December 16, 2025

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October 2023, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

The students gathering outside Universitas Gadjah Mada weren’t supposed to make history. They were protesting the bombardment of Gaza, one demonstration among thousands worldwide. But when they raised a black flag bearing a skull in a straw hat, they unknowingly lit the fuse on what would become the first global Gen-Z uprising.

The flag came from One Piece, a Japanese manga about pirates fighting a corrupt World Government. To anyone over thirty, it looked absurd. To Gen-Z, who’d grown up watching the anime, it made perfect sense. The Straw Hat Pirates’ Jolly Roger wasn’t just a pop culture reference. It was a declaration: we are the pirates, you are the corrupt government, and we’re coming for you.

Eight months later, that same flag would fly as Kenyan youth stormed their Parliament. Two months after that, it would wave over the crowds that toppled Bangladesh’s government. By September 2025, it had spread to Nepal, Madagascar, the Philippines, and beyond. Each time it appeared, governments dismissed it as juvenile. Each time, those governments fell or capitulated.

[Photo caption: Kenyan protesters shot dead and parliament set on fire after controversial tax bill passes.]

This is the story of how 1,600 young people died fighting under an anime flag, toppling three governments and forcing policy reversals in four more. It’s a story Western media completely missed, too busy dismissing the symbol as a “meme” to notice they were watching the birth of a new form of revolution.

Yogyakarta: Where Pirates Became Protesters

Indonesia has a complicated relationship with protest. The 1998 student movement that toppled Suharto after 31 years of dictatorship is sacred history. Every subsequent generation of Indonesian students measures themselves against the Reformasi heroes. By 2023, they’d been waiting 25 years for their moment.

It arrived in October, but not how anyone expected.

The Gaza war had triggered global demonstrations, and Indonesian students, in the world’s largest Muslim nation, felt the cause deeply. But the protests in Yogyakarta, the cultural heart of Java and Indonesia’s student city, took an unusual turn. Instead of the usual Palestinian flags and political party banners, students from UGM (Universitas Gadjah Mada) raised something different: the Straw Hat Pirates’ Jolly Roger.

The choice was deliberate. A viral TikTok from October 2023 (since deleted) showed organizers explaining their reasoning: traditional protest symbols belonged to older generations and established parties. The One Piece flag was theirs. They’d grown up with Luffy fighting the World Government. Now they were fighting their own version of that corrupt system.

The flag was perfect for several reasons. First, One Piece is massive in Indonesia. The anime dominates streaming platforms and the manga has a devoted following across Southeast Asia. Second, the story resonates: Monkey D. Luffy, the protagonist, is a pirate who refuses to bow to corrupt authority. The World Government in One Piece controls the media, manipulates justice, and crushes dissent. Sound familiar?

Third, and most importantly, it was theirs. Not their parents’ symbol. Not a political party’s banner. Not a religious icon. A symbol from their childhood that suddenly, perfectly, captured their rage.

The Indonesian government didn’t know what to make of it. Security forces were reportedly confused by the appearance of an anime flag at political protests, unable to categorize it within traditional protest movements.

That confusion was the point. This wasn’t communist, wasn’t Islamist, wasn’t separatist. It was something new.

The Symbol Sleeps, Then Spreads

For eight months after Yogyakarta, the One Piece flag remained a quirky Indonesian phenomenon. It would pop up at various protests: anti-corruption rallies, environmental demonstrations, labor strikes. Each time, it marked the presence of young Indonesians who saw themselves as pirates fighting an unjust system.

Indonesian authorities, already struggling with TikTok activism and digital organizing, made a crucial error. They ignored it. The flag was widely dismissed as juvenile and unserious by authorities who viewed it as pop culture rather than political symbolism.

They didn’t understand that breaking from traditional political symbols was the point. Gen-Z wasn’t trying to join existing political discourse. They were creating their own.

Meanwhile, the flag’s appearances were being documented on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter. Indonesian youth created compilation videos: “One Piece Flag Sightings.” They made memes: the Indonesian president’s face photoshopped onto Marine admirals (the One Piece government’s military). They spread the message: we are pirates, they are the corrupt World Government.

These videos weren’t just viewed in Indonesia. One Piece is global, with fans from Brazil to Bangladesh. Gen-Z activists in other countries saw Indonesian youth raising the Jolly Roger and understood immediately. The symbol was ready. It just needed the right moment to explode.

That moment came in Kenya.

Kenya: From Finance Bill to Parliament Flames

June 18, 2024. Nairobi, Kenya.

President William Ruto’s government unveiled Finance Bill 2024. On paper, it was typical IMF-backed structural adjustment: new taxes on essential goods to service Kenya’s crushing debt. Bread, cooking oil, motor vehicle tax, even sanitary pads. Everything would cost more.

