What’s behind the ‘Gen Z’ rebellions?

In Indonesia, many young people despise the government but also the wider Indonesian elite who promised fundamental change after the revolutionary overthrow of president Suharto in 1998 (Picture: Wikimedia Commons/ David Fisher-Freberg)

When police mowed down and killed 21 year old motorbike taxi rider Affan Kurniawan in August it ignited a furious nationwide street movement in Indonesia.

It was one of a series of rebellions across the world that have been described as “Gen Z” revolts. They now exist across three continents, in Nepal, the Philippines, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Algeria, Peru and elsewhere.

South African writer Will Shoki argues that the “Gen Z” label risks trivialising the movements. It implies a generation of young people obsessed with social media are using online communication to spread unrest and disruption. While social media plays a role, there is little evidence that it is a driving force behind the revolts.

Shoki argues that it is no surprise that young people are taking to the streets across the Global South. The young “inherit the costs of crises they did not cause, entering adulthood in economies that no longer need their labour and political systems that no longer solicit their consent.”

While these struggles arise in very different political contexts, there are some remarkable similarities.

The protests have raged against a lack of good jobs, high prices, political corruption and a lack of democracy.

One reason why young people are so prominent in these revolts is their sheer numbers. In Indonesia, half the population is under 30. That’s over 140 million people, mostly living in urban areas. In Kenya, the proportion under 30 is closer to 75 percent.

But there are also general economic drivers. Countries across the Global South reoriented their economies towards producing commodities for export in the early part of the 21st century.

Recession in the Western world, and stalling economic growth in China, has hit their economies. Many countries in the South are now also facing a growing debt crisis.

When president Uhuru Kenyatta, came to office in 2013, he took out billions in loans to invest in infrastructure.

But these projects did not cover their costs. Vast amounts of loan money evaporated due to corruption. And the east African country was hit by a spike in unemployment due to the Covid pandemic and increasingly by the devastation of climate breakdown.

Debt and neoliberal restructuring squeeze ordinary people when they lead to higher taxes and lower investment in public services.

In 2024, the IMF lending body offered Kenya’s current president William Ruto an emergency loan of $941 billion. But this was conditional on raising taxes on basic goods.

This was the trigger for the first round of so-called Gen Z protests last summer.

Global South economies based on export now face a new assault due to Donald Trump’s tariff shock. As a result, young people in many parts of the world, including the highly educated, are finding that the jobs they are trained for no longer exist.

Kurniawan’s experience is typical of that of many young people in Indonesia. His family came from Lampung in South Sumatra and rented a cramped home in the capital, Jakarta.

Both Kurniawan and his parents were precariously employed, with his dad taking up odd jobs to get by. He was waiting to pick up a passenger on his motorbike when he was run over by an armoured vehicle.

He was among the 56 percent of workers in Indonesia employed in the informal sector.

The famous motorbike taxis’ navigate the dense traffic in cities like Jakarta. The drivers are designated as independent contractors, meaning the apps companies they work for don’t need to give them paid leave or health insurance.

They use their own vehicles, which pushes the burden of paying for fuel and maintenance onto the driver. They sometimes work for 15 or 18 hours a day.

In Indonesia, wealth inequality is especially stark. The four richest men have more wealth than the poorest 100 million.

Civil service jobs are only offered to 3 percent of applicants.

Researcher Bettina Engels says that 85 percent of workers across Africa are engaged in the informal economy—she includes agricultural labourers in this figure.

The 31 year old blogger Albert Ojwang was one such precarious worker. He was arrested for allegedly insulting a police chief online. The next morning his father arrived at the police station to find his son’s bleeding and bruised body.

Having graduated from university he got a job as a school teacher but, without a government teaching contract, he was only able to work there for two terms.

When he was killed he was working on his parents’ land and running an online blog to try to make ends meet.

Workers in supposedly more stable jobs such as teaching are also feeling the squeeze. The Kethawa association of Kenyan teachers is campaigning against government plans to remove hardship payments from teachers in arid areas including places where it is challenging to access clean water.

Removing extra payments for workers in these areas will undermine access to education for the country’s poorest people.

In many revolts, protesters have raged against the political elite, who use money and influence to line their own pockets.

In Nepal, one source of outrage has been the behaviour of the “Nepo kids”, often children of politicians who flaunt their wealth.

Researcher Gedion Onyango argues that corruption is institutionalised in Kenya and is prevalent at every level of the public sector.

Liberal institutions such as Transparency International, which monitor corruption, ranks Morroco and Indonsiea in joint 99th place out of 180 counries. Kenya is at number 121. These institutions know that elites stealing cash for themselves is a risk for businesses wanting to invest. And makes it more difficult to deliver aid to poorer countries.

But for the populations of those countries themselves,
corruption is experienced as a class issue that impacts their everyday lives.

For example it is not unusual to be asked to pay a bribe to receive medical care in Morocco. Most, understandably, agree to pay up.

However, there is a world of difference between the military officers who exploit their position to profit at the expense of others through bribery, and the doctors and clinicians who supplement their low wages with bribes in order to survive.

Onyango says that a radical approach is needed to address the political and economic conditions that make corruption possible. He supports the popular public disobedience in countries like Kenya which he says can “reassert citizen agency and voices in political matters”.

In Kenya, protesters have called for the resignation of president William Ruto, with the slogan “Ruto must go” and calls for a one term presidency.

This year’s Gen Z revolt in the country demanded justice for those killed in last year’s protests. Police brutality has itself created a new source of anger.

In neighbouring Uganda, by contrast, the battle to oust Yoweri Museveni from office has been focused on the elections in January 2026. The 81 year old has been in office since 1986.

Several aspiring candidates to run against him were members of generation Z. They ran on platforms to oppose corruption, unemployment and poverty, although most did not make it onto the ballot paper.

Calls for more democracy are not necessarily limited to liberal campaigns for free elections or a free media. Young people are rightly sick of politicians stamping on their aspirations.

However, there is a risk of reformist political forces seizing upon these movements and limiting their political horizons to changing the personalities at the top of society. In doing so they limit the ability of movements to address the social, economic and environmental crises we are facing.

The defiant street movements around the world are exciting. But the movement of informal workers needs to evolve and merge with the organised working class if these revolts stand a chance at pushing through.

There are embryonic examples of this already happening.

In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania the organisation representing informal minibus workers entered an alliance with the transport union. And in Ghana, casually employed palm oil workers organised themselves into a union. At the time of writing, unions in Madagascar are calling for a general strike as protests continue.

This isn’t always easy to do. Sophia in Nairobi told Socialist Worker, “The unions refuse to acknowledge the new precarious workers. They are refusing to adapt and adjust to the different working conditions.”

But to prevent these revolts from being coopted by reactionary forces, workers’ need to use their essential role in production to shut down key industries to shift the balance in their favour.

So far, the pattern is for these rebellions to lose traction and fail to breakthrough. But strikes could give confidence to workers, and the poor more broadly in their ability to change things.