The One Piece Generation
The protest movement inspired by anime is fueled by frustration. Madagascar’s Gen Z is done waiting for light, water, and change — and they’re not afraid to say so.
Hey, this is Sham Jaff, your very own news curator.
Issue #444: This week, I’ve been watching how coverage framed the protests in Morocco and Madagascar. Many outlets bundled them together under “Gen Z protest,” which isn’t entirely wrong, as both movements are led by young people angry about inequality. But the scale and stakes aren’t the same.
In Morocco, the protests are loud, and three people have died. In Madagascar, at least 22 people have been killed since September. And yet, guess which story got more airtime? So, this week we’re starting where the spotlight isn’t: Madagascar, a country where people are risking their lives for things as basic as water, power, and dignity. You’ll also hear from one of the most surprising voices in the movement: Mister Malagasy 2024, who says neutrality isn’t an option anymore.
Beyond that: Haiti’s government is using drones on civilians, Japan might get its first far-right female prime minister, and somehow Lula and Trump are now on speaking terms.
Talk soon,
Sham
Mostly young people are protesting the government in Madagascar because of the big wealth gap and overall living conditions
What happened
Everything’s moving fast. Yesterday, Madagascar got a new prime minister: Ruphin Fortunat Zafisambo, an army general. President Andry Rajoelina appointed him after firing his entire government last week, a last-resort-type-of-move to quiet the mass protests calling for him to step down.
Didn’t work. The Gen Z movement behind the protests gave him a 48-hour ultimatum to resign. Unions are now joining in, the calls for a general strike are getting louder, and opposition parties say they won’t take part in any new government as long as Rajoelina’s still running the show.
Here’s where things stand — for now.
Why this matters: Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world. In 2022, the World Bank said three out of four Malagasy people lived below the poverty line. Out of a population of 30 million, that’s most of the country.
Tell me more
This started on September 18, when opposition politicians Clémence Raharinirina and Baba Faniry Rakotoarisoa called for protests over constant blackouts, water shortages, and corruption. They got arrested. A few days later, a Facebook page called “Gen Z Madagascar” appeared. It gained 100,000 followers in under a week. Their logo? The “One Piece” pirate hat. What began as anger over power cuts quickly turned into something bigger, more like a full-on protest against corruption, nepotism, and inequality. Protesters point to the Rajoelina family’s wealth as the clearest symbol of the divide: his daughter in designer clothes, his son at an elite Swiss school that costs more than most Malagasy people make in a lifetime. Meanwhile, residents go days without water and spend up to 12 hours without power.
Police responded with tear gas and live bullets. AFP journalists saw people wounded in the streets of Antananarivo. The UN says at least 22 people have been killed and more than 100 injured, though authorities deny it.
Good to know: Madagascar’s Gen Z isn’t alone. Their movement has taken notes from similar youth protests in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Indonesia. They also all used the “One Piece” hat. A local journalist tells BBC’s Focus on Africa: “What happened in Madagascar happened because of Nepal.”
Just like I did with the Gen Z protests in Nepal, I too wanted to speak with a young person on the ground. Usually, pageant winners stay far away from politics. Their job is to smile, wave, and keep things positive. But in Madagascar, that rule is starting to fall apart. Earlier this month, Midi Madagasikara ran a piece titled “Neutrality Is Impossible.” In it, Andy Rasolo, Mister Malagasy 2024, publicly called on artists, influencers, and public figures to pick a side. He criticized how peaceful protests over water and power shortages were being met with violence, saying “silence is a form of complicity.”
I wanted to hear more from him. So I reached out.
Here’s our full exchange:
whlw: Have you personally taken part in the recent demonstrations? If so, was it your first time joining a protest?
AR: For my part, my schedule didn’t allow me to physically take part in the demonstrations organized by Gen Z. However, thanks to the many live streams and posts shared on social media, I participated in my own way. Even though I wasn’t present on the ground, I made sure to share as much information as possible to mobilize as many people as I could.
whlw: What motivated you to do so — anger, hope, or a sense of duty?
AR: What drove me to join these protests, I believe, is the same feeling that motivates most Malagasy people. Our country has everything it needs to succeed: an engaged youth, unique skills, exceptional natural resources, and unmatched beauty. Yet we remain among the poorest nations in the world. Access to water and electricity — two basic necessities — is still difficult.
So yes, we’re speaking out because we’re angry about poor governance. But we also hold on to the hope that things will change. And I sincerely believe it’s a duty: when you’re aware of what’s happening in your country, and a movement rises to denounce injustice and defend our rights, you have a responsibility to stand with the people.
whlw: As Mister Malagasy, you represent the country on the public stage. What responsibility does that title impose on you in a moment like this?
