All around the world, so-called Gen Z youth have been on the streets demanding political change. Insurrectionary protests have dislodged vicious, corrupt and incompetent rulers - in Bangladesh last year, in Nepal last month, in Madagascar last week..
After the Madagascan president fled for his life, the military took over. Naively, many of the protesters welcomed this. In Bangladesh, the student leaders of the 2024 uprising collaborated with the army, who a few days before had been firing on them, to set up a government under precisely the same system. As if that was going to make a difference!
Yes, thanks to the capitalist world hierarchy, these less-developed countries remain economically dependent on the rich imperialist countries for their existence... And the former colonial powers - US, Britain, France - ensure, one way or another, that these entities remain firmly under their thumbs - or the thumbs of their puppets, elected, or not.
Whether it's Morocco, Kenya, Nepal, or Sri Lanka, the sham democracy which ruled over the population was always inherently unstable, due to the huge gap between the small class of rich and masses of poor. The military is always ready and waiting in the shadows to restore order whenever needed. And of course, ready to ensure that any profits flow in the direction of western big business - after taking a cut.
This means that new elections, under the same system, let alone military dictatorship under a new general, only means more of the same - now, or further down the road. Gen Z cannot organise change via "Discord"! As Gil Scott Heron said: the revolution will not be televised! Nor will it be Tik-Tok'ed on an iPhone!
...and after the king is gone?
So what about the "No Kings" march against Trump, last Saturday? It's estimated that over 7 million took part across the country.
And no surprise. There is more than enough reason for anger on the streets. Not only over the absurd role of "peacemaker" for Gaza and everywhere else, that Trump assumes, but the war he is waging on US streets, imprisoning, torturing, and deporting America's foreign workers; sending ICE agents and troops into American cities and all the while, attacking the working class by slashing jobs, education and health care! The "emperor" has already lost his clothes!
What's more, "peacemaker" Trump is carrying out a low level (for now) "war" against Venezuela, blowing up boats and people in the Caribbean under the pretext of clamping down on "drug smugglers"...
Anyway, Saturday's marchers merely protested; they did not aim at putting paid to Trump. The French newspaper Le Monde quoted a demonstrator who cynically observed that "People want to believe we've hit rock bottom, but we're still on the way down', adding that the only thing that could stop Trump is "a massive heart attack".
True, a heart attack might stop Trump, but it wouldn't solve the problem! What then, can and would stop Trump, but also Starmer, Macron, Merz, as well as the corrupt dictators around the world who they prop up, and for good?
In fact there is an answer: a working-class revolt, led by a workers' revolutionary party, with its own independent political programme - not to elect new leaders under this system, but to wipe out the system and begin anew!
Capitalism in its rotting current form - known as imperialism - is further destroying this world and it has produced politicians which reflect this utter rottenness. What else is Trump? Or Netanyahu? Putin? Zelenskyy? Macron? Starmer? Farage? They offer not more of the same, at this stage - but even less! We are living in a period of economic crisis - the crisis of a system that has passed its sell-by date and which relies on wars for a periodic blood transfusion in order to stay alive.
We all need to get political!!
So yes, the youth rebellions and even the "No Kings" march could be a step in the right direction. But it will never be enough to say "no", nor merely to demand "change". Because there is no outside force, no "better, more honest" or "more democratic", politician to save the day.
So let's repeat: the only effective change will be the change which is made by the working class itself - it has the means and skills to run the economy on a totally new basis: that is, production carried out according to need, not profit; planned and controlled by active young people and workers taking collective responsibility for the running of the whole of society.
It is they who will have to formulate, not on "Discord", but in the real world, how to rebuild society - the world - in the interests of everyone! And above all, a world without the divisions which are stoked by politicians who have nothing new to offer - and so point at migrants, at foreigners, black people, (and these days at Muslims, or Jewish people), blaming them for the problems which are inherent in the system that feeds them, but starves the rest of us!
So "Viva la Revolucion!" It's the only way forward.