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View all search resultsPop culture fuels youth-led protests against govt
From The Hunger Games to K-pop, Indonesian Gen Z protesters are turning familiar pop culture references into symbols of resistance.
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Protesters raise their hands in the three-finger salute, with their index, middle and ring fingers extended, symbolizing freedom, solidarity, equality and resistance to injustice and government policies, during a demonstration against economic hardship, corruption and the government’s handling of devastating wildfires that have blanketed the area in toxic haze and sickened thousands of people, along Jalan MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta on Oct. 28, 2026. (JP/Iqro Rinaldi)
A
large, red-lettered poster carried by university students during an October protest at the landmark Hotel Indonesia (HI) traffic circle in Central Jakarta sent a chilling message: “If we burn, you burn with us.”
The message was a rebuke to the government's perceived failure to contain raging forest and
peatland fires across the country, whose toxic haze has caused respiratory problems in Indonesia
and neighboring countries.
The line was made famous by The Hunger Games, an American novel-turned-film franchise
released in the 2010s about the youths’ struggle against an authoritarian government in the
fictional nation of Panem.
