Global Affairs Session 105 8 October 2026

REVOLTS EVERYWHERE

World erupts in protests

In 2026, citizens across twenty countries have taken to the streets over education, living costs, corruption, political representation, public safety and civil liberties.

Antonio Gramsci quotation on political crisis

Summary - A world refusing to remain silent

In 2026, citizens across twenty countries have taken to the streets over education, living costs, corruption, political representation, public safety and civil liberties.

France and Belgium have seen disruptive school protests; Ireland, Greece, Argentina and Chile have witnessed student mobilisation over funding and conditions. Spain’s housing crisis and New Zealand’s wage disputes show economic pressure reaching beyond campuses.

Meanwhile, demonstrations in India, Serbia, Pakistan and the Philippines have questioned elections, leadership and institutional accountability. Protests in Brazil, Germany, Britain and Turkey reveal sharp disputes over politics, identity, rights and international conflict. South Africans and Nigerians demand justice after deaths, while young Indonesians and Kenyans challenge economic policies and state conduct.

These movements differ in size, aims and political character. Some remain active in October; others occurred earlier in the year. Calling them one worldwide revolution would be misleading. Together, they show how rapidly unmet expectations can become visible political pressure.

Protests Revolts Rebellions — twenty nations on the global map

Classroom rebellion: France and Belgium

French high-school students began blockades in September 2026, demanding teachers, safer buildings and relief from overcrowded classrooms.
On October 6, students, parents and unions rallied nationwide, with official participation figures exceeding 2,50,000 people.
After serious protest injuries, authorities suspended certain stun grenades and promised reviews, while condemning violence and vandalism.
French-speaking Belgian students protested education reforms involving funding reductions, tuition increases and changes to teaching conditions.
Demonstrations spread through Liège and Brussels; some confrontations caused property damage and arrests, according to police.
Student organisers defended their movement as locally driven, although the French protests provided visible encouragement across the border.

Education or exclusion? Greece and Ireland

Greek school students called nationwide action for October 8 against class mergers, teacher shortages and unsafe facilities.
Organisers listed assemblies, boycotts, petitions and possible occupations, rather than claiming every school had already joined.
Their agenda also included school trips and examination arrangements, showing frustration with educational conditions and decision-making.
Ireland - On October 1, more than 1,500 students marched in Dublin against fees, expensive accommodation and underfunded universities.
The national students' union demanded abolition of the student contribution charge and stronger public investment in housing.
University leaders separately acknowledged a continuing funding gap, reinforcing demands for action ahead of Ireland's national budget.

Universities fight back: Argentina and Chile

Argentina - On October 7, more than 100 students entered Argentina's Education Secretariat in Buenos Aires seeking promised university funding.
They demanded implementation of a financing law passed in 2025, which President Milei's government has not applied.
The dispute centres on university budgets, salaries and student support; another national march was announced for October 15.
Chilean student groups marched in September against government education and security reforms, reporting confrontations with police.
Organisers said the demonstration had authorisation but was interrupted before its planned endpoint in central Santiago.
They announced another mobilisation focused on the 2027 budget and higher education funding, without confirming its outcome.

Working hard, falling behind: Spain and New Zealand

Spanish housing demonstrators protested soaring rents, evictions and limited affordable housing, with anger intensifying in early October.
The eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal became a prominent symbol of a crisis affecting several generations.
Government emergency housing proposals followed mounting pressure, but parliamentary divisions left key protections politically contested.
Nearly 10,000 New Zealand public servants walked out on September 9 after rejecting pay offers below inflation.
Strikes involved welfare, immigration and other government agencies, with rallies near Parliament and across the country.
Union leaders linked falling purchasing power with public-service cuts, while the government defended its broader spending priorities.

