Apathy, anarchy, activism: three paths ahead for Africa
Africa’s youth face a choice where waiting, rebelling or taking action will shape the future.
Across Africa, millions of young people find themselves stuck in waithood. They stand at a crossroads, confronted with systems that seem unyielding and futures that feel just out of reach.
'Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.' ~ Barack Obama
“Waithood” refers to young adults who cannot find gainful employment and lack any clear path to independence or achieving the core markers of adulthood, such as having the resources to set up a home or start a family of their own, and are, as such, effectively trapped in a form of involuntarily extended childhood through their dependence on their state and/or their families. Waithood effectively immobilises young adults in cycles of poverty and shuts them out of the full potential of their own futures.
For the majority of young Africans across the continent, waithood—waiting for an opportunity, a job, a chance, or a seat at the table—is the reality. For young Africans, this prolonged state of waiting is more than an economic challenge; it is a slow erosion of agency and aspiration. Without viable pathways, their potential remains unrealised.
The proximate result of mass “waithood” is frustration at a system that appears to have no space for the next generation. Suffocated by older generations that cling onto power (the median age of African political leaders is 63, in contrast with the median age of Africans themselves: 19) Africa’s Generation Z is growing tired of waiting for their turn.
According to qualitative ethnographic research in the 30/30/30 Project (a joint study by Flux Trends and Student Village), their responses to their seemingly closed-off futures could take three alternative and interlinking paths: apathy, anarchy and activism.
Firstly, the dominant response to a world that seems closed off and inaccessible, a world where the young African finds themselves outside the global economy, is that of apathy. Apathy, or simply giving up, giving up looking for a job that seems impossible to find, giving up standing in line to vote for a party—any party—that will give promises but no results or space for young voices, is the most common thread among not just African youths, but indeed the entire global under-30 generation, from the Tan Ping or Lying Down Flat movement in China, where youths are giving up on ambition and hard work that seems to get them nowhere, to US social influencers encouraging their followers to embrace "minimum effort Mondays” rather than attempt a perilous climb up the corporate ladder. Indeed, youthful apathy may make more sense in the global East or West, where ageing populations mean younger generations are literally outvoted and outnumbered by their elders, but in Africa, where the young represent a far greater share of the economy and the electorate (around 70%) than the old, apathy is a more perplexing tragedy. United, Africa’s youths have the numbers to write the future history of their choice (or not)—for better or worse.
The second archetypal response, while significantly less common, is even more concerning: anarchy, or the pernicious idea that if you cannot join them, break them. A bubbling resentment at a society that shows its young no kindness or respect can flare up spontaneously—or be harnessed by a leader and/or an idea into a form of revolution. Here, the Arab Spring movements which only succeeded in replacing authoritarianism with more populist authoritarianism should be a warning to any nation with a large population of “youth-adults” locked in limbo with nowhere productive to direct their youthful energy and ambition. In Nigeria, the 2020 End SARS protests showed how youth-led activism can challenge entrenched power, but also how resistance is often met with violent repression.
The African continent has had more than enough experience with conflict to desire any more anarchy and accelerationism—or see them as long-term solutions to our undeniable challenges. While the impulse to dismantle broken systems is understandable, history shows that rebellion alone rarely leads to lasting progress. Without structured alternatives, anarchy often leaves a vacuum that is filled by either renewed authoritarianism or prolonged instability.
The third response, however, offers some hope. Faced with an untenable present, a small yet powerful percentage of disenfranchised young adults is neither giving up, nor choosing chaos and crisis. The activist response chooses to confront reality with pragmatic optimism, courage and constructive motion. Here, we do well to see how lone and lonely voices of change have and continue to exercise an outsize influence on history, past and future. Kenya’s 2024 youth-led tax protests, despite the disproportionately violent government response, are a case in point. The protests led to a reversal of the proposed tax hikes that would have further sold the younger generation into effective debt peonage limbo to pay off the debts of the older generation. Instead, now Kenya will have to include younger voices in more generationally equitable future solutions to the problems of the past. Such recent events suggest that the tide may be shifting. They highlight the power of sustained, organised activism over reactionary rebellion or passive disengagement.
Infographic depicting key outcomes of the 30/30/30 Project. Click here to zoom in.
These three paths should seem familiar. The choices echo Albert Hirschman’s treatises on the core set of options available to any individual in response to any society they find themselves in: Exit, (categorised by active destruction, or Anarchy), Voice (categorised by active construction, or Activism), and Loyalty (categorised by passive acceptance of the status quo, or Apathy). They also remind us that ultimately, only the active voice and participation of all citizens with a stake in Africa’s future, especially those who are the future, can or will help us break the cycle of waithood and allow our continent’s youth to collect their collective demographic dividend. It is a powerful force, but its potential will only be realised if more young Africans choose to engage rather than withdraw or destruct. Africa’s youth hold both the numbers and the potential to rewrite their future. The question is—will they choose to wait, rebel, or take action?
Image: TobiJamesCandids/WikimediaCommons
