48 Time February 3, 2020
I
n hong kong, protesters called for “five
demands, not one less.” School strikers around
the world warned, “There is no Planet B.”
Chileans proclaimed, “It wasn’t a depression,
it was just capitalism.” Sudanese called for
the downfall of the regime, while the Lebanese
complained of “electile dysfunction.”
Over the past year, citizens in Africa, Asia,
Europe, Latin America and the Middle East took to
the streets to raise their voices against inequality,
corruption and bad governance. And while from Italy
to Iraq and Venezuela to Zimbabwe they promoted
wildly differing slogans, the subtext was always the
same: the system is not working. The youth at the
forefront of these movements are no longer content
to just push for change from the fringes of power.
Increasingly they are taking the reins themselves,
either through the democratic process or by
spearheading protest movements that command the
world’s attention.
Countries such as France, Ireland, Austria and
Ukraine are turning to younger leaders and new
styles of leadership. On Dec. 10, Finland’s Sanna
Marin, 34, became the world’s youngest Prime Min-
ister, only to be upstaged a few weeks later by the re-
turn of Austria’s Sebastian Kurz, who was sworn in
as Chancellor for a second term at the age of 33 on
Jan. 7. Kurz and Marin are the latest in a wave of poli-
ticians in their 30s winning leadership roles, includ-
ing New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
(39), Ukraine’s Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk
(35) and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele (38).
These leaders may be young, but their
authority is grounded in experience.
Many came of age during the 2008 global
financial crisis and its aftermath and have
experienced firsthand the failure of glo-
balization’s promise to deliver widespread
economic prosperity. Social media have
exposed unacceptable levels of corrup-
tion among economic and political elites,
animating demand for change. And this
generation of leaders share with their
constituents a commitment to make the
difficult changes their elders will not—
largely because they have the most to lose.
Society is no longer passing the baton
to the next in line in a continuing trend
of incremental change. We are witness-
ing a fundamental departure from poli-
tics as usual, as these young leaders re-
spond to the demands of even younger
activists acutely attuned to the injustices
GLOBAL
YOUTH IN
REVOLT
A new generation of leaders,
inspired by activist movements,
is driving change BY ARYN BAKER
‘Young people now
are m
ore socially liberal
than young people were in the past.’
—
M
att Henn
WORLD
SOURCE PHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES (7); ILLUSTRATION BY AISTE STANCIKAITE FOR TIME