AR: As Mister Malagasy 2024, I’ve had the opportunity throughout my journey to speak out about the challenges faced by Malagasy youth. That’s what truly drives me: supporting and encouraging young people to believe in their potential. Taking part in this movement is therefore a natural extension of my commitment.
whlw: Why did you declare that “neutrality is impossible”?
AR: Neutrality means not taking sides in a conflict. But I believe it’s unthinkable to remain neutral when citizens are demanding not luxury, but basic living conditions — water, electricity — and the government’s response is to send security forces not to protect the protesters, but to suppress their right to speak out. A person of sound mind cannot remain indifferent to that. And anyone who calls themselves Malagasy has a moral duty to support their people, because it’s the people who make the country.
whlw: In your opinion, what are the main demands of Malagasy youth today?
AR: Madagascar isn’t asking for the impossible: simply a fairer distribution of wealth, equal access to water, electricity, and education, and above all, an end to corruption. In short, the Malagasy people are asking for living conditions that are simply decent and humane.
whlw: Are these demonstrations driven only by the youth, or do they reflect a broader discontent within society?
AR: These demonstrations are often attributed to young people, since the movement was born on university campuses. But today it has taken on a whole new dimension: it brings together the entire country, across all social classes. That said, it’s true that we owe this collective awakening to the Malagasy youth.
whlw: What concrete change do you hope will come out of these mobilizations?
AR: On a national level, we hope to achieve the changes mentioned earlier. But personally, I also hope for a global awakening of all young people in countries that, like Madagascar, face similar challenges. The youth must rise up and take their future into their own hands. And with the tools we have today — especially the internet and social media — anything is possible.
The UN Human Rights chief said Haiti’s government likely broke international law by using drones to kill suspected “gang members”
Refresher:
Armed groups now control large parts of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and beyond. The country’s police force has been unable to calm the situation, and international help has been minimal. The promised Kenya-led “international mission” is... somewhere, just not here.
What happened
The UN’s top human rights official, Volker Türk, just accused Haiti’s government of using unlawful and excessive force in its fight against armed groups, including drone strikes that have killed hundreds of civilians.
Why this matters: Violence and hunger have forced 1.3 million Haitians from their homes, and many are living in conditions close to famine.
Tell me more
According to UN data, state forces were responsible for more than half of all deaths and injuries in Haiti this year. That includes at least 559 people killed by drone attacks, among them 11 children. Police units also executed 174 people accused of having ties to armed groups. One of the most shocking incidents happened late September during a drone strike on a birthday gathering in Port-au-Prince, a local community event where children were present. At least eight children were killed. Türk said most of these attacks “are likely unlawful under international human rights law.”
BTW: UNICEF in August said that children make up an estimated 50% of gang members in the Caribbean country.
What happened to the Kenya-led “international mission”?
Yes, the UN Security Council had approved a Kenya-led international mission last year to support Haiti’s police, but almost no countries contributed funding or personnel. In March then, Haiti’s transitional government turned to Vectus Global, a private security company run by Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater. The firm has reportedly been operating armed drones in Haiti, targeting what the government calls criminal networks. Neither the company nor the government has commented publicly on these operations.
What’s the UN doing now?
The UN Security Council recently voted to give the existing international mission in Haiti a bigger role and more resources on paper. The problem: it’s barely functioning. The force has far fewer people and funds than promised because member states haven’t sent the troops, money, or equipment they pledged. Think of it as the UN saying, “we’re scaling up operations,” while in reality, there’s hardly an operation to scale. But China and Russia (other permanent members of the Security Council) called out the move, “you just want to make it look like you’re helping Haiti”. Their argument is that the U.S. is doing the easy part (passing resolutions) without doing the hard part (providing real resources or addressing the deeper causes of Haiti’s instability, which include decades of failed international interventions).
