When governments do such things, expect bad results. The protesters' demands aren't unreasonable at all. Just be meritocratic in civil service appointments.
Yep, it's easy. Just flip the "off" switch on the privilege structure that a huge chunk of the people who operate your society benefit from (and expect their children to benefit from). What could possibly go wrong?
It's not so obvious to me. I think it's easy for a rich country to just "solve" security by throwing money at fancy gear, but these poor countries they must have some way of incentivizing people to die helplessly in a ditch. Handing out privileges to relatives is one such way.
There is some similarity to the system of nobility. Although this seems to give lesser privileges but to more people compared to that.
Now what these protests reveal is that similar to the warriors of the past, these protestors are willing to risk death for these privileges. This suggests a pragmatic solution, that instead of abolishing the privilege, they could offer a path for these protestors to also be granted it. This could redirect their youthful energy and ambition into more useful avenues.
