First Nepal, then Madagascar, now Morocco. Gen Z puts pressure on governments.
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Audrey Thibert Staff
| Boston
Early this morning in Morocco, an anonymous, youth-led protest movement released a list of demands, including the dismissal of the country’s current government.
It’s the latest in a wave of youth discontent rolling across continents. The president of Madagascar dissolved his government this week following youth-led protests, mirroring similar demonstrations in Nepal less than a month earlier that forced the resignation of the prime minister there. Through social media, Gen Z – or typically those born between 1997 and 2012 – are channeling long-simmering frustrations into decentralized protest movements that are toppling governments and connecting struggles across borders.
What exactly are young people protesting?
Why We Wrote This
Young people from one side of the world to the other, connected on social media, have created a wave of social and political protest that has swept two governments from office and threatened others. Can they achieve their goals of honest rule and fairer economies?
In the past month, youth in Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Peru, Madagascar, and Morocco have been central to large anti-government demonstrations protesting a wide range of issues from corruption to power outages.
Each country’s protest is unique – Gen Zers in Nepal challenged political corruption and nepotism, while a pension reform brought demonstrators to the streets in Peru. Meanwhile in Indonesia, anger over a housing allowance for politicians led to the latest in a series of demonstrations over the cost of living for the middle class. Student organizers led demonstrations in the Philippines where protesters are angry about the mismanagement of money intended for flood control projects. Moroccans are protesting against standards of living, while in Madagascar youth have rallied against water and electricity shortages.
But Sarah Zaaimi, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs, says globally many youth are united in a generational push against the status quo.
“These youths have been feeling that they’re alienated, that there’s lots of corruption in their different countries,” Ms. Zaaimi says. “So there is a general trend of Gen Z trying to reclaim the public arena overall.”
One tangible sign of that is a flag bearing the image of a smiling skull topped with a straw hat – a symbol from the popular Japanese anime “One Piece” about a group of pirates who stand up to corrupt rulers.
The flag, which has now been hoisted during protests in Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Madagascar has become an international symbol for youth resistance.
Madagascar’s government was just brought down. Nepal’s was last month. Are these movements fueling one another?
Gen Z protesters are taking cues from each other, utilizing their knowledge of social media and technology to organize their decentralized movements. Many have flocked to social media platforms like Discord, an online communications tool originally designed for gamers. In Nepal, users even voted in a new interim prime minister on Discord.
In Madagascar, protesters joined the Nepali movement’s Discord servers to learn from their peers in Asia. They also organized their movement on social media, primarily Facebook, under the name “Gen Z Madagascar.”
Protests began in the country’s capital, Antananarivo, last week over nationwide water shortages and power blackouts. Since then, they have spread across the island and led to the dissolution of the government by President Andry Rajoelina.
But Mr. Rajoelina’s efforts to address protesters’ anger have not been successful. They took to the streets to demand his resignation just two days later.
Manara Hejesoa Voriraza Séraphin, an anthropology lecturer-researcher at the University of Toliara in Madagascar, says the young people there are pushing against the disparity between the middle class and the country’s elite. The United Nations has designated Madagascar as one of the least developed countries in the world.
Inspired in part by the protest movement in Nepal, “these young people believe that their duty is to make a change in the country,” says Dr. Hejesoa.
The protests have turned violent, with at least 22 people killed and more than 100 injured since they began last week, according to the U.N. Dr. Hejesoa says he believes youth discontent will continue to flare because it’s directed at the president himself, not just his government. “It seems that his agenda focuses on ‘developing Madagascar,’” Dr. Hejesoa says. But the people believe the development is to simply “make the lives of elites easier.”
“We just cannot tolerate the corruption in Madagascar any longer,” he says.
Moroccan youth are angry at their government, too. What’s happening there?
Since Sept. 27, protesters in Morocco have taken to the streets to demonstrate against what they see as the government’s misplaced priorities. They have contrasted the flow of billions in investment toward preparation for the 2030 World Cup with the fact many schools and hospitals lack funds and remain in poor condition.
In a post on Discord on Oct. 1, one user wrote, “We demand public healthcare accessible to all, free and quality education for the children of the nation, and we demand, above all, the right to live with dignity in a country that respects the citizenship of all its people.”
The app has been a key organizing tool for the “GenZ 212” movement, a reference to Morocco’s international area code.
Ms. Zaaimi says many Moroccans feel forgotten as steps are taken to expand the country’s appeal to international tourists.
“You can understand there’s lots of frustration when they see their country prioritizing soccer stadiums and high-speed trains, while the basic public services are still very backward,” Ms. Zaaimi says.
Morocco’s monarch, King Mohammed VI, has acknowledged the disconnect. In an address to the nation in July, he said there is no place for “a Morocco moving at two speeds.”
The Moroccan prime minister on Thursday said his government was willing to engage in dialogue with the protesters’ demands but it’s unclear if they will be met. The Moroccan Association for Human Rights said 1,000 people have been apprehended amid the protests.
The last time Morocco saw protests at this scale was nearly 15 years ago during the larger Arab Spring movement. Protesters called for similar reforms, including better housing, more employment opportunities, an end to the privatization of schools, and an end to corruption. The protests led to constitutional reforms that limited the power of the monarchy and gave more authority to executive and legislative branches.
But Ms. Zaaimi, who was in Egypt during the 2011 protests, says the decentralization of the movement sets it apart from the Arab Spring, when prominent activists and journalists led the movement. “This is more of a generational phenomenon that transcends elites,” she says.