Good to know: Haitian society, in particular women, demand to be included in this process. “Women are unfortunately the most disadvantaged by [the instability in Haiti], and see their rights being eroded daily. The international community must pay attention to Haitian feminists and human rights activists, putting their voices at the center of discussions. A Haitian solution must be found for a Haitian crisis because imposed solutions have never worked,” Nathalie Vilgrain, co-founder of Marijàn, told Amnesty International.
what else happened
Bad
USA / Eswatini: A U.S. deportation flight landed in Eswatini, carrying 10 migrants. This is part of a secretive deal between the US and several African nations to take in people deported under Trump’s new “third-country” program. Rights groups say it’s inhumane and insufficiently transparent: some migrants, including men from Cuba, Vietnam, and Yemen, have been jailed in Eswatini for months without charges. The U.S. reportedly pays the kingdom about US$5 million to accept up to 160 deportees, even though it’s a country where the king rules with absolute power and dissent is often violently crushed. (ABC News)
Indonesia: The death toll from last week’s school collapse in Indonesia has climbed to at least 60, making it the country’s deadliest disaster this year. The Al-Khoziny Islamic boarding school in East Java collapsed during afternoon prayers, trapping dozens of students aged 12 to 19. Rescuers are still sifting through the rubble, though officials say recovery efforts are nearly done. Authorities blame weak foundations and illegal construction on the upper floors. This is a common issue in Indonesia, where thousands of religious schools operate without proper building permits. (Kompas.id)
Nepal: Nepal’s been hit hard by nonstop monsoon rains. Floods and landslides have killed at least 47 people and left several others missing. Whole neighborhoods in Kathmandu are underwater, highways are blocked, and flights are grounded. The army’s out with helicopters and boats trying to rescue people. (Al Jazeera)
Bangladesh / USA: At a U.N. meeting in New York City, USA meant to discuss the future of nearly a million Rohingya refugees, not a single person from the refugee camps in Bangladesh was invited. Bangladesh says getting them travel permits and visas was too complicated, but Rohingya leaders say the conference is meaningless without their voices. (The New York Times)
Interesting...
Nicaragua: The UN is demanding that Nicaragua account for more than 120 people who’ve disappeared since 2018. The government has rejected international investigations, calling them “foreign interference.” (Reuters)
Morocco: Morocco’s World Cup prep just hit a wall. Gen Z protesters took to the streets demanding hospitals and schools instead of new stadiums, shouting “Health first!”. Three people are dead, hundreds arrested. (Reuters)
Israel / Gaza: Israel and Hamas just started indirect peace talks in Egypt over Trump’s new 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza. According to Haaretz, Hamas says it’s willing to distance itself from governing Gaza and even discuss disarmament, but it’s taking a firm stance on the release of high-profile prisoners like Marwan Barghouti. Israel, meanwhile, wants veto power over which Palestinians get released and refuses to free Hamas fighters who took part in the 2023 attacks. Israel keeps bombing Gaza, killing 10 more people on Monday, as negotiations began, and deported Greta Thunberg, Judith Scheytt, and other Gaza flotilla activists. (Haaretz)
Malawi: The elections are over. The name is Peter Mutharika. Mutharika is a long-time Malawian politician, and already served as president before (2014–2020) and just won the election again at age 85. He beat his main rival, Lazarus Chakwera, who had been president for the last five years. The two have faced off four times in national elections. Voters were frustrated with Chakwera’s handling of the economy. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, and under Chakwera, things got worse. Mutharika is saying, “Daddy’s back. I’ll fix things.” (Reuters)
Syria: Syria just held its first parliamentary election since Assad was overthrown, a big symbolic moment, but not exactly a democratic breakthrough. Most of the new MPs are Sunni Muslim men, only a handful are women, and just two are Christian. Voting didn’t even happen in Kurdish and Druze areas because of security and political tensions, leaving 21 seats empty. The government says it’ll fill them later, but people in those regions say the whole process wasn’t representative anyway. And while officials in Damascus celebrated the results, fighting broke out the same day between the Syrian army and Kurdish forces in Aleppo, showing how fragile this so-called transition really is. On the same day, spontaneous protests erupted in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli, located in northern Hasaka province in northeast Syria (Rojava), in solidarity with the Kurdish community in northern Aleppo, where tensions continue to escalate. (Al Jazeera, Rudaw English)
Japan: Japan’s (barely) ruling LDP party just picked a new leader, Sanae Takaichi, putting her on track to become the country’s first female prime minister. Takaichi wants the government to spend more money to boost the economy. Investors worry that could mean more debt, so the cost of borrowing (interest rates on government bonds) has already gone up. Japan’s financial markets are a bit panicking. (Bloomberg) The Wall Street Journal asks, “Has Japan Found Its Margaret Thatcher?” To which, whlw readers like you can now instantly say, “lol, what. Do you even know Thatcher?” without reading the article. Plus, Takaichi might actually be more far-right than Thatcher.