The economic revolt of Generation Z: Indonesia and Kenya

On June 12, Indonesian university students protested higher fuel prices, costly essentials and President Prabowo Subianto's spending plans.
Placards demanded cancellation of fuel increases and criticised government programmes that demonstrators considered fiscally wasteful.
Students also questioned expanding military involvement in civilian affairs; police restricted access to parts of central Jakarta.
On June 25, Kenyan protesters commemorated deaths during earlier youth-led demonstrations against taxation and government policies.
Families and activists laid wreaths near Parliament, demanding justice for people killed during previous police operations.
Police arrests during the anniversary gatherings reinforced broader concerns about accountability, civil liberties and the treatment of protesters.

Can institutions still be trusted? Serbia and India

Serbia's student-led anti-corruption movement continued into 2026 after the 2024 Novi Sad station canopy collapse killed 16 people.
Demonstrators demanded accountability and cleaner elections; on September 14, student-backed candidates formally submitted an electoral list.
The movement now confronts governing party candidates ahead of an October 25 parliamentary election, not merely street policing.
India's youth-led Gen Z movement and opposition groups protested electoral-roll and SIR processes, alleging wrongful voter exclusions.
Demonstrations in Mumbai and Delhi demanded the chief election commissioner's resignation; several Delhi participants were detained.
Election authorities deny deliberate manipulation and defend verification, making the competing claims essential to any factual account.

Power under pressure: Pakistan and the Philippines

In early October, supporters of Pakistan's imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan launched a march toward Islamabad.
His party demanded release, medical access and fair treatment after talks with the government failed to resolve disputes.
Authorities imposed travel restrictions and cited security concerns; Khan's party considers the charges against him politically motivated.
The Philippines - Student and civil society groups marched around September 21, marking the anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.'s martial law declaration.
They criticised corruption linked to flood-control spending and called for transparency, accountability and restrictions on political dynasties.
Philippine police described the demonstrations as generally peaceful; officials affirmed protest rights while warning against violent acts.

Political and personal freedoms: Brazil and Turkey

On October 7, Brazilian students marched in Rio de Janeiro before the presidential runoff scheduled for October 25.
Organised student groups opposed candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and openly supported President Lula, reflecting partisan electoral mobilisation.
Marchers also defended public education funding and expressed fears about democratic backsliding, making their demands broader than campaigning.
In September, Turkish police raided LGBTQ rights organisations, prompting demonstrators to gather outside Istanbul's Çağlayan courthouse.
More than 100 protesters were detained, according to rights monitors, amid a wider crackdown on civic organisations.
Government officials framed operations as public protection; human rights organisations argued they violated basic freedoms and due process.

Democracies under strain: Germany and United Kingdom

Germany - After a September state election victory for Alternative for Germany, citizens organised pro-democracy rallies across numerous German cities.
On September 12, tens of thousands protested far-right extremism, with some campaigners demanding consideration of an AfD ban.
The rallies represented opposition to the party's policies and electoral gains, not evidence that Germany had suspended democracy.
UK - On October 7, pro-Palestinian students marched in London, coinciding with commemorations of Hamas's 2023 attacks on Israel.
Protest organisers highlighted suffering in Gaza, while police imposed route restrictions amid fears of disorder and antisemitism.
Arrests occurred around related demonstrations, underlining competing concerns about lawful protest, public safety and protection of communities.

The fight for justice: South Africa and Nigeria

South Africa - Following the murders of nine women near Johannesburg, South Africans held memorial runs and protests in September.
Participants demanded stronger action against gender-based violence and greater safety for women in daily public life.
Police investigated whether killings were connected; protesters focused on justice and systemic failures rather than confirmed motives.
Nigeria - In September, protests erupted in Minna after more than 30 detained mining suspects died in security custody.
Several detainees were teenagers; authorities announced investigations and suspended officials as families demanded explanations and accountability.
A curfew followed unrest, while the cause of the deaths remained under investigation rather than established fact.

Conclusion

The unrest of 2026 is not a single revolution, nor is every protest led by Generation Z. It is a collection of distinct campaigns revealing shared pressures: education that feels unaffordable, wages that lag behind expenses, disputed political decisions, threatened freedoms and demands for justice. The outcomes are already diverging.

Some campaigns seek budget changes; others have become electoral movements, while several focus on investigations or the release of detainees.

History shows that protest can bring reform, backlash or prolonged stalemate.

