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As protests in Burkina Faso, Africa augment in fervor and have led to the oust of Blaise Compaore, one of the longest serving African leaders, activists across West Africa hope that these uprisings will give impetus to a movement similar to the Arab Spring.
The oust of Compaore was sparked when the leader tried to extend his 27 year term by passing an amendment to the Constitution of Burkina Faso. His attempt was met with a heavy opposition from activists who are tired of the quasi dictatorship.
While the opposition in Burkina Faso has come to manifest with Compaore stepping down from power, it is only one nation that has an indignant plea waiting to be heard by the world. Opposition parties in Congo drew upon the protest in Burkina, to thwart efforts by their own long-standing president of over 35 years, Joseph Kabila. This turn of events should sound similar. If we look back to the Arab Spring, when protests in Tunisia beginning over a young boy abused by police, sparked movements all across the Middle East pushing for reform in the government and democratic policies. The set of circumstances that snowballed into this full-fledged movement are not as disparate as you might think from those present in Africa. Countries in the Middle East were, and still are fraught with poor living standards, crime, and inequality but so are those in Africa who are leaning towards the idea of a “Black Spring”.
Another country that has the “Black Spring” looming in the future and has been of particular interest of instability is South Africa. A country rife with crime, stagflation, and abysmal medical care for widespread diseases like HIV/AIDS, is teetering at the moment and many people believe that it has the potential to mirror the turn of events in Egypt in 2011.
The discontentedness of young citizens is a ubiquitous narrative in Africa at the moment, where the momentum that Burkina Faso initiated has long serving warlords fearful of a contagious revolution. Countries like Angola, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where activists have been waiting for their moment to rise, will most likely be the first countries to mobilize if a surge of protests were to come into fruition.
However, hopes of a revolutions spreading like wildfire across Africa is an unlikely prediction. In similar situations in the past, rich presidents have been known to placate the citizens till recourse of force in needed.
But, the fact remains that the concerns of a “Black Spring” are neither misplaced nor arbitrary. The conditions that led to massive movements in Tahrir Square in 2011 are not far from what is going on in Africa today. Growing ardency from the young citizens will become impossible to discount, and with the technological age we find ourselves in, protests all over the world will be recognized.
Pushes made by counties like Burkina Faso are providing the foundation from which a “Black Spring” can propagate. The hopes of the ordinary working class people who are part of these movements are that their cries are heard all over the world and that a united effort is made to produce the democratic changes they want.
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