India: The country is talking about an elderly lawyer who threw a shoe at India’s Chief Justice BR Gavai during a Supreme Court hearing, shouting a religious slogan before being detained. The shoe missed, and the Chief Justice calmly told everyone, “chill”. PM Modi didn’t “chill”, condemned the attack as “utterly unacceptable,” saying it angered the entire country. (NDTV)
Good
Brazil / USA: Lula and Trump just had a surprisingly friendly call and now plan to meet in person. Yes, the same Trump who slapped Brazil with huge tariffs that tanked its coffee and beef exports. Lula’s hoping to talk him into lifting them. (Reuters)
Ghana: Ghana’s president John Mahama called the transatlantic slave trade “the greatest crime against humanity” and pushed for global reparations at the UN last week. (Capital B News)
Sudan: After more than 20 years, the ICC finally convicted a top Janjaweed commander, Ali Kushayb, for war crimes in Darfur. This is the ICC’s first-ever ruling on that genocide. He was found guilty of 27 brutal crimes, from mass killings to gang rapes. While he faces life in prison, the bigger names behind Darfur’s massacres, including Omar al-Bashir, are still free. (ICC)
Science: Three scientists, Japan’s Shimon Sakaguchi, and Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell from the U.S., just won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine for figuring out why our immune system doesn’t turn on us. They discovered “regulatory T-cells,” basically the body’s security guards that stop rogue immune cells from attacking healthy tissue. Their work explains autoimmune diseases like diabetes and MS, and it’s now guiding new treatments for both autoimmune disorders and cancer. (BBC)
Thailand / Myanmar: Thai authorities rescued 16 citizens who were lured into scam compounds in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region and forced to work in illegal call centers. (Nation Thailand)
recommendations
Listen to... two Oklahoma moms. Yes, two white women from Oklahoma, USA with thick Southern accents, Jennifer Welch and Angie “Pumps” Sullivan, host a podcast that’s very leftist (in a very red state). “I’ve Had It” started as a lighthearted show about everyday drama, like bad influencers or just life in red-state suburbia. Then they began ranting about politics, and everything blew up. Listen to the podcast here.
Watch… AI and Madagascar. Ever since I read Karen Hao’s book on AI and who actually builds it, I’ve been drawn to stories about the people in the so-called Global South doing exactly that invisible labor. ARTE just released a documentary on Madagascar’s growing AI industry. We meet a few data annotators (people who tell the machine what it’s looking at: a stop sign, a face, a car). David does it solo, earning about one euro every three hours. Elina, on the other hand, has a contract and earns around 120 euros a month. In a country where the average salary is 80, that’s considered good money. Tech schools are opening, and AI work is being sold as a way out of poverty. But most of these jobs lead nowhere — no protection, no regulation, no real career path. Some civil groups are trying to change that, while local engineers are building their own tools, like an app that detects cassava plant disease. Pair this with African wealth content creator Steven Ndukwu’s documentary from earlier this year on Madagascar’s class divide. Watch his piece first, then the ARTE one (just my suggestion).
Visit this exhibition, if you can. Moscow just opened what it’s calling the biggest-ever North Korean art exhibition outside Pyongyang, “A Country of Great People”. It’s showing more than 100 propaganda-style paintings that celebrate war heroes, rockets, and cheerful factory workers. This is just a very elaborate way to go “Instagram official”, both signaling how close Russia and North Korea have grown as both face isolation from the West. Read more about the exhibition here.
music video of the week
Smells like Okinawa spirit | Awich (Instagram) is what happens when your country hosts many U.S. military bases. Growing up in Okinawa, the female Japanese rapper was exposed to U.S. culture at an early age. As a young girl, she idolized Tupac and credits Tupac songs with helping her learn English. In her music video for her latest single “Wax On Wax Off”, she leans all the way into martial-arts imagery: dojos, karate aesthetics and people waxing cars. Yes, waxing a car means polishing it with a special wax to make the paint shine and protect it from dirt, rain, and sun damage. You spread the wax on the car’s surface, let it dry a bit, and then buff it off with circular motions, like “wax on, wax off.” The phrase became famous from “The Karate Kid” movie. In it, Mr. Miyagi makes Daniel (the student) wax his cars as part of his karate training. At first, Daniel thinks it’s pointless housework, but later he realizes the clockwise motion he’s been practicing, has trained his muscles and reflexes for defense moves.
on a funny note
Cameroon’s 92-year-old President Paul Biya faces an unexpected challenge as he runs for an eighth term in office: a viral TikTok video by his daughter Brenda Biya saying she will not vote for him.
The country is heading to the election on October 12.