{"id":101353,"date":"2025-10-13T13:17:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T11:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/?p=101353"},"modified":"2025-10-13T13:17:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T11:17:32","slug":"the-debrief-report-16","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/the-debrief-report-16\/","title":{"rendered":"The Debrief Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

13 October 2025 | 13:18 CAT
\n3-minute read<\/p>\n

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Gen Z protests: Global Youth Revolt Against Power and Privilege<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s Debrief Report<\/a><\/em>, 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 \u201cseed of disdain\u201d \u2014 a deeply felt rejection by young people of politics as usual.<\/p>\n

In Madagascar, protests have raged for weeks over water and electricity shortages, morphed into a demand for President Andry Rajoelina\u2019s resignation. The government\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Analysts see these as part of a burgeoning wave of Gen Z protests globally \u2014 from Kenya to Nepal, Bangladesh to the Philippines \u2014 a youth-led surge against inequality, exclusion, and elite capture.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In the interview, Hunter outlines three defining features of Gen Z protest: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n

At its core, she asserts, the motive is \u201cdisgust at a political class \u2026 their concentration of power and resources while the rest of the country is \u2026 left out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter elaborates that in many affected states, dissolving a cabinet or reshuffling power is insufficient \u2014 protesters insist on full systemic change, not cosmetic adjustments.<\/p>\n

She believes the movement spreads via a \u201ccontagion effect\u201d \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Hunter argues that symbols of privilege \u2014 flashy homes, supercars, opulent lifestyles \u2014 once admired by many, are now repulsive signifiers of theft and exclusion: \u201ceven if you are in the one percent \u2026 you are facing the unsustainability of the cost of living.\u201d She contends that when political elites flaunt ill-gotten gains, they provoke profound resentment among ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe representation of the failures of \u2026 politics and the failures of the political class is \u2026 in the ill-gotten gains that we see flaunted all over social media,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Hunter\u2019s 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 \u2014 as seen in Madagascar \u2014 or governments might recoil into repression.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 not permission to exist.<\/p>\n

Listen <\/strong>to the Debrief Report<\/a> on Sabaahul Muslim with Moulana Sulaimaan Ravat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

13 October 2025 | 13:18 CAT 3-minute read Gen Z protests: Global Youth Revolt Against Power and Privilege In this week\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":98754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,4997],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/The-Debrief-Report-no-guest-name-1-scaled.png?fit=2560%2C2560&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc0QIf-qmJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 06:14:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}