Gen-Zs have no sponsor, so brace for long protests

The protests on the streets of Kenyan towns and cities over the 2024 Finance Bill have elicited mixed reactions. Some are saying these demonstrations are evolving organically and probably getting out of hand, while regime apologists have a different narrative.

We’ve seen legislators talk loudly and froth about photoshopped images and manipulated videos, while some have disparaged the picketing Gen-Zs as the privileged iPhone generation that ‘Ubers’ itself to the streets, eats at KFC and will soon tire. Well, as much as opinion is divided, the emergent realities that sprout in a variety of spaces seem to isolate indisputable facts regardless of which side of the political divide one might be sympathetic to.

Remember, when Arsene Wenger was in the twilight of his career at Arsenal, he had attracted resentment from fans across the globe. These fans would unfurl “Wenger Out” in almost any forum that had mass or even global attention - music concerts, political gatherings, unrelated sporting events, airports or even train stations.

Closer home in South Africa, protesters against then President Jacob Zuma decided to kill two birds with one stone by unfurling both “Zuma Must Fall” and “Wenger Out”. Suffice to note both men fell, and such widespread feeling of resentment could not have been the work of a sponsor.

If there are Kenyans who doubt the organic evolution of the resentment the younger generation has for this regime, they need to listen, because clearly the leaves are falling. In clubs around Nairobi, millennials and Gen-Zs are singing songs against this regime. Last week, we saw a group of young illiberal ladies sing songs of defiance in a police cell, while young lawyers, waiting to bail them out, sang “we want the OSC”.

Those who are still rooted in the traditional order of sponsored protests should read the signs. Politicians sympathetic to the regime, the ones who voted yes in the first and second readings of the bill, are being kicked out of events by irate Kenyans. At funerals, we have seen politicians being booed and stopped from speaking. One Cabinet secretary suffered the ignominy of being hushed embarrassingly at a funeral fundraiser by an irate crowd that broke out into anti-regime songs, which was his cue to leave.

In worse scenes, we have seen effigies burnt and there is an emerging consciousness of the resolve to deal with the politicians come 2027. These incidents of defiance have been witnessed all over the country and there isn’t any evidence that one sponsor or organiser would spread themselves thin to all these many unrelated events.

The protests seem to be less about the finance bill and more about mounting dissatisfaction with President William Ruto and resentment against both the regime and the Kenya Kwanza leadership. Since the 2022 campaigns, the President has been a dominant figure, making numerous promises that have largely gone unfulfilled. He has presented himself as the solution to everything, and his catastrophic failure in everything he has touched or promised has left many supporters disillusioned.

You see, the Gen-Z with iPhones that Kimani Ichungwa is talking about have vast storage in those gadgets and probably footage of the campaign trail. Footage that gave them hope of a better life is replayed daily in the wake of the failed promises. They voted for this regime but today they are disenchanted as they see their parents struggle with the rising cost of living .

The expected rosy life under the hustlers’ regime has not bloomed, and consequently the regime has become a monument for Gen-Z’s resentment. They have found a way of expressing it in spectacular fashion. Probably pushed by their parents, or maybe spurred by their parents’ struggles, they will be on these streets for longer, and the protests are a clear signal that they have had enough.

— The writer is a researcher and lecturer at Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications