A generational fatigue is shaking the Global South. These people were born between the mid-1990s and approximately 2010, at the turn of a millennium marked by a succession of crises. Generation Z has risen up in several countries and continents to demand tangible changes in imperfect, corrupt, and unequal democratic systems. The spark has ignited in recent months in Nepal, Madagascar, Morocco, and Peru; and, to a more incipient extent, in Indonesia and the Philippines. But we could also add Bangladesh—where there have been significant waves of violence—Kenya last year, and Sri Lanka in 2022. These movements are dispersed in space and time. The trigger has been different in each country, but they all share a deep malaise and the feeling of living under violence: social violence due to injustice and corruption; environmental violence due to resource deprivation and climate effects; human violence due to rights violations and inequalities.
In Nepal the protests began against the government's intention to ban 26 apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, for violating the country's laws. But the real anger had nothing to do with the removal of social media platforms, but rather with corruption, unemployment, and inequality. A young population, frustrated by precarious employment, turned the ostentatious social media image of the children of Nepal's political elites into a rallying point, forcing the prime minister to resign. An interim government has promised elections for March 2026.
In Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, where 50% of the population belongs to the generation Z, 8 out of 10 young people cannot earn a decent living from their work. Outrage over widespread political corruption and demands for transparency and justice were met with violent police repression, which left around 20 dead and hundreds injured, according to the United Nations. The fall of the government has led the military to take power for the next two years, making the revolt movement feel it must remain vigilant.
Around the same time, the deaths of eight women during Caesarean sections in a public hospital in Agadir, Morocco, sparked shared discontent against a development model that disregards social welfare in the face of multi-million-dollar investments in infrastructure and football stadiums for the 2030 Africa Cup of Nations, for which the country is sharing the host country with Spain and Portugal. One in three young Moroccans is unemployed. Here, the Generation Z has added 212, the country's telephone code, in the name of this cross-cutting movement that peacefully demands reform of the education system and better public health care.
For a month now, young people in Peru have embraced the symbolism of these generational uprisings to protest against corruption, violence, the power of organized crime, and the fragility of institutions, in a country that has had seven presidents in nine years. Young people have joined a cross-cutting unrest that has also stirred the transportation sector and small businesses. The provisional government declared a state of emergency as a measure to also curb the protests, which were violently repressed. But the reality is that so far this year there have been nearly 1,800 homicides throughout Peru; and from 2023 to 2024, extortion complaints increased by 540%.
All of these shared unrest in some of the youngest demographic countries on the planet have also been fueled by the virality of a generational symbolism and spaces. Discord, TikTok or Instagram have become platforms for horizontal coordination and collective emulation, and the pirate flag of the world's best-selling manga, One Piece, has emerged as a neutral and shared political expression because it does not align itself with any real movement, but rather with a fictional generational narrative of revolt against tyranny. The awareness of a similar reality, but also the decentralization, lack of clear leadership, and anonymity of social media, help them overcome their fear of repression. However, at the same time, they hinder the political capitalization of this force to materialize the changes they demand.
They are a digital generation, one that has grown up amidst accelerating change and uncertainty about the future, and one that demands a better present. They are a global warning that globalization and technological transformation are causing young people everywhere to experience socioeconomic disparity, relative deprivation, hyperconnectivity, and a sense of vertigo.
