The Gen Z Protestors Challenging Asia’s Ruling Elite

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2:01Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. Last week, deadly protests broke out in Nepal. Dozens of people were killed and more than 2 ,000 were injured in clashes with government forces. The demonstrations were triggered by a government decision to ban Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Authorities said the ban was imposed to tackle fake news and hate speech. That prompted tens of thousands, many of them teenagers and young adults, to take to the streets. Right now I'm standing right in front of the protest that is happening in the capital of Nepal, in Kathmandu.

2:44Hundreds of Gen Z's have flooded the streets. Because of the sheer number of young people involved in the uprising, they're being called the Gen Z protests. You know, we saw tens of thousands of protesters staying on the streets, blocking roads. They were seen storming government buildings and then setting them on fire, including, of course, Nepal's parliament building, which we just saw. The government lifted the social media ban a day later. But the rallies escalated and morphed into a wider anti-government movement against corruption and youth unemployment.

3:23Within days, Nepal's prime minister resigned, and the army deployed troops to contain the unrest. A former Supreme Court Chief Justice, Shashila Karki, was appointed as interim prime minister. Parliament was dissolved, and the president has promised the country would hold elections next March. Nepal is the latest South Asian country to be rocked by violent anti-government street protests, driven largely by young people. Sri Lanka's cabinet has offered to resign en masse following... Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, has resigned and fled the country... Whitespread outrage and violence sweeping across Indonesia.

4:07Just weeks before protests in Nepal broke out, violent unrest in Indonesia resulted in five ministers being replaced. Last year, demonstrations in Bangladesh led to longtime leader Sheikh Hasina being ousted. Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist based in Singapore. I think young people across Asia are really, really angry. I think they feel disconnected from their governance structures. I think they feel that the system is rigged against them. And I feel like they feel hopeless. And I think what's really frightening is that if you don't find the solution to some of this, you could see these protests reoccur and these problems persist.

4:57This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wan Ha. Every week, we take you inside some of the world's biggest and most powerful economies and the markets, tycoons, and businesses that drive this ever-shifting region. Today on the show, what's driving Gen Z across Asia to rise up in protest? And how likely is it that they'll get the change they want?

5:31The protests in Nepal were triggered by a social media ban, but tensions had been simmering for weeks. After videos that appeared to show children of Nepali political figures flaunting their wealth went viral on social media. Online, people ranted about their lavish lifestyles being funded by public money, while many Nepali struggle day to day to make ends meet. Bloomberg Opinion's Karishma Vaswani said the government's decision to ban social media showed just how out of touch the authorities are with the harsh realities that ordinary Nepalese face. The authorities just didn't understand the frustrations of what young people in Nepal were going through, and particularly this divide between the haves and the have-nots, right?

6:16The statistics that I've seen are that in terms of unemployment, it's around a fifth of the population. It's also a really young population. And so you have an environment where young people want to get jobs, but they're struggling to do that. And then on top of that, every single day, what they're seeing on their phones and on their screens are images of people who are in positions of power in their own country, who make up the elite. And they're living a better life than the ones that these young people are experiencing. Karishma says this disconnect between the government and its people isn't confined to Nepal.

6:57It was also part of what drove young Indonesians to the streets a few weeks ago. In late August, outrage erupted after Indonesian lawmakers were awarded lavish housing allowances, nearly 10 times the monthly minimum wage. On national TV, as well as on social media, there are images of these lawmakers dancing in parliament when they received these raises. And it feels like a bit of a slap in the face for young people there because it's like, well, hold on, I can't even get a stable job. Many of these parliamentarians actually have houses. They didn't need this extra cash. Anger over the housing allowances boiled over days later, after a motorcycle delivery driver was run over and killed by an armored police car.

7:46Young Indonesians, many of them students, clashed violently with police in Jakarta and other cities. When this young motorcycle taxi driver died, that changed the game. And there was two or three days of looting, buildings set on fire, the homes of lawmakers looted. things like bathtubs were taken, handbags, even labubus. And when these protests happened, this particular lawmaker said, oh, the people who are calling for the dissolution of parliament are the dumbest in the world. And that went out on social media, that went out on television. And you got to ask yourself, right? Like, what were you thinking?

8:28Yeah. Kind of like Marie Antoinette's, you know, let them eat cake, right? Completely. That was actually the thought that went through my head when I first heard that. And I thought, oh, my God. But that's how out of touch they are. The death of the delivery driver stoked anger among millions of Indonesians who hold low-paying jobs as so-called gig economy workers. They're often paid poorly and receive no benefits to deliver food and give motorbike rides. More than half of Indonesia's laborers are informal workers, and their frustrations over working conditions spilled into the streets. Krishma says these Gen Z protests are becoming a growing phenomenon across South Asia, dating back to the 2022 protests in Sri Lanka and those in Bangladesh last year.

9:13While they've all happened for different reasons, she says there are parallels. I think that it is a combination of young people who are feeling hopeless, looking around them at their governance structures and seeing corrupt elites in power, The economy is not doing well. It's hard for them to find jobs. And then you add social media to the mix. They're digitally connected. They can share their frustrations. And they can also talk about what is the very obvious inequality that is happening in terms of the ultra rich who appear to be politically connected. Their lives are great, right? On social media, you have a window into the life of somebody else.

10:00You can see how the richy-riches are sort of carrying their Hermes handbags with their labubus and going out for lunch and dinner into the fanciest restaurants. And there you are just trying to get a job or you have the life of a motorcycle taxi driver delivering food across the city for like 10 bucks a day. The four countries, Nepal, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, are all dealing with high youth unemployment rates and long-standing issues of inequality and corruption. Nonprofit Transparency International ranked Bangladesh at 151st out of 180 countries in its Corruption Perceptions Index last year.

