Why Gen-Z focuses on collective justice over individual legacies

This week, in light of recent events, I wanted to talk about symbols and how they evolve.

Freedom fighters everywhere have been immortalised for what they did for the cause, how they suffered and died. In some cases, they are lucky enough to come out the other side, that despite the blood, their cause was righteous and they deserve any laurels they receive after liberation comes.

In other cases, in too many, the leader holds on to power too long, and the movement passes them by. The cause is forgotten for the vision of one, and the revolution ends.

But sometimes, rarely, a symbol will persist. We all know that image of Che Guevara that has decorated many a flag and T-shirt of a politically active college student. For my generation though, there is much more investigation or criticism towards the figure, and instead the belief that the movement should always be centred, members of marginalised groups platformed rather than used as political cudgels.

This is the case with Palestine, specifically Palestinian liberation, and the death of Yahya Sinwar.

In spite of so much of what he did in his life, his hopes for a free Palestinian people with a nation to call their own was legitimate. Sinwar’s death — how, where, and why — is not the end of the movement, but rather a sign that it will march on.

Literally broken and missing a piece of himself, and still finding the will to fight an enemy so much more powerful, insidious, and technologically advanced than himself, and then to have his death touted as some sort of great and final victory? So politicians in the West may signal the merits of slaughter?

When was the last time a movement died with a leader?