Luanda's burning again, but this time it's not the good kind of fire. No revolutionary hymns, no victory parades—just pure, distilled rage billowing from tire pyres and smashed shop windows. The kids are finally done pretending their parents' liberation party gives a shit about them.

It's 2025, 50 years since Angola told Portugal to fuck off, and the same dudes who "freed" the country are still running it into the ground. Except now, instead of fighting Portuguese colonizers, they're fighting their own people. Plot twist: they've become everything they once hated.

When Freedom Fighters Become the Enemy

Back in the day, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) were the good guys. Founded in 1956 by a bunch of Marxist intellectuals and guerrilla fighters, they spent two decades shooting at Portuguese soldiers and dreaming of independence. They got it in 1975, then immediately had to fight a brutal 27-year civil war against the US-backed UNITA rebels. Half a million people died. Cities got leveled. Entire generations grew up knowing only war.

The MPLA won, but victory fucked them up. Instead of building the socialist paradise they'd promised, they built something way more lucrative: a kleptocracy with revolutionary branding.

Enter José Eduardo dos Santos, who ran the show from 1979 to 2017. While Angola pumped out $335 billion in oil money between 2007 and 2010 alone, dos Santos and his crew funneled it straight into their own pockets. His daughter Isabel became Africa's richest woman by mysteriously acquiring stakes in everything from banks to telecoms. The family basically turned the entire country into their personal ATM.

Today, a third of Angolans live in poverty while Chinese-built skyscrapers cast shadows over slums without running water. The MPLA elite cruise around in bulletproof Mercedes, draped in revolutionary red like it's some kind of anti-corruption force field.

Democracy? What Democracy?

When the shooting stopped in 2002, everyone thought democracy would follow. Spoiler alert: it didn't.

The MPLA rewrote the constitution in 2010 to eliminate direct presidential elections. Now whoever leads the winning party automatically becomes president—convenient, right? Opposition parties get harassed, activists get arrested, and state TV is basically a 24/7 MPLA propaganda channel.

Take the "15+2" case from 2015: seventeen young activists got thrown in jail for... reading a book. Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy," to be exact. Their crime? Meeting in private to discuss nonviolent resistance. Some got tortured. Others spent months in solitary. Their real offense wasn't reading—it was thinking.

The economic game plan is equally rigged. IMF advisors draft policies that prioritize debt payments over people, while MPLA technocrats implement them without question. It's neoliberalism with revolutionary characteristics, and it's designed to keep the money flowing up while the masses get trickle-down bullshit.

The Spark That Lit the Fuse

This week's chaos started over diesel—a 33% price hike announced without warning, plus cancelled wage increases for civil servants. Taxi drivers went on strike first, but it spread like wildfire across Luanda, Huambo, and beyond. What began as fuel protests quickly morphed into a full-scale "fuck this system" moment.

The government's response was textbook authoritarian: over 1,200 arrests, live ammunition, tear gas, the works. Human rights group OMUNGA documented the crackdown while state media spun protesters as "vandals" trying to "sabotage" independence celebrations. They even rounded up some of those "15+2" survivors—apparently reading dangerous books leaves a permanent criminal record.

While state TV played cooking shows and traditional music, young Angolans were in the streets chanting against the very people who claim to have liberated them. The irony is so thick you could cut it with a machete.

The Liberation Movement Death Spiral

Angola's not unique in this clusterfuck. Across Africa, yesterday's freedom fighters became today's oppressors. FRELIMO in Mozambique sits on massive gas reserves while nearly half the population lives in poverty. Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF turned the country into an economic wasteland. South Africa's ANC presides over 30%+ unemployment while corruption scandals multiply like rabbits.

These parties all follow the same playbook: claim permanent revolutionary legitimacy, treat criticism as treason, and milk liberation history for electoral gold. Political scientist Steven Levitsky calls it "competitive authoritarianism"—keeping up democratic appearances while systematically rigging the game.

But Angola's version hits different because the contrast is so fucking stark. This country has Africa's second-largest oil reserves, diamond mines, mineral wealth that should make everyone rich. Instead, the UN Human Development Index ranks it 148th out of 189 countries. When your fuel is cheaper than elsewhere but your salary can't buy rice, something's deeply broken.

Where Are All the Artists?

Brazilian singer Jojo Todynho asked the question that's been haunting Angolan culture: "Where are the artists?" Back in the liberation days, musicians like Bonga were soundtracking revolution with songs that made Portuguese authorities nervous. Poets like Liceu Vieira Dias turned words into weapons.

Now? Crickets.

Most artists depend on state cultural funding, which creates a neat little self-censorship machine. Speak out, lose your grants. Play along, keep eating. Rapper MCK got arrested in 2020 for calling out corruption in his lyrics. Carbono Casimiro lived under constant surveillance for similar "crimes."

But digital spaces tell a different story. Young Angolans flood social media with protest footage, organize through encrypted apps, and create underground networks of resistance. They know silence equals complicity, and they're done being complicit.

Revolution 2.0?

As Angola gears up for its 50th independence anniversary, the MPLA is planning massive celebrations—parades, speeches, the full nostalgic circle-jerk. But what about the 60% of Angolans under 25 who were born after the war ended? They inherited peace but never prosperity, liberation but not freedom.

These kids aren't asking for ideological purity or revolutionary rhetoric. They want basic shit: jobs that pay living wages, healthcare that works, education that matters, and leaders who answer to them instead of Swiss bank accounts.

Current president João Lourenço tried playing reformer when he took over in 2017, launching anti-corruption campaigns and prosecuting some dos Santos cronies. But meaningful change requires more than scapegoating the previous regime while keeping the same authoritarian structures intact.

Real transformation means competitive elections, press freedom, civil society space, and economic policies that serve citizens instead of creditors. It means admitting that liberation was the beginning, not the end, of the freedom struggle.

The Kids Are Not Alright (And That's the Point)

The children of Angola's revolution aren't trying to destroy their parents' legacy—they're trying to fulfill it. They understand something the MPLA forgot: revolution isn't a historical event you can coast on forever. It's a continuous process of expanding freedom, challenging power, and serving the people who put you there.

The old guard can keep waving their liberation credentials, but that card's maxed out. You can't eat revolutionary history or pay rent with anti-colonial nostalgia. At some point, the romance fades and reality kicks in.

Angola's youth are reality kicking in. They're the unfulfilled promise of 1975, the dream deferred for 50 years, the revolution's unfinished business. And they're not going quietly into the night while their future gets sold to the highest bidder.

The MPLA spent decades telling Angolans to be grateful for peace. Now a new generation is saying: grateful for what? A country where oil billions disappear while we struggle for basics? A democracy that exists only on paper? A liberation that liberated everyone except us?

The revolution that eats its children eventually starves itself. Angola's young people get this. Whether their leaders figure it out before it's too late is the only question that matters now.

Because when you betray an entire generation, don't be surprised when they start looking for the exits—or the matches.