10:42Indonesia stood at 99th place, while Sri Lanka and Nepal were both ranked beyond that. And Karishma says the government's inability to deal with these issues effectively, along with their struggling economies, have made many Gen Zs feel hopeless about their future. Now, if you're a Gen Z individual, you know, you're sort of looking around you and thinking, this is not going to be better than what my parents did. I'm not going to own a home. I'm not going to be able to secure work in parts of the Western world and developed world. You're looking at issues around artificial intelligence, taking away that first bottom rung of graduate level entry jobs.

11:21I look at these countries and not just them, but other places in Asia, because the sort of traditional manufacturing jobs that would have swallowed up these young people in the past, like making clothes and making furniture, etc. Phones, right. All of those jobs have gone somewhere else and they're chasing the bottom of the pyramid. You want things to be cheaper now in a world with President Donald Trump's tariffs. People aren't going to be buying as many things either. So the whole consumption economy becomes a less viable place to work in. Karishma says even though these countries are all dealing with very distinct issues and circumstances, there's one thing in common these young people are asking for.

12:05Agency. The right to have a say in how their country is run. I think it's really hard to engage with your government as a young person in Asia. Again, just to go back to the Indonesian example, because we've seen a lot of protests there recently in the midst of that. Government officials sort of dismiss those. And when you take that sense of agency away from young people, you feel powerless, you feel hopeless. So what do you do? Look back to the Arab Spring. What do you do? You get out onto the street, you burn things down, and you try and get people's attention that way. And that's really dangerous.

12:48Young people across Asia are demanding change. What comes next after the unrest and violence? That's after the break.

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15:48In Nepal and Indonesia, the streets are showing signs of things slowly getting back to normal. Bloomberg Opinion's Karishma Vaswani says what happens next is vital. As countries figure out the way forward, one worry is that the aftermath could mirror what happened with the Arab Spring around 2010. A series of protests by young people that shook Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. Demonstrators called for democracy then, but were met with violence from their country's security forces. Are we setting it up for another Arab Spring here? I hope not. An Asian Spring? I really hope not. I think there were some sort of successes in the Arab Spring, but by and large, you've seen authoritarianism creep back in.

16:36And my worry is that this plays straight into the authoritarian's playbook, right? You have young people who are causing havoc across the region. And it's the ripe opportune time for a strongman to come in and say, hey, we need to clamp down on this. These young people are causing too much trouble. And then you have a situation where precisely the things that these young people don't want happens. And I think that would be really tragic. So for lasting political change, what do you think should happen following these protests? Young people representing and being able to be represented at every level of the political process, I think is really essential.

17:20You need protests to move off the streets and you need to have them turn into policy. And you need to, while you're demonstrating, think about what's the plan the day after, right? Like a lot of this, obviously, it's not been that well thought out. In Nepal, for instance, young people were just really angry and they wanted immediate action. But what happens the day after? and the kinds of things I would like to see or I think would be useful would be to think about independent watchdogs in the sort of rebuilding phase right look at the kinds of people that you want in the judiciary when you're looking at getting rid of corruption because those are the people that would adjudicate over these kinds of cases the tone and tenor of your public servant like how do you ensure that the people who are being elected or even offering themselves up for election are of the caliber that you want and not just characters from the old guard or connected to cronyism.

18:23And that means really looking carefully at the election process. How do you ensure that there's that kind of integrity and independence in the electoral process? Now, the Arab Spring began in Tunisia and then spilled across four neighboring countries. Is Is there a possibility this unrest among young people here in Asia is growing? Is there potential for more instability in other countries as well? Well, we certainly have the recipe or the ingredients, rather, I should say, because you do have very large numbers of young people in places like India, Pakistan. You have further afield issues around corruption and governance as well and high unemployment rates.

19:09And I do think neighbors of these countries are watching very closely what kind of spillover effect there is, what kinds of discussions are taking place on social media, because that's really hard to control. And I think that instability will worry a lot of policymakers and make them quite mindful of the possibility of that happening in their own countries. Have I seen that happen yet or any indication of that? Not just as yet, but as Nepal and Indonesia have shown, it's just one thing that lights that match. Yeah, and then you've got a forest fire raging out of control. Are there lessons that current governments in Indonesia and Nepal could look to as they move forward?

19:56Is there light, you think, on the horizon? So I think Bangladesh is a really good case study for this, right? You have an interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, widely respected Nobel Peace Prize laureate. And he's talked about publicly the engagement and involvement of young people in politics. He is courting them. He is engaging with them and trying to get them to think about political parties and, you know, governance structures. And I think that's really sensible. And I think that's wise. And you have elections coming up. They're expected next year at some point. A lot rests on that, on how they go.

20:31and for Bangladesh to turn into a sort of functioning democracy with these young people in charge, at least some of them. And I think it can't just be young people. You need to also sort of have multi-generational consensus. And so co-opting different groups, but bringing them together with young people at the heart of that in terms of a sort of viable political party, I think that would be a very good move in Bangladesh. And I'm watching that quite closely to see if it can be the template for other places around the region. You know, I'm an eternal optimist. I believe in the power of young people.

21:10They are the ones who have consistently brought change, not just in Asia, but around the world. And it's their energy and their dynamism that can change political structures and the way that countries are run. But if that energy is not channeled into something hopeful and optimistic, then it is wasted. And worse, it can backfire and actually end up achieving the opposite of what these young people want.

21:48This is The Big Take Asia from Bloomberg News. I'm Wan Ha. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. If you like the episode, make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take Asia wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps people find the show. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Thank you. easier to get and care that looks at the whole person how you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com. As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth and Michigan delivers on that promise.

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