Giants at the Gates

Nepal’s contemporary history reads like one long saga of false hopes and missed opportunities; broken promises and outright treachery.
But change is in the air. The rumble of rebellion sounding across Nepal today reflects a microcosm of our wider world, where the conventional order is slipping away and an alternative one is looking to take over.
Yet, we live in a world of many moving parts. The change we pine – and fear just the same – will likely remain volatile and violent, not unlike many interludes in world history when dominant orthodoxies progressively lost their appeal as fresh truisms triumphed to establish a new order. Premonitions of the future are often discerned in echoes of the past.
As power shifts, hierarchies reconstitute, and interests coalesce in new formations, 'multipolarity' forms a big part in most conversations today about contemporary geopolitics, diplomacy and economic exchange. This new way of looking at our world offers Nepal many curious prospects.
But, in the end, it will all boil down to a few simple questions: What problems are we trying to solve as a nation? What opportunities are we trying to unlock as a society? And what will it take us as a body politic to get there?
The answers of yesterday will likely be very different from the answers of tomorrow.