Kenya’s Gen-Z, already facing 40% youth unemployment, exploded. But this explosion was different from previous Kenyan protests. No opposition politicians led it. No civil society organizations coordinated it. It began on TikTok and Twitter, with young Kenyans using the hashtag #RejectFinanceBill2024, spreading faster than any traditional mobilization could have achieved. The Daily Nation reported on the spontaneous nature of the protests: no political parties organized them, no civil society groups coordinated them. Young Kenyans simply showed up, mobilized through social media rather than traditional structures, creating a movement that belonged to no one and everyone simultaneously.

The first protests on June 18 were small but intense. Police used tear gas and water cannons. The youth responded with something unexpected: discipline. They didn’t loot. They didn’t riot. They marched.

By June 20, tens of thousands were in the streets across Kenya. That’s when the One Piece flags appeared.

The first documented instance was outside the University of Nairobi. A group of students, inspired by Indonesian TikToks they’d seen, made their own Straw Hat Pirates flag. The image went viral within hours: young Kenyans in graduation caps holding an anime pirate flag, facing down police in riot gear.

[Photo caption: The flag that changed everything - Kenyan students raise the One Piece Jolly Roger outside University of Nairobi, June 20, 2024, marking the symbol’s first appearance in African protests]

According to Twitter posts from protesters (many accounts later suspended), the flag’s appearance wasn’t coordinated. Someone brought it spontaneously, perhaps as a joke, but the symbolism resonated instantly. The protesters were the pirates. The government forces were the Marines. The parallel was perfect.

The symbolism was powerful. In One Piece, the Marines serve the Celestial Dragons, a class of “world nobles” who see themselves as gods and everyone else as insects. The parallels to Kenya’s political elite, who live in obscene luxury while youth struggle to afford bread, weren’t subtle.

By June 24, One Piece flags were everywhere. Protesters made variants: the Kenyan flag merged with the Straw Hat skull, the skull wearing traditional Maasai beads, versions with “Reject Finance Bill” written in the One Piece font.

The government still thought they could contain it.

They were wrong.

June 25, 2024: The Day Kenya Changed

The protests had built for a week. On June 25, Parliament was scheduled to vote on the Finance Bill. Despite the demonstrations, despite the youth rage, the MPs planned to pass it anyway. That’s when Kenyan Gen-Z decided to stop asking and start taking. The call went out on social media the night before: “Tomorrow we occupy Parliament.” Not a march to Parliament. Not a demonstration outside Parliament. Occupy. The word choice was deliberate, signaling a fundamental shift from protest to direct action.

By noon on June 25, central Nairobi had transformed into a war zone. The air was thick with tear gas, the streets echoed with chants and sirens, and thousands of youth converged on Parliament from every direction.

The first breach came at 2:30 PM, just after Parliament approved amendments to the Finance Bill. Protesters overwhelmed police barricades at Parliament Road. The images are seared into Kenya’s memory: thousands of youth, many in school uniforms, streaming through tear gas, One Piece flags flying alongside Kenyan flags.

When they reached Parliament buildings, they didn’t stop.

CNN reported that MPs were caught completely off guard when protesters began scaling Parliament walls. Previous demonstrations had remained outside. This was different.

By 1:00 PM, protesters were inside Parliament. They ransacked offices, set fires, and hunted for MPs who’d already fled through underground tunnels. The ceremonial mace, symbol of parliamentary authority, was carried outside and paraded through the streets.

Then the shooting started.

Blood in Nairobi

The protests had been building for days. On June 20, the first casualty occurred. Rex Kanyike Masai, a 29-year-old activist, was shot in the thigh by a police officer around 7:00 PM on Kimathi Street during protests in Nairobi’s Central Business District. In his pocket were only his ID card and phone. He wasn’t armed, but he knew Kenya Police harassed any young person without identification, so he carried his papers faithfully. Rex was pronounced dead at 7:38 PM at Bliss Hospital on Moi Avenue, just meters from where he was shot. His parents, Gillian Munyao and Chrisphine Odawa, arrived at the hospital to find their son had already been taken to City Mortuary. The image of protesters carrying his body became an early rallying cry for the movement.

Five days later, on June 25, when protesters stormed Parliament, the violence escalated dramatically. The order to use live ammunition has never been officially confirmed. President Ruto denies giving it. The police chief claims he wasn’t consulted. Someone, somewhere, made the decision.

[Photo caption: Rex Kanyike Masai remembered - protesters carry the body of the 29-year-old activist, the first casualty of Kenya’s anti-Finance Bill protests on June 20, 2024]

By nightfall, the death toll was catastrophic. Hospitals reported 19 dead in Nairobi alone. Across the country, as protests erupted in Mombasa, Kisumu, Nakuru, and elsewhere, the number climbed.

