Description
Over the past few months the world has witnessed how citizens around the globe have taken to protest in cities. Protesters have staged their discontent on streets and squares. Connected through the internet,
protesters in one city have been inspired from events in cities elsewhere. The second decade of the 21st century has been a decade of massive street protests heralded by the Arab Spring. The protagonists of
these mobilisations have been cities and urban youth, among them a conspicuous number of young women. Analysts see in this civic unrest a “leaderless revolution”(Brannen, 2019) pushed by global threats such
as failing political institutions, corrupt ruling elites, economic inequality, social and spatial injustice, and the impacts of climate change (Brannen, 2019; BBC News, 2019; Eurotopic, 2019; Krummenacher 2019; Marris, 2019). These analysts applaud that the protesting youth left behind political apathy and disengagement repeatedly criticised during recent years by politicians, educators and scholars in many parts of the globe (Bousbah, 2014; Conpes, 2014; Rothenbühler et al., 2012; Farthing, 2010). Some analysts demanded immediately to channel young people’s street energy into participation in voting and electoral politics to make them politically recognisable (Brannen, 2019).
