Generation Z challenges the old order

The images of the protests in Morocco are more than just riots in another dictatorship that we see on television. Are quite a lesson for the governments of any country. Young people with nothing to lose facing an all-powerful regime. The kids who protested in Rabat are the same ones who did so this summer in Nepal, and – although it’s hard to believe – also identical to those who are voting for the first time in the mid-European elections.

They are the generation Zborn from 1996 to 2010, or what is the same, young people who have been educated and socialized with an Internet already completely implemented. It may seem incredible, but the Internet was not always in every home and it was not until the turn of the century when the Internet reached most homes and schools. But in the life of the Z the internet has always been presentboth in his education and in his leisure, which has shaped a personality very different from previous generations.

What does the internet and social media have to do with being an age cohort? The answer is simple. The network of networks has made them impatientsince everything is immediate, from a purchase to a friend’s reaction, to the next episode of the current series. It has also given them the power to question their elders, because the gray-haired people are not digital natives like them and are outdated in almost everything that interests young people. Finally, that same technology has frustrated them because digital applications have opened a window to an ideal world, which they cannot always achieve.

The Moroccan revolt, named GenZ 212due to this generational cohort and the telephone code of the Alawite country, is a case study of all of the above. In a dual Morocco, with modern infrastructure built for the soccer World Cup, while houses remain destroyed two years after the Atlas earthquake; The same young people who jump the Melilla fence have jumped the police barriers. Impossible to stop one’s feet movement without leaders, without parties, without convenerswhich is created in the immediacy of a Discord server or spread via video on TikTok. A challenge to the status quo that comes from those below. The elites, the power and the army challenged by a youth that shouts “fewer stadiums, more hospitals.”

Morocco, like Nepal this summer, reminds us that members of generation Z, with the impatience of digital natives, are not willing to wait for things to change. If the system fails them, They break all conventions to express their disagreement using the digital channels that they dominate without measuring the consequences of their actions. But you don’t have to go that far from those places to draw conclusions. Isn’t young people voting massively for parties outside the system for the first time in all Western democracies a way of rebelling like that of Morocco?

The Zetas are an age group that shares the traits just described: immediacy, irreverence and uncertainty. All instantly thanks to a miraculous technology that allows them to resolve any doubt with AI. They are irreverent because They do not respect what is establishedwhether their parties, their teachers or their bosses. And without any guarantee of being able to have the well-being that their parents enjoyed, quite the opposite.

What we are also seeing in Peru, Indonesia or the Philippines shows that generation Z is aware of their power, that technology amplifies their demands and they have decided to start using it against power. Young Moroccans, with their smartphones in hand, are not only asking for a decent hospital or a job, They are knocking on the door of a new era. But let no one be fooled, because this does not only apply to countries like the above. Here and now it is happening. Every electoral call in Europe shows us that they use the ballot box to protest, they vote to challenge the established order and strain the seams of democracies.

It is easy to understand the discontent in Tangier, but not so much in Munich or The Hague. We support the rage of young people in Kathmandu against corrupt politicians, but we tear ourselves apart when we see the election results in Budapest or Prague. We don’t realize that in all those cities The cause is the same and the protagonists are identical.. As if that were not enough, I encourage the reader to sharpen his eyes now. In all those parts of the world, there is an image that accompanies young people when they go out into the streets: a pirate flag. It’s not just any one, because the skull smiles and wears a straw hat. It is the emblem of a comic book character turned into a video game, who fights against injustice and corruption. And we without realizing it.