Human Rights Watch would later document at least 60 deaths from June 25 alone. Kenyan civil society organizations claim the number exceeds 100. The government admits to 25.

The violence had an unexpected effect. Instead of crushing the protests, it transformed them. What began as opposition to a tax bill became a revolution against the entire system.

Al Jazeera’s coverage documented how the killings transformed the protests. What began as opposition to a tax bill became a revolution against the entire system. The blood of martyrs changed everything.

Ruto’s Surrender

President William Ruto had two choices: escalate to full military deployment or capitulate.

The military, watching Egypt 2011 and Sudan 2019, signaled they wouldn’t massacre civilians to save a finance bill. International pressure mounted. The US State Department expressed “concern.” The UK called for “restraint.”

Most importantly, the protests were spreading. Every hour brought reports of new cities joining, new universities walking out, new One Piece flags being raised.

On June 26, less than 24 hours after the Parliament invasion, Ruto appeared on national television.

“I have heard you,” he said, looking exhausted. “I will not sign the Finance Bill 2024.”

The youth had won.

But the victory came with a price. Beyond the 60+ dead, over 3,000 had been arrested. Hundreds were missing, grabbed by security forces and held in undisclosed locations. The reality of their fate was far darker than mere detention. Bodies began surfacing in rivers and quarries weeks later, some bearing signs of severe torture and execution-style killings. Human Rights Watch documented cases where activists were abducted from their homes, only for their mutilated remains to be discovered days later. It was a coordinated extermination campaign disguised as crowd control. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights would document 83 enforced disappearances.

The government had withdrawn the bill, but not their claws.

The Aftermath and the Echo

Kenya’s June uprising sent shockwaves across the Global South. Here was proof that Gen-Z, mobilizing through TikTok, organizing without leaders, fighting under an anime flag, could force a government to retreat in one day.

The lessons were clear:

* Speed matters. Storm the castle before they can organize.

* Symbols matter. The One Piece flag unified youth across ethnic and class lines.

* Documentation matters. Live-streamed violence creates international pressure.

* Victory is possible. They withdrew the bill.

But Kenya also showed the limits. The government survived. Ruto remained president. The system bent but didn’t break. Those arrested faced terrorism charges. Those who disappeared stayed disappeared.

When protests resumed in 2025, the government was ready. They’d studied the playbook, identified organizers, prepared counter-strategies. The June 2025 demonstrations across 27 counties were met with preemptive arrests, internet shutdowns, and “preventive detention.”

Kenya had won a battle but not the war. The next country would have to go further.

That country would be Bangladesh.

Indonesia Watches and Waits

Back in Indonesia, where the One Piece flag was born, youth watched Kenya with fascination and frustration.

Fascination because their symbol had gone international. Indonesian TikTokers created compilations: “Our Flag in Kenya,” “One Piece Revolution Spreads,” “Pirates Worldwide.” They felt pride seeing Kenyan youth raising the Jolly Roger they’d invented.

Frustration because Indonesia’s government wasn’t giving them a similar opportunity. President Jokowi, popular and pragmatic, had avoided the kind of provocative policies that sparked Kenya’s uprising. Indonesia’s youth had the symbol, the anger, the organization, but no trigger.

That would change in July 2025, when a new president took power and immediately gave Indonesian Gen-Z exactly what they’d been waiting for: a reason to raise the flag again.

But first, Bangladesh would show the world what a successful Gen-Z revolution looked like.

The Pattern Emerges

By July 2024, though no one recognized it yet, a pattern had emerged:

The Preconditions:

* Youth unemployment above 25%

* Visible elite corruption

* Social media penetration above 50%

* Government legitimacy crisis

* Economic pressure (debt, inflation, IMF)

The Trigger:

* One provocative policy too far

* Usually economic (taxes, subsidies, quotas)

* Affects youth directly

The Organization:

* TikTok/Twitter for mobilization

* No traditional leaders

* One Piece flag as unifying symbol

* Speed is essential (days, not weeks)

The Response Determines the Outcome:

* Concede quickly (Kenya) = government survives but weakened

* Resist with violence (Bangladesh) = government falls

* The more blood spilled, the more likely regime change

This pattern would repeat, with variations, across nine countries over the next 14 months. But in July 2024, it was still just two data points: Indonesia’s invention of the symbol, Kenya’s proof of concept.

Bangladesh would complete the formula.

Part 1 Conclusion: The Pirates Set Sail

When Indonesian students raised the One Piece flag in October 2023, they thought they were protesting Gaza. When Kenyan youth stormed Parliament in June 2024, they thought they were fighting a finance bill.

