The term ‘Gen Z revolution’ has become synonymous with describing the youth-led political upheaval happening in Kenya today. In this article, John Wangiha and Michael Adiado ask questions about the real meaning behind the protests and the seeming ‘revolution’ that came with it.
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Wangiha’s take: What the Gen-Z?
Back in 1935, the Iranian government officially changed its name from ‘Persia’ to ‘Iran’. Iran was the historical name of the country and had been used internally for centuries, while Persia was of Greek origin and had been assigned to the country by external powers. The timing of the name change was significant as the country wished to distance itself from colonial legacies and redefine its identity.
Many countries that were once under colonial rule have faced a similar identity crisis based on the names assigned to them by their colonial masters. Whilst most of these names have a historical, ethnographical or geographical connection to the country in question, they are also representative of an external perception of the country’s identity. An external perception that may not necessarily reflect the country’s true identity.
But this has nothing to do with countries and the etymology of their names.
Back in June 2024, Kenyan youths took to the streets to protest against a series of punitive tax and fiscal measures proposed by the Finance Bill, 2024. The Bill was tabled in parliament, and contrary to the wishes of the protesting youth, the Kenyan Members of the National Assembly (MPs) overwhelmingly approved of it. The youths responded by storming the parliament, which forced the MPs to flee the premises into hiding. The government, led by President Ruto, responded by suspending the Bill. The youths won, but at the cost of many lives lost and many more traumatised by the repressive force of the Kenyan government.
Read More: Why the Finance Bill, 2024, was such a big deal.
For most outsiders looking in, it was easy to look into the series of events and conclude that these were ‘just a bunch of Kenyan youths protesting against the government’s tax measures’. The protestors also had a particular, youthful energy and seemed to fall into the ‘Gen-Z demographic’. The term revolution was perhaps inspired in reference to mass revolts and instigation from historical events such as the French Revolution or the American Revolution.
It may not be wrong to refer to the June 2024 protests as a ‘revolution’. I mean, never again has such an event ever happened in the history of Kenya; that youths came together and collectively threatened to overthrow an incumbent regime. However, calling it a revolution led only by ‘Gen Zs’ is a naïve depiction of its true nature.
But where does the term ‘Gen Z’ even come from? While there is no official body responsible for coming up with generational names, theorists Neil Howe and William Strauss are thought to have popularised naming the generational age gaps. The two are credited with naming the ‘Millennials’, particularly through their work in their 1991 book, Generations.
Canadian author Douglas Coupland is credited with popularising the term ‘Generation X’ to refer to people born between 1965 and 1980 in his book Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which was also published in 1991.
The term Generation Z is believed to refer to the age group of people born two generations after Generation X. However, psychologists such as Jean Twenge are believed to have popularised the term in the 2000s and 2010s. The generation referred to as Gen Z goes under many other names that refer to their identity, which was forged from growing up with the internet, such as zoomers, iGen, digital nomads, digital natives, etc.
However, an assigned name can also be a misinformed label. As the social analyst and demographer Mark McKindle puts it;
“More important than the name that we give a generation is the name it makes for itself.”
In the preoccupation with assigning identities and labels, it can be easy to miss out on the bigger picture.
The term ‘Gen-Z revolution’ was not coined by the Gen-Zs who were doing the actual revolting. It came from observers, political pundits and analysts watching on from the outside, who may or may not have had a clear idea of the reason or the motivation behind the revolts.
Quite unfortunately, we live in a social-political climate that rushes to politicise and assign political labels to every issue, event or ideology. The June 2024 revolts fell victim to this, too. Many in the political space were convinced that the revolts had to have stemmed from a political standpoint, driven by individuals or organisations who needed to score political points. This perspective was accentuated, especially after the protestors began to demand the removal of President Ruto and his regime from office.
News headlines and political punditry shifted from ‘Gen-Zs demanding accountability’ to ‘Anti-Ruto Gen Zs’. Consequently, most people, including some of the Gen Zs, grew blind to the fact that #RutoMustGo was not the cause of the protests, but the result of continued obstinacy from the president and his government to heed the demands of the Gen Zs.
The work of the government is to serve the will of the people and not the other way around. The Kenyan constitution is clear on that.
That said, the protests were the explosion of a ticking time bomb that had been brewing in the country for decades.
Corruption and impunity within the Kenyan government were at an all-time high. President Ruto had broken his promise to restore economic and political order, instead driving the country deeper down the road of state capture and democratic regression. At the same time, the ‘Gen Zs’, who had grown up seeing the oppression of their parents under previous regimes, were also coming of age and had grown disgruntled by the state of the country’s governance and the lack of opportunities. These Gen Zs had also grown up using the internet, which gave them access to endless knowledge, making them more informed than previous generations.
Social media has made it easier for Gen Z, alongside everyone else, to communicate and correlate through shared interests. Throughout and in the lead-up to the protests, it became a central tool for civic education and mobilisation for the protestors.
If anything, the ‘Gen-Z revolution’ was not just a revolution for ‘Gen-Zs’. It just so happened to be led by Gen Zs. It did not stem from ingenious political scheming from obscure political characters but from decades of frustration, dissatisfaction and disappointment with Kenya’s political and governance systems. The wave of protests was organic and much like a sandstorm engulfing a desert town, it disappeared as fast as it arose. However, as long as the systemic issues that led to its emergence remain unresolved, the potential for its re-emergence will always lurk in the shadows.
