The activists and the anime
Good morning, world! From Nepal to Madagascar, Gen Z protesters are raging against the political establishment, with some success. These protests are taking place thousands of kilometers apart. But as my colleague Pranav Baskar reports, the protesters are linked by a pirate flag that might mystify their parents.
Gen Z protests are having a moment.
In just the last month, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines and Madagascar have all experienced large protests led by young people outraged over government corruption and inequality. Flying above each of the protests was a common flag: a grinning skull and bones wearing a straw hat.
The flag comes from a long-running Japanese manga and anime series called “One Piece,” which follows a scrappy crew of pirates as they take on a corrupt and repressive government. The franchise, recently relaunched as a live-action series on Netflix, has been dubbed in more than a dozen languages and has amassed a huge following, with more than 500 million copies of the print version published.
One of the first times the flag flew at protests was in 2023, at pro-Palestinian marches in Indonesia and Britain. In the years since, it has become a symbol for youth-led demonstrations around the world.
It hung on the gates of Nepal’s government complex, which was burned in protests that eventually toppled the government. It was painted on walls in Jakarta and hoisted by crowds in Manila. This week, it popped up in Madagascar, where protests forced the dissolution of the government on Monday.
“We know that Gen Z is protesting all around the world, and we wanted to use symbols that made sense to our generation,” Rakshya Bam, 26, one of the Nepali Gen Z protest organizers, told my colleague Hannah Beech. “The pirate flag, Jolly Roger, it’s like a common language now.”
The “One Piece” flag isn’t just an emblem — it’s an allegory. The protagonist, Luffy, is a terrorist or a freedom fighter, depending on whom you ask. His iconic straw hat was a gift from his childhood hero, who believed Luffy and his generation would eventually prevail.
The plot makes the symbol particularly resonant, another Nepali protester, Irfan Khan, told Hannah. “The pirate, it’s like a way to say we are not going to put up with injustice and corruption anymore,” he said.
It’s not the first time that protesters have found common cause with youth-coded cultural references. In the 2010s, protesters against a military coup in Thailand adopted the three-fingered salute from the dystopian movie “The Hunger Games,” which has persisted in countries like Myanmar.
“I think we are entering a new era of organizing that draws heavily from digital, pop and gaming culture, creating a common vocabulary,” said Raqib Naik, the director of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a U.S.-based watchdog group that tracks online activity and misinformation.
The “One Piece” flag is being used by protesters who are thousands of kilometers apart. But they are linked by their generation’s shared culture, fusing popular narratives and anti-establishment politics into a force that has brought down at least two governments — and counting.
(source: nytimes.com)
TANIKO Madagascar 