single person in charge will always corrupt them

I think he’s talking about Bangladesh and Muhammad Yunus which is an economist who won the Nobel Peace Prize, not an economy related award

> It’s notable that students played a major role in the 1979 Iranian revolution that ended up putting the Ayatollah in power.

This is inaccurate and misleading.

The revolution was hijacked.

Various political groups that were against the monarchy did the revolution and in the months following the revolution they were hunted down, executed or assassinated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Student_Followers_of_th...

"Muslim Students of the Imam Khomeini Line,[1] was an Iranian student group that occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979. The students were supporters of the Islamic Revolution who occupied the embassy to show their support for Ayatollah Khomeini and their outrage that the ex-Shah of Iran was admitted to the United States for cancer treatment, instead of being returned to Iran for trial and execution. The occupation triggered the Iran hostage crisis where 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days."

Students can certainly be Islamists, as both are generally aligned on left-wing and communitarian economics. E.g. in Bangladesh in 2024: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/jamaat-student-wing-wi...

"The student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami won a landslide in Dhaka University’s student body election, marking the first time the Islamist group has taken control of the influential union since Bangladesh’s independence in 1971."

> Students can certainly be Islamists

Where did I claim otherwise?

The 79 revolution was done by multitude of groups. Most of which did not support the ayatollah. Ayatollah still, with the help of his supporters, did end up leading the country.

So your claim I quoted is misleading. It reads as if all of the people taking part in it wanted this current situation. It is disrespectful to the people that following the revolution, opposed khomeini take power, were hunted down, went through brutal torture and some gave their life.

> In fact to my knowledge, student-led revolutions have never produced a long term positive outcome. Any examples?

Huh, now that you mention it, what is actually going on with the “cockroach movement” in India? It seems like you only ever find out about the driving force behind a movement 5 years after the fact when all the truth is laid bare, for better or worse.

If I were paranoid, I'd say it's a color revolution intended to derail India's current trajectory of economic growth, like happened with Bangladesh in 2024.

It absolutely is.

Andreas Papandreou is another example. Chairman of UC Berkeley's economics department, but his career as prime minister of Greece was marked by scandal and constitutional crisis.

On the other hand, reactionary populist movements of late (or probably ever) haven't been creating positive outcomes for their countries either

The Iranian revolution is more complex than that.

I’m also reminded of Ashraf Ghani, the last President of Afghanistan, who was a professor and wrote a book “Fixing Failed States.” He ended up fleeing the country like a coward as it collapsed.

Meh, no amount genius would have helped someone fix Afghanistan given that it was controlled by drug dealers abetted by the US state. I had a friend who was an urban planner, went Kabul on a grant and advised the state to put in sidewalks. Sure it would have improved things but naturally it didn't happen 'cause the state had corruption to do instead.

Student protests toppled communism in Czechoslovakia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution

"Students" played a big role in what happened in 2013-2014 in the Ukraine.

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