MEENA KANDASAMY2025年9月26日A new visual grammar of resistance is being written across a vast arc of South and Southeast Asia, live-streamed in real time to a global audience.一种新的反抗视觉语法正在南亚和东南亚的广阔地域上书写，实时直播给全球观众。The abiding images are not of professional revolutionaries, but of ordinary young people pushed to the brink. They are of protesters lying on the canopied bed of a fleeing president in Sri Lanka, of gleeful crowds looting the Bangladeshi prime minister’s residence, of a Parliament building torched in Nepal. It is a visceral language of uprising for members of Generation Z who have nothing left to lose.这些难以忘怀的画面呈现的不是职业革命者，而是被逼入绝境的普通年轻人。画面中：抗议者在斯里兰卡总统逃亡后躺在他的华盖床上，欢快的人群洗劫孟加拉国的总理官邸，尼泊尔的议会大厦被付之一炬。对Z世代成员来说，这是一个出自内心的反抗语言，他们没有任何可失去的东西。In Bangladesh last year, Sri Lanka in 2022 and in just the last few weeks in Indonesia and Nepal, disaffected young Asians have overthrown or shaken the powers that be. It’s no coincidence that this is happening so widely. These are the consequences of the global decline of organized leftist and progressive movements.不满的年轻亚洲人推翻或动摇了当权者，这已在去年的孟加拉国、2022年的斯里兰卡，以及几周前的印度尼西亚和尼泊尔发生。这种情况正在如此大的范围里发生不是偶然的。这些都是全球有组织左翼和进步运动衰退的结果。In each of these countries, social contracts have been shattered by some combination of massive youth unemployment, corrupt and oppressive elites, economic crises and the widening chasm between rich and poor. Yet across Asia and beyond, progressive movements that traditionally would have championed these causes are fragmented, incoherent or decimated, incapable of positioning themselves with Gen Z as credible alternatives.在所有这些国家中，社会契约都已被某些共同因素打破：大规模的青年失业、精英阶层的腐败和压制、经济危机，以及日益扩大的贫富差距。但在亚洲各地和亚洲以外的地方，传统上本会倡导这些事业的进步运动已支离破碎、言语不清或势力单薄，不能让其在Z世代面前拥有可靠的替代地位。Unto the breach rush angry young people who have nowhere to turn except their smartphones. Social media is powerful enough to coordinate street protests, but there is no leadership capable of articulating an ideology and channeling fury into a post-revolution vision. It is the Arab Spring rebooted, this time in Asia.愤怒的年轻人迅速冲进这个缺口，他们除了智能手机之外一无所有。社交媒体足以协调组织起街头抗议，但缺乏能清晰阐述意识形态的领导者来将愤怒转化为革命后的愿景。这是“阿拉伯之春”的再现，只是这次是在亚洲。The Rajapaksa clan’s rule of Sri Lanka imploded after inflation soared and the country defaulted on its international debt, leaving millions unable to afford food, fuel and medicine. In Bangladesh, high youth unemployment and a job quota system seen as favoring supporters of the ruling Awami League contributed to its overthrow. In Indonesia, inflation, inequality and jobs legislation that was criticized as eroding labor rights and environmental safeguards lit a slow-burning fuse that exploded in violence last month. In Nepal this month, a similarly toxic cocktail incited deadly clashes between protesters and police that led to the prime minister’s resignation and a continuing power vacuum.通货膨胀飙升导致斯里兰卡无法偿还国际债务，让数百万人买不起食物、燃料和药品之后，拉贾帕克萨家族对该国的统治突然崩溃。孟加拉国的高青年失业率、以及被视为有利于执政党人民联盟的支持者的就业配额制度导致了该党的垮台。在印度尼西亚，通货膨胀、不平等，以及在批评者看来侵蚀了劳工权利和环境保护的就业法点燃了一根慢慢燃烧的导火索，并在上个月引发了暴力事件。本月在尼泊尔，类似的问题加在一起，引发了抗议者与警方的致命冲突，导致总理辞职和持续的权力空白。When anger erupts, it is directed squarely at the symbols of those whom protesters blame for hollowing out their futures: parliament buildings, presidential palaces and politicians’ homes.爆发后的愤怒径直指向那些被抗议者们指责挖空了他们未来的象征：议会大厦、总统官邸，以及政客们的家宅。These movements have coalesced through digital solidarity. Social media is not only the realm of far-right echo chambers and endless polarization. A substantial portion of Gen-Zers are also drawn to legitimate anti-establishment, anti-corruption sentiments that find voice online. It’s just that the tattered state of liberal politics, especially in this part of the world, means these young people have no unifying force.这些运动通过数字团结逐渐汇聚成形。社交媒体并不只是极右翼的回音室和无尽两极化的领域。大量Z世代青年也被在网络上发声的正当反建制、反腐败情绪所吸引。只不过——尤其在这一地区——自由主义政治的萎靡状态使得这些年轻人缺乏一股统一的力量。The left was liquidated in Indonesia under President Suharto’s 1967-98 regime and has never really recovered. In Nepal, former Maoist rebels who fought a civil war against the country’s now-disbanded monarchy entered politics only to engage in the same corruption and exploitation they had vowed to destroy. The left was consumed by ethnic chauvinism in Sri Lanka and had largely waned into irrelevance in Bangladesh.