They were actually launching something much bigger: the first global Gen-Z revolution.

The flag was perfect precisely because it seemed ridiculous. What government prepares for an anime uprising? What intelligence service writes contingency plans for pirate protests? The absurdity was armor. By the time authorities realized the threat, it was too late.

Between October 2023 and June 2024, the symbol incubated. It spread through TikTok compilations, Instagram memes, Twitter threads. Gen-Z activists from Bangladesh to the Philippines to Madagascar saw Indonesian and Kenyan youth raising the Jolly Roger and recognized themselves.

They were all growing up in the same broken world: climate collapse accelerating, economies crumbling, corruption flourishing, futures vanishing. They’d inherited debt, degradation, and despair. Traditional political movements offered nothing. The left promised revolution but delivered bureaucracy. The right promised order but delivered oligarchy.

One Piece offered pirates.

Not real pirates. Symbolic ones. Luffy and his crew don’t pillage innocents; they fight tyrants. They don’t seek treasure; they seek freedom. They don’t follow rules; they make their own. Every Gen-Z kid who’d watched the anime understood: the pirates are the good guys, the World Government is evil, and sometimes you have to raise the black flag and fight.

Kenya proved it could work. One day to force a government retreat. But Kenya also showed the limits of peaceful protest. The finance bill was withdrawn, but the system survived. The deaths were mourned, but nothing fundamental changed.

The next country would go further. The next country would show that Gen-Z revolution wasn’t just possible, but inevitable. The next country would take everything Kenya learned and ask: what if we don’t stop at Parliament? What if we keep going until the government falls?

That country was Bangladesh. And in August 2024, they would answer the question with blood.

But here’s where the story gets strange. The Bangladesh revolution wasn’t just organic youth rage. It was also the culmination of years of American investment in “democracy promotion.” The United States had spent $1.73 billion preparing the infrastructure for exactly this kind of uprising.

They just didn’t expect what would happen next.

Part 2: “The Breakthrough” reveals how Bangladesh’s revolution was simultaneously genuine and orchestrated, how 1,400 students died in a uprising that was both authentic protest and prepared regime change operation, and why the biggest winner wasn’t democracy or America, but China.

Footnotes

* Kenya Finance Bill protests - Comprehensive documentation of the June 2024 protests that resulted in 60+ deaths and the storming of Parliament. Wikipedia contributors. (2024). Kenya Finance Bill protests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya_Finance_Bill_protests

* Human Rights Watch Kenya Report - Detailed investigation into unlawful use of force during the protests, documenting at least 60 deaths. Human Rights Watch. (2024, July 16). Kenya: Deadly Force Against Protesters. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/16/kenya-deadly-force-against-protesters

* One Piece flag in Indonesia - First documented use of anime flag in protests, October 2023 in Yogyakarta during Gaza solidarity demonstrations. Time Magazine. (2025, August 17). Indonesian Authorities Respond to Mass Flying of ‘One Piece’ Flag. https://time.com/7309534/indonesia-one-piece-pirate-flag-protest-prabowo-free-speech-criticism/

* CNN Parliament storming coverage - International media documentation of protesters breaching Parliament on June 25, 2024. CNN. (2024, June 26). Kenyan protesters storm parliament in Nairobi as police fire live rounds. https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/25/africa/kenya-protests-parliament-intl/index.html

* Al Jazeera protest analysis - Coverage of how Kenya’s Gen-Z protests evolved from tax opposition to systemic revolution. Al Jazeera. (2024, July 24). ‘Kenya is not asleep anymore’: Why young protesters are not backing down. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/7/24/kenya-is-not-asleep-anymore-why-young-protesters-are-not-backing-down

* Kenya National Commission on Human Rights - Official documentation of 83 enforced disappearances during and after the June 2024 protests. KNCHR. (2024, June 20). Statement on the Aftermath of Protests against the Finance Bill 2024. https://www.knchr.org/Articles/ArtMID/2432/ArticleID/1197/Statement-on-the-Aftermath-of-Protests-against-the-Finance-Bill-2024

* Human Rights Watch Abductions Report - Investigation into enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by Kenyan security forces. Human Rights Watch. (2024, November 6). Kenya: Security Forces Abducted, Killed Protesters. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/06/kenya-security-forces-abducted-killed-protesters

* Kenya Torture Allegations - Reports of torture and abduction of activists during protests. The Africa Report. (2024, July 25). Kenya anti-government protesters abducted and tortured. https://www.theafricareport.com/354771/kenya-anti-government-protesters-abducted-and-tortured-say-human-rights-defenders/

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