How censorship against Gen Z is being confused with political apathy.
It is widely considered by Boomers and Gen X that today’s youth is politically apathetic, lazy and unwilling to apply efforts of political participation to fight the social inequalities that are dominating today’s society. Many believe Gen Z unable to mobilise enough numbers to amass meaningful protests as was done for Vietnam (1969), Tiananmen Square (1989), and the Baltic Way (1989). This is both factually untrue and allows for the spread of the propagated idea that Gen Z is not a political participant.
The University of Cambridge claims that “Young people’s faith in democratic politics is lower than any other age group, and millennials across the world are more disillusioned with democracy than Generation X or baby boomers were at the same stage of life.” The issue is not whether today’s young adult generation is engaging with politics, but rather if our political participation, as well as our disillusionment with the state and the way it’s run, is being taken seriously.
In just the last few years, there have been countless demonstrations led by Gen Z across the world. For example, the Columbia University Student Hamilton Hall Protests that erupted in April 2024 against the outbreak of war in Gaza. Additionally, Serbian students in Belgrade took to the streets in 2025, demonstrating strong feelings of anti-establishment, “making it the largest mass protest in Serbia’s modern history.” Most recently, mass student demonstrations in New Delhi occurred in July 2026 where upwards of 100,000 Indian students marched towards the Parliament House protesting systemic failures from the Indian Education system. In our own West End, Glasgow Uni students have displayed their disillusionment with the powers that be, with American students protesting “ actions by American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.” as well as demonstrations of anti-UofG arms investment with the spray painting of university buildings such as the James McCune Building and the Gilbert Scott Building.
As members of Gen Z, conversations with older generations about current events, political issues or societal inequalities often leads to a complete disregard of what is being said, and is written off as wokeism. When students come together to protest the wrongdoings of the powers that be, they are too often censored, shut down and threatened with expulsion as was most notably done with the Columbia University Students as well as in our own Glasgow Uni over the spray painting of the JMS. It is then determined that our generation is not gearing our efforts towards important political discourse. However, a substantial amount of international political participation among Gen Z is being had in ways that may seem foreign to Boomers and Gen X, like using social media platforms. For example, prior to the outbreak of the student protests in New Delhi in July 2026, over 19 million followers were amassed on Instagram in just a few days when a student posted a satirical protest movement creating the Cockroach Janta Party in response to India’s chief justice Surya Kant calling unemployed members of Gen Z “cockroaches”.
Growing online campaigns, militant music and vast nation-wide protests have allowed an international army of Gen Z students to mobilise and speak out against the systems that have failed us. How much more police brutality and state negligence before the youth are allowed to voice their opinions without censorship, suppression, expulsion? The question as to whether our young generation has turned out to be less political than the generations that preceded us should be rethought and rather, the motives of those older generations who are consistently bringing about systemic failures to the youth ought to be questioned. Macklemore said it best in his song Hind’s Hall (2024), one of the most brazen anti-war songs of the century commenting on the 2024 student protests at Columbia University, displaying solidarity towards the Palestinian effort as well as strong feelings of anti-establishment:
“If students in tents posted on the lawn
Occupyin’ the quad is really against the law…
What you willin’ to risk? What you willin’ to give?’
What is it that we, as the generation of tomorrow, are willing to risk in order to be heard, and what is it that those in power are willing to give up to finally stop silencing us?