在印尼，左翼力量在苏哈托总统1967至1998年的统治下被清洗，至今未能真正恢复。在尼泊尔，曾与已被废除的君主制度作战的毛派叛军进入政坛后，也沦为他们曾誓言铲除的腐败与剥削体系的一部分。左翼在斯里兰卡被民族沙文主义吞噬，在孟加拉国则基本衰落成为边缘群体。Twitter fueled the Arab Spring more than a decade ago. In Asia today, it is Instagram and TikTok.十多年前，Twitter推动了阿拉伯之春；如今，在亚洲，起推动作用的是Instagram和TikTok。Gen Z is often disparaged as fragile and risk-averse, its worldview and attention span stunted by a diet of 60-second Instagram reels. The uprisings across South and Southeast Asia prove the opposite. This generation is not impervious to the real world, nor has social media kept it from engaging politically. On the contrary, it has become their most potent weapon.Z世代常被贬低为心理脆弱、不愿冒险，说他们的世界观和注意力被60秒的Instagram短视频所扭曲。但南亚和东南亚的抗议运动恰恰证明了相反的事实。这一代人并非脱离现实世界，社交媒体也未让他们远离政治参与。相反，它已成为他们最有力的武器。People did not come into the streets of Asian capitals and immediately start torching monuments. Protests turned violent largely as a reaction to state brutality, which provoked greater mobilization and radicalization on the internet and on the street. This was a political lesson learned for young people, who were forced to expand their scrutiny of the system of oppression beyond the initial demands for economic relief or political reform to seeking accountability for state violence.人们走上亚洲各国首都街头时，并不是一开始就纵火烧毁纪念碑。抗议演变为暴力大多是对国家暴力的回应，这种暴力激起了更广泛的动员和在网络与街头上的激进化。这对年轻人来说是一种政治教育：他们被迫将目光从最初的经济援助或政治改革诉求扩大到对国家暴力追责，进而全面审视整个压迫体制。In Nepal, there was an initial naïveté among young people on the street. A friend in Kathmandu told me that peaceful protesters intended to clean up after their demonstrations last week and even discussed setting up food stalls to feed their comrades. This festive innocence only turned violent when police shot protesters who tried to enter Parliament.在尼泊尔，街头的年轻人起初还带着一丝天真。一位加德满都的朋友告诉我，和平抗议者原本打算在游行后清理垃圾，甚至还讨论要设立食品摊位来为同志们提供餐食。这种节庆般的纯真氛围只有在警察向试图进入议会的抗议者开枪后才转向暴力。State violence also provided the tipping point in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. And Indonesia’s demonstrations metastasized across the country after the young delivery driver Affan Kurniawan — who found himself in the middle of a police crackdown on demonstrators — was run over and killed by an armored vehicle in Jakarta. Similarly, it was the self-immolation of the 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi in 2010 — after his wares were confiscated by authorities — that set in motion a wave that engulfed the Arab world.国家暴力也是斯里兰卡和孟加拉国抗议活动的转折点。在印尼，当年轻的外卖员阿凡·库尔尼亚万在一次警察镇压中被装甲车碾压致死后，抗议迅速在全国蔓延。同样地，2010年，突尼斯人穆罕默德·布阿齐齐因小贩摊被查扣而自焚，该事件引发的浪潮席卷了整个阿拉伯世界。Internet censorship, intended to stop unrest, only makes things worse. After hashtags like #nepobaby — which called out elite nepotism and corruption — went viral in Nepal, the regime saw online criticism as an existential threat. But when it shut down social media platforms, bottling up the public’s ability to blow off steam, this pushed young people onto the barricades. The state’s impulse to seize narrative control and blame enemies or the invisible “foreign hand” didn’t stop young Arab people before, and it won’t work in Asia today.旨在遏制动荡的网络审查只会适得其反。在尼泊尔，像#nepobaby（#二代）这样的标签在网上疯传，揭露了精英阶层的裙带关系和腐败行为。政权将这种网络批评视为生存威胁。当他们关闭社交媒体平台，试图压制公众的表达，反而把年轻人推上了街垒。国家掌控叙事、甩锅敌人或虚构的“境外势力”的本能过去未能阻止阿拉伯年轻人，如今也无法阻止亚洲的年轻人。The Arab Spring’s ultimate trajectory from hope to rubble offers a sobering preview of where this could go. The conditions fueling the Asian revolts persist. Without credible leftist or progressive alternatives to channel the anger, an arc of chaos looms — rage, military coups, sectarian violence.阿拉伯之春从希望走向崩溃的最终轨迹是对未来可能走向的一个深刻警示。推动亚洲抗议的那些深层条件依然存在。如果没有可信的左翼或进步力量来疏导愤怒，混乱的阴影将愈发逼近——愤怒、军事政变、宗派暴力。But something feels different this time. Asia’s Generation Z treats digital organizing not as a supplement to politics but as politics itself. Having watched older movements fail, they’re building something from scratch: decentralized, fluid and devastatingly effective.但这一次似乎有所不同。亚洲的Z世代并不把数字动员当作政治的附属品，而是政治本身。他们目睹了早前运动的失败，如今正从零开始构建属于自己的体系——去中心化、灵活、极具冲击力。They are finding their voice. Those in power ignore it at their peril.他们正在找到自己的声音。掌权者若视而不见，将为此付出代价。Meena Kandasamy是一位居住在印度金奈的作家。她是诗集《Ms. Militancy》和即将出版的小说《Fieldwork As a Sex Object》的作者，这是一本关于网络空间中的非自愿独身者、网红和极右翼势力的小说。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。