I have been thinking about the relationship between polarisation and youth-led protests for the better part of this year. This note is an initial foray into the topic as a way to build a much broader body of thinking on the links between the two, often competing, themes.

Africa has had its fair share of conflicts that have their roots in ethnic, religious, and resource divisions. Often, these conflicts, even when triggered by other social, economic, political, or cultural grievances, are fuelled by interested actors’ stoking of these differences – and they often succeed. Some of the most devastating conflicts on the continent have been the result of some combination of these factors.

At the same time, the continent has also witnessed a high level of youth-led protests. Over the last decade and a half, there has been a wide array of protests led by young people in almost every country. These protests are triggered by unfavourable economic reforms, governance challenges, and drastic changes in material conditions. One characteristic of these protests that stands out is that, unlike other forms of conflict, they bring people across divides together in more ways than not and are often not inhibited by the differences or polarising factors that lead to conflict – at least not at their beginnings.

In that regard, non-political, issue-based, non-violent protests, depending on their focus and trigger, could be considered a win for anti-polarisation efforts. They show what is possible when there is a shared grievance and a unifying agenda – what Philip Howard calls an “inciting incident” – and their abrupt, often violent, end explains why societies are so divided. The Nigerian #EndSARS protests of 2020 and the Kenyan Gen-Z protests of 2024 exemplify how protests reflect this trend. These two countries have historically experienced deep ethnic, and, in the case of Nigeria, religious differences. Nigeria’s current insurgency has its ideological roots in religion (although there is also a resource exploitation or control explanation). Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence also has its roots in ethnic differences. Thus, these two countries offer good case studies of protests as unifying moments.

The 2020 #EndSARS protests in Nigeria started as a national effort, led by Nigeria’s middle-class youth, including entertainers and tech leaders, among others. The protests were fairly well organised. Each day, protesters in Lagos cleaned the streets where they gathered and maintained firm control over the behaviour of those who turned out. There were no initial references to ethnic or religious differences. The demands of the protesters also generally focused on nationally relevant issues, many of them related to police reform and welfare. In that sense, #EndSARS represented a rare national consensus that transcended the usual lines of division.

Similarly, the Kenyan #Gen-Z protests also began as a national effort to roll back the proposed finance bill. At the heart of the protests was the call to halt the bill’s passage, which would have seen a further hike in taxes. Essentially, the young protesters did not want the bill to pass through parliament; hence, their initial strategies included calls to #OccupyParliament. This, too, had a national appeal due to the shared grievances of young people and, subsequently, their shared political goal. The protest, at least initially, did not carry the historical baggage of ethnicity that had bedevilled the country previously.

As both protest movements show, when there are shared grievances across groups, other differences tend to recede, and people become more unified in their quest for shared outcomes. It is important that these moments are examined closely to learn from them—specifically, how societies could better harness their shared interests and build on them to foster social cohesion. This is critical given the growing mobilisation of polarisation as a tool to advance political outcomes in ways that threaten societies, as well as norms of accountability and trust in institutions – factors that underpin democracies around the world.

Understanding these movements should form part of a broader inquiry into how unity emerges and dissolves. While this note narrowly focuses on the ability of young people to transcend ethnic, religious, and other differences – and what makes this unity possible – this groundwork could inform a much wider inquiry. Some key questions for such an inquiry include: What does the shared grievance-frustration framework tell us about what brings people together for or against a cause? What other principles explain how people in societies find shared interests or unifying agendas? How do these principles appear in youth-led protests? How can they be replicated in building social cohesion and begin to roll back the factors that drive polarisation?

An intergenerational perspective may also help. For example, does the relative absence of historical baggage (or inherited animosities) explain why these young people tended to act differently during the protests? If so, can this be leveraged in designing civic programmes that promote shared purpose across divides?

Such insights could also inform a practical “playbook” for youth-led protest movements. For example, in the two protests referenced, the breakdown of a common grievance explains the collapse of the protests. In both cases, this breakdown resulted in the criminal destruction of public and private assets. How did this happen? Did the arrival of parties other than those protesting introduce historical axes of difference? There have been references to goons and hoodlums as purveyors of such breakdown. At the most basic level, one could argue that the lack of shared interests between these purveyors and the originators of the protests created friction that resulted in a breakdown. In the Nigerian protests, five demands were made for the release and compensation of victims of police brutality, police reforms, and improvements in police welfare. In the case of the Kenyan youth, the primary demand had initially been the halting of the country’s finance bill pending before parliament. With the arrival of goons and hoodlums, new agendas were brought to the table, and these positions were no longer shared, thus resulting in a fracturing.

This dynamic offers a window into how societies remain divided – and how political actors actively sustain division. Polarisation thrives where there is no shared vision of the past, present, or future. Competing narratives of history and destiny are deliberately instrumentalised to fracture societies and consolidate power. Yet the unifying moments created by youth-led protests show that another path is possible. In short, the intersection of youth-led protests and polarisation reveals how shared grievances can temporarily dissolve entrenched divisions. Therefore, studying these moments of collective unity can offer a blueprint for rebuilding trust, fostering social cohesion, and strengthening democracy in deeply divided societies.