“THE WIND IS RISING! … WE MUST YET STRIVE TO LIVE!”
October 2025
Editos/Points of view
FONDEMOS’ POINT OF VIEW
What the world is witnessing today is a youth-led upheaval of authority that is quietly reshaping power across Asia and beyond.
The wind rose in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia and in the Philippines: these episodes differ in context, yet a shared pattern is visible: youth-led mobilisation, networked organisation, and a refusal to accept impunity.
Symbols travel as quickly as claims: the three-finger salute and the Straw Hat pirate are memes that mobilise as they communicate. So does the method. Movements may be leaderless until leadership is needed and then figures emerge with clarity. In Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus became an obvious figurehead and in Nepal, Sushila Karki’s name consolidated rapidly on Discord.
What unites the Gen-Z movement are both standards (demands for responsiveness and transparency against corruption entrenched by nepotistic elites), and style (a shared visual language that mobilises across borders).
If there is hope in this “Asian Spring”, it lies not only in mobilisation but in what follows: building a fair democracy. Three steps can help turn rupture into renewal:
First, constrain nepotism through enforceable rules and genuine party reform, so office is earned rather than inherited. Second, transparent budgets and credible justice for those harmed, i.e. ways in how citizens hold power to account. Third, embed youth participation beyond token advice, with defined roles in transition councils.
Only through these practices can real, functioning democracy take root, one in which the governed can control those who govern. It is more than the act of voting; it rests on a balanced triangle of elites, citizens and institutions, each checking on each other’s. It ultimately allows for poverty reduction and a decrease in inequalities.
“We are the youth, we are not parasites!”
Casablanca, Morocco, Protesters’ claim, Le Monde.
The pattern is now travelling beyond its early epicentres. The same repertoire is visible in Madagascar, Morocco and Peru.
What began as a regional reckoning, shaped earlier by Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement in 2014 (even though they weren’t Gen-Z it was a youth-led mobilisation) and Myanmar’s 2021 Spring Revolution, whose young people have been silenced since; is turning into a wider test: can governments meet a rising generation’s standards with real, measurable, shared reforms?