Adiado’s take: The ‘Gen-Z’ labelling as ‘Factx’ and not Facts
I have always been intrigued using the term ‘Generation Z’ and ‘Revolution’ to describe what happened in relation to the June 2024 protests. The protests arose after the parliament of Kenya decided to pass the Finance Act, 2024, despite opposition from a large section of the Kenyan populace.
Various stakeholders have tried to label the ‘extraordinary’ events that happened in June 2024 as largely a ‘generational’ Revolution. For them, June 2024 marked a significant shift in the conduct of public participation and how future regimes will respond to the young population going forward. But I have my reservations about this rather optimistic view of Kenya’s future, which some experts have extrapolated to other African states and continents where the youth form the backbone of the demography.
The first reason why I register my reservations with the so-called “heroic” June 2024 protests is in their portrayal in the media. Experts in media have tended to ignore the writing on the wall that change was beckoning in the Kenyan political space. I argue that the decision by Kenya’s third president to open up Kenya’s education system through Free Primary Education was the genesis that eventually birthed the June 2024 Protests. Kenyans had become literate and were able to participate actively in the governance process.
The election of the Kenyatta II regime in 2013, despite its flaws, also signalled a country that looked forward to expanded access to education, as evidenced by the regime’s implementation of a heavily subsidised secondary education. This subsidisation was later extended to universities and technical colleges. Despite the increased access to education, the economy wasn’t creating enough jobs to retain this talent. Therefore, the youths grew increasingly restless and hence began looking for solutions that could assist them in alleviating unemployment.
In 2022, Kenyans elected President Ruto, who campaigned on the “Hustler Economics” platform. Ruto promised to ‘drain the swamp’ by exterminating the ‘deep state’ oligarchy, whose long-reaching tentacles of state capture had the country’s economy in a chokehold. This was hailed as a revolution in the political order and systems of the country by some quarters of the Kenyan population. Nonetheless, it is also evidence for the sustained trend of unfounded mislabelling. President Ruto was, after all, no different from the political regime he promised to overthrow.
President Ruto, acting on his own wisdom, announced a raft of changes, such as the end of subsidies on essential commodities and a flurry of ‘reforms’ in appointing an economic council. Yet after one year, the country witnessed its first wave of protests initiated by the opposition. One of the motivations for the 2023 protests was the rising cost of living, exacerbated by a raft of new taxes conditioned on Ruto’s government by the IMF.
These protests weren’t labelled ‘Gen Z’ or revolutionary simply because they were led by the obvious culprits of the maandamano (protesting) political class and were largely conducted in opposition strongholds. However, these protests fulfilled one of the conditions that caused the subsequent Gen Z protests to be hailed as ‘revolutionary’ – youth participation.
In 2024, William Ruto’s regime received a huge stamp of approval, occasioned by his invitation to the US for a state visit. The visit was the first for an African President on US soil after 16 years and the first for a Kenyan head of state in two decades. Back home, economic challenges coupled with an indifference from Ruto’s cabinet and close associates brewed dissent that manifested itself in countrywide protests.
Unlike other protests that were mainly organised through grassroots mobilisation by the political class, the June 2024 protests were lobbied through social media platforms like X and TikTok. For the first time, the military was even called upon to restore order in the capital city following a hurried parliamentary sitting to enact a state of emergency.
Despite the unique nature of the June 2024 protest, I still disagree with its labelling as a generational protest or a revolution. In her book on the war in Mozambique, Carolyne Nordstrom first coined the term factx to refer to contested, always incomplete and often incorrect information presented as fact. Therefore, to me at least, the labelling of the June 2024 protests as ‘Gen Z-led’ or as a ‘Gen Z revolution’ remains a factx.
Statistics from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics show that 80% of the Kenyan population is below 35 years. This statistic points out that Kenya is experiencing a youth bulge, which occurs when 20% or more of a country’s population is comprised of youths. This can either turn out to be a curse or a blessing, depending on how the country’s development strategies are formulated and implemented. At this rate, both the Jubilee and Kenya Kwanza regimes have only made it a curse. With these statistics, it shouldn’t be surprising that the majority of protests going forward will be led by youths who are educated and who form the backbone of urban centres’ demography.
Now onto my problem with ‘Generation’ labelling. Up until the 1970s, Generations didn’t have names as they do today under the modern sociological understanding of Generational Theory. Generational theory argues that each generation gives rise to unique individuals, with their own opinions, values, behaviours and plans. It further asserts that every generation is influenced by unique cultural events or trends which result in a unique ideological identity that leads to recurring crises, conflicts and reconstructions. On the other hand, critics of this theory argue that religion, political belief, sexual preference and personality can change over a person’s lifetime.
Nonetheless, applying the generational theory in politics requires researchers to make gross generalisations about the individuals they study, and how their perceptions and belief systems evolve throughout their lifetimes.
The use of ‘Generation Z’ in Kenya’s current political climate will continue the era of tagging and labelling individuals into certain segments, based on gross generalisations and misguided perceptions. We’ve witnessed this in discourses around the fight for independence and in stereotypes towards certain ethnicities.
John D. Hazlett argues that generationalism is like all favours of historicism. It contains an animism by which collective history is perceived to embody a will independent of individuals. It is then imperative that scholars avoid falling into the trap of using Generation Z as a term to describe the June 2025 Protests. The overuse of the term only seems to predict the direction of our country based on the continual displacement of older generations by younger, rising generations.
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