What matters next is whether institutions answer specific grievances with credible decisions, lawful policing and timely, measurable, sustained results.

Antonio Gramsci quotation repeated at the end of the presentation

Value addition

Glossary and related terms

Antonio Gramsci: The thinker named beneath the quotation that appears as Images 1 and 13, concerning an old world ending and a new one struggling to emerge.
Civic mobilisation: Collective public participation to press for change. The session covers mobilisation around education, housing, wages, governance, safety and rights.
Student blockade: A protest tactic involving students preventing or restricting access to school premises, mentioned in the French high-school demonstrations.
Class mergers: The combining of classes, opposed by Greek school protesters who raised concerns about educational conditions.
Teacher shortage: An insufficient supply of teachers relative to need, identified among the grievances in France and Greece.
Student contribution charge: A payment toward higher-education costs in Ireland; the national students’ union called for its abolition.
University financing law: The funding legislation passed in Argentina in 2025 whose implementation students demanded during their October 2026 mobilisation.
Public-service strike: A coordinated work stoppage by government employees; New Zealand public servants protested pay offers below inflation.
Below-inflation pay offer: A proposed wage increase smaller than inflation, potentially reducing the real purchasing power of salaries.
Purchasing power: The goods and services a given income can buy, a concern raised by New Zealand union leaders.
Housing affordability: The relationship between housing costs and people’s ability to pay, central to the Spanish rent and eviction protests.
Eviction: The removal of an occupant from housing, central to the Spanish dispute described in the presentation.
Generation Z (Gen Z): The generation specifically discussed in connection with youth-led economic and political demonstrations; the slides caution that not all protests are Gen Z movements.
Fiscal priorities: Government decisions about what to fund. Indonesian demonstrators questioned fuel costs and particular spending programmes.
Anti-corruption movement: A campaign demanding public accountability for suspected wrongdoing, used here to describe student-led mobilisation in Serbia.
Novi Sad station canopy collapse: The 2024 station disaster in Serbia described as killing 16 people and helping fuel a student-led accountability movement.
Electoral list: A list of candidates formally submitted for an election, as student-backed candidates did in Serbia in September 2026.
Electoral roll: The official register of people eligible to vote; its revision became a disputed issue in the India section.
Special Intensive Revision (SIR): An electoral-roll revision process mentioned in the India section; protesters alleged wrongful exclusions, while election authorities denied deliberate manipulation.
Allegation versus finding: A distinction the session preserves by reporting disputed election and policing claims as claims unless officially established.
Political dynasty: A family network in which multiple relatives hold political influence or office, challenged by some Philippine demonstrators.
Martial law: A governing system involving exceptional military authority, discussed in reference to the anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s declaration in the Philippines.
Civil liberties: Personal freedoms protected in civic and political life, such as peaceful assembly and expression, raised across several protests.
Due process: Procedural fairness under law; rights organisations cited concerns about due process in connection with Turkish police operations.
LGBTQ rights organisations: Groups advocating the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities, central to the Turkish protests described.
Alternative for Germany (AfD): The German political party whose electoral gains preceded the pro-democracy demonstrations described in the session.
Public-order restrictions: Rules imposed to manage gatherings, including the London protest route restrictions discussed in the United Kingdom section.
Antisemitism: Prejudice or hostility toward Jewish people; the slides identify concerns about antisemitism among issues considered in policing London demonstrations.
Gender-based violence: Harm directed at individuals because of gender, the issue highlighted by South African demonstrators seeking greater safety for women.
Femicide: The killing of women or girls because of their gender; the South Africa graphic refers to anti-femicide mobilisation, while the text says police were investigating possible links between killings.
Deaths in custody: Deaths of people held by security authorities, addressed in the Nigeria section where investigations remained ongoing.
Institutional accountability: The requirement that public authorities explain their decisions and answer for misconduct, a theme connecting several otherwise distinct campaigns.
Political stalemate: A situation in which opposing sides cannot achieve an effective settlement or reform; the conclusion notes that prolonged stalemate is one possible result of protest.

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