The Arab Spring was a decisive, if controversial, chapter in recent Middle East and North African history. Beginning in January 2011, the movement ended the old Arab order and toppled longstanding governments in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. While Arabs and international observers were initially euphoric, chaos and strife have engulfed parts of the region, as some nations have struggled in the power vacuums left behind by former regimes.
By contrast, a less heralded but still significant era of protests has unfolded in the past few years in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some have called this the “Black Spring” or “Sub-Saharan Spring,” but these terms are misleading because the protests are of a vastly different context and nature than the Arab Spring. For example, they are not revolutionary and they do not topple regimes. Instead, recent protests in Sub-Saharan Africa aim to safeguard democratic systems against regimes attempting to cling to power. With 12 general and presidential elections scheduled in 2015 throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, this trend—call it the “Rise of the African Street”—will likely play a role in political outcomes this year and in the years ahead.
Consider recent events in Senegal, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). As the Arab Spring began in January 2011, a group of young Senegalese rappers established the “Fed Up” movement to protest the frequent blackouts in Dakar. The next year, youth-led protests broke out when aging octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade convinced the constitutional court to allow him to run for a third term. In part because he had promised not to do so after his reelection to a supposed final term in 2007, Senegalese youth threatened to turn Dakar’s central square into Sub-Saharan Africa’s version of Tahrir. Thousands protested in the run-up to the election, and, to the surprise of many observers, voters resoundingly elected opposition candidate Macky Sall.
In Burkina Faso in April 2011, tens of thousands demonstrated across the country against corruption and the high cost of living. The following day, members of the military rioted, and President Blaise Compaoré fled Ouagadougou, the capital. Some believed Compaoré would soon fall, as had other leaders in the Arab Spring, but he weathered the storm, sacking his government and increasing military salaries. Discontent, however, continued, and early in 2014 two Burkinabe musicians established the “Citizens’ Broom” movement to sweep out corruption in the country.
Last October, Compaoré’s fate was sealed during his attempt to change the constitution and run for an additional term. As a means of organizing, protestors employed the Twitter hashtag #lwili (lwili is a traditional Burkinabe fabric worn by many protestors), and hundreds of thousands demonstrated, leading to 24 deaths and 600 injured. Ultimately, Compaoré used #lwili to communicate his resignation with Burkinabes the following day.
Like Compaoré, DRC President Joseph Kabila attempted to make a constitutional change this past January to extend his term, set to expire after the November 2016 elections. While his ploy was simply to require a census before the vote was held, critics called the proposal a “constitutional coup”, because a census would take years to conduct. Many saw the move as a preliminary step toward further constitutional changes that would allow him to stay in power indefinitely. After news of the proposal spread, young people took to the streets in the capital, Kinshasa, and in other cities. The police aggressively confronted protestors over four days of demonstrations that left at least 42 dead. Kabila’s government blocked Internet and SMS messaging for several days to disrupt protestors, but they responded to this unusual move by using voice calls. Diplomats from the U.S., France, Britain, and Belgium responded by pressuring the government to change the controversial bill, and ultimately the Senate abandoned the changes. Leon Kenga Wa Dondo, the Senate’s President, explained, “We have listened to the street.”
While the DRC’s near-term political future is very much in doubt, the relatively limited protests were a watershed event. The events in January marked the first time in the country’s history that a popular uprising had an impact on a political outcome. Perhaps equally intriguing, there are some early signs that protestors are supporting each other across borders. Recently, the Congolese government arrested more than 20 pro-democracy activists in Kinshasa and intends to deport three Senegalese members of the “Fed Up” movement and one Burkinabe member of the “Citizens’ Broom” movement.
The Arab Spring vs. the African Street
While it would go too far to describe these events as a Sub-Saharan version of the Arab Spring, there are some similarities between the two phenomena. Both were catalyzed by emerging demographic and technological trends: In the years preceding the Arab Spring, the Middle East and North Africa experienced a surge in the number of young people, of members of the middle class, of urban-dwellers, of the unemployed, and of users of social media.
All of these trends are perhaps even more pronounced across Sub-Saharan Africa. First, one-half of Africans are 25 or younger, and the percentage is expected to grow even more in the coming decades. The African Development Bank has called the continent’s youth bulge a “ticking, demographic time-bomb.” Second, the continent’s middle class (more accurately, the “consumer class”) is the fastest growing in the world and will exceed one billion by 2060, according to Deloitte. Third, young Africans are becoming increasingly better educated. Fourth, the continent is urbanizing faster than anywhere in the developing world, growing at 3.5 percent over the past two decades. Fifth, Sub-Saharan Africa has a vulnerable unemployment rate: 77.4 percent—the highest in the world. Finally, Africans have better access to each other and to outside information through the proliferation of cellphone and smartphone use; the number of mobile subscribers on the continent is estimated to reach one billion this year.
The differences between Sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region are even more telling, however. The Arab Spring was a call for democratization across the Middle East and North Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa, by contrast, had already experienced a wave of democratization, with most African countries experiencing political liberalization in the 1990s. While quasi-autocrats still linger on in many African countries, recent protests have been aimed at enforcing and strengthening existing democratic systems. In Senegal, for example, violent protests led not to a coup but to the election of a new President. Similarly, Congolese demonstrations played a role in protecting scheduled elections. Even in Burkina Faso, protestors sought first and foremost to protect their constitution and safeguard Presidential term limits.
Rising Street More Likely in Some Places Than in Others
Obviously, the African Street isn’t likely to rise everywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. Countries in which political leaders have a stranglehold on the traditional bases of power—for example, financial resources, military control, and support from external powers—are more likely to be immune to public pressures. For example, Angola’s vast national reserves make it unlikely that popular discontent will move the needle on policy issues. Similarly, it matters where the military’s loyalties lie. In Burkina, the military was largely sympathetic to the protestors and therefore did not quash their demonstrations.
Influential outsiders also have a significant role to play in the success of popular movements. In both Kinshasa and Ouagadougou, foreign diplomats sided with the street. For example, French President François Hollande said that Compaoré “needed to make the right decision”, and France facilitated his passage out of the country.
But even countries without a viable opposition might not be immune to the Rise of the African Street over the long term. With exponential increases in the use of technology across the continent, barriers to information-sharing, communication, and mobilization are more difficult to maintain. And as health, educational, and economic improvements spread (albeit unevenly), more and more people will demand a say in political processes.
Ten more countries face general or presidential elections in Sub-Saharan Africa before the end of this year; it is an important time for the voices of Africans to be heard. Perhaps the most significant such election is Nigeria’s this weekend; regardless of the winner in that contest, there will be protests, and it will bear watching how the winner responds to them.
Looking over the horizon, attempts by African leaders to stay beyond constitutionally mandated limits may serve as flashpoints for increasingly disillusioned young and middle-class people. Many African nations created two-term limits in the early 1990s, but Angola, Chad, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Togo, and Zimbabwe have since done away with those limits. Some observers believe that Burundi, Rwanda, Benin, and the Republic of Congo may also attempt to amend their constitutions during the next two years.
Almost 30 years ago, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said “the problem of Africa . . . is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.” Many have encouraged the practice of peaceful succession of power, most notably Mo Ibrahim. In the next couple years, a number of African leaders will have important decisions to make along these lines. In some cases, the African Street may help make those decisions for them.