13 October 2025 | 13:18 CAT
3-minute read

Gen Z protests: Global Youth Revolt Against Power and Privilege

In this week’s Debrief Report, South African political journalist Qaanitah Hunter probes a growing force sweeping continents: a youth-led, leaderless movement confronting entrenched elites. Through the lens of unfolding protests from Africa to Asia, she discusses what she calls a “seed of disdain” — a deeply felt rejection by young people of politics as usual.

In Madagascar, protests have raged for weeks over water and electricity shortages, morphed into a demand for President Andry Rajoelina’s resignation. The government’s dissolution failed to placate demonstrators, and recent reports suggest that an elite military unit (CAPSAT) has aligned with protestors, fuelling speculation of a coup in the making.

In Morocco, youth mobilised under the banner GenZ 212 have taken to the streets, with demands for corruption reforms, better health care and education access, and a call for a new social contract. The protests began in late September and have spread across cities despite crackdowns.

Analysts see these as part of a burgeoning wave of Gen Z protests globally — from Kenya to Nepal, Bangladesh to the Philippines — a youth-led surge against inequality, exclusion, and elite capture.

Hunter argues that what unites these disparate movements is less generational vanity and more structural desperation: crumbling public services, rising cost of living, unemployment and visible displays of elite wealth.

In the interview, Hunter outlines three defining features of Gen Z protest: anonymity, leaderlessness, and issue-based mobilisation rather than allegiance to personalities or parties. She sees social media platforms, Discord servers and TikTok as the modern agora where movements coalesce.

At its core, she asserts, the motive is “disgust at a political class … their concentration of power and resources while the rest of the country is … left out.”

Hunter elaborates that in many affected states, dissolving a cabinet or reshuffling power is insufficient — protesters insist on full systemic change, not cosmetic adjustments.

She believes the movement spreads via a “contagion effect” — once a spark ignites in one country, others follow, as young people watch and replicate tactics. This contagion is visible across Africa and beyond. Across cases, she notes, the gap between elite spectacle and mass deprivation widens the fissure.

Hunter sees early signs of discontent bubbling among the youth in South Africa. Our country shares many traits of the protest hotspots: a youthful demographic, wealth inequality so stark it seems surreal, high unemployment and visible corruption scandals.

Hunter argues that symbols of privilege — flashy homes, supercars, opulent lifestyles — once admired by many, are now repulsive signifiers of theft and exclusion: “even if you are in the one percent … you are facing the unsustainability of the cost of living.” She contends that when political elites flaunt ill-gotten gains, they provoke profound resentment among ordinary citizens.

“The representation of the failures of … politics and the failures of the political class is … in the ill-gotten gains that we see flaunted all over social media,” she says.

Hunter’s thesis strikes at a fundamental question: what happens when legitimacy erodes? If young people turn uniformly against politics as usual, states may face a crisis of rule, not just dissent. In some cases, military actors may exploit that vacuum — as seen in Madagascar — or governments might recoil into repression.

She warns that the established political class, used to playing rentier games, may be blind to the shift. The old modes of co-option and token gestures will no longer suffice. The elite must reckon with a generation that demands accountability, fairness and a stake in national life — not permission to exist.

Listen to the Debrief Report on Sabaahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat.