Choosing to attack Nairobi’s Westgate Mall on 21 September 2013,(2) the gunmen of the militant group al-Shabaab were lashing out at their truest enemy, the secular middle class. More than a desire to seek publicity and also revenge against Somalia’s neighbours who intervened to decimate the terrorists’ base of operations within Somalia, al-Shabaab gunmen were firing on modernity. The result was deadly and horrific, but ultimately ineffectual. Symbolism played an important role in the locale of the massacre. The mall epitomises Western values that have come to infatuate the African people. In some ways, both inevitable and disheartening, American-style commercial culture has supplanted traditional African culture in the lives of many Africans – certainly amongst the middle and upper class, but also amongst the vast majority of the poor who seek means to achieve the material wonders showcased in the media, advertising and mass entertainment. Of course, an Islamist fundamentalist sect has no use for traditional African culture either, intent as al-Shabaab is to replicate an 11th century feudal state under Sharia Law – today Somalia, tomorrow the world. The immediate target in the Westgate Mall attack was the West and those that the terrorists see as the West’s surrogate in Africa, Africa’s own middle class. Africa’s middle class are no one’s surrogates, however. They are Africans who are increasingly defining the continent.

The media chose to describe Westgate Mall as ‘an upscale shopping centre’. The mall is not. Gucci did not have a shop there, nor did Cartier or Louis Vuitton. What drew customers were the usual chain department stores usually found in African malls, boutiques, specialty shops, restaurants and the type of entertainment enjoyments that were hardly exclusive (on the roof of the soon-to-be-destroyed parking structure, a children’s fair was being held that Saturday morning) and were quite attuned to middle class tastes. What the Western media failed to realise in its reflexive view that Africa is perennially backward is that far from being uncommon and thus restricted to the rich, bright multi-level shopping emporiums are quite common throughout Africa today, from Cairo to Lusaka, Abidjan to Algiers. In South Africa they are everywhere.

Also ubiquitous is the middle class that habituates these malls. Demographically, Africa’s middle class represents the future.(3) It is a future of an increasingly educated and enlightened populace with widening tastes, appetites for consumer goods, mass entertainments, electronics and information technology.(4) Less doctrinaire and thus less likely to be influenced or enslaved by doctrine, aware of human rights and demanding these for themselves and their progeny, scrutinising and even sceptical of politicians and demagogues, Africa’s middle class is everything that appals al-Shabaab and may be Africa’s best bulwark against future dictatorships.

By its fundamental make-up, any middle class requires stability to thrive. Investments in homes, automobiles, consumer goods, and bank accounts and equity portfolios all require a sound and peaceful political environment to thrive or even exist. Conflict undermines the stability on which middle-class life is based. Warfare wipes out the middle-class lifestyle as surely as it takes actual lives. Corruption, crime and civil discord all make middle-class life a challenge to maintain.

Back in the day when Africa’s middle class was demographically insignificant, national political directions were determined by factors like ethnicity. Economic success depended not on personal accomplishment, but on membership in the ethnic group that held the reins of national power. Success could also come from membership in a dictator’s elite circle. Electoral power was achieved by demagogues playing to the ethnic loyalties of their supporters.(5) With Africans overwhelmingly poor, there was no need for candidates to trouble themselves devising sound economic policies that would ensure national prosperity and security – the type of things that would sway middle-class voters – not when it was simpler to appeal to ethnic pride and the greed of a country’s cliques of the rich and powerful.

Governance by ethnicity has, of course, been a disaster for Africa. Had stable governing institutions been based on notions of good governance and equality for all, ethnic violence would not have devastated countries. There would have been no Rwandan genocide pitting Tutsi against Hutu if government was run not by one ethnic group, but, rather, if government officials were elected on the basis of vision and merit, and government workers were hired on the basis of competency. Such leaders and bureaucracies would have ensured that the country would be developed for all, with opportunities for all. This would have happened if the socio-economic development of pre-genocide Rwanda had produced a middle class of sufficient size to have the necessary ‘clout’ at the ballot box to assert its own interests.

Africa’s middle class is not a bloodless demographic entity, but is comprised of human beings proud of ethnic and religious ties. However, they are sufficiently educated and affluent to know that their children’s future lies in equitable and peaceful nations and not battlegrounds where ancient rivalries dominate good sense. In a middle-class world, dictators do not have a chance.

Profiling Africa’s emergent middle class (fig 1)

A portrait of a middle class African transcends ethnicity, race and nation; and has a commonality identifiable from Cairo (where nine out of ten residents are middle class) to Cape Town (which since the end of Apartheid has grown to resemble Southern California not just in climate but in shopping options). Middle-class expectations for lives liberated by the Arab Spring revolutions that have not been realised (6) contributed to the political protests against Egypt and Tunisia’s governments.

The relative absence of a middle-class in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where the squandering of vast indigenous natural resources through corruption has ensured the impoverishment of a majority of the country’s population, may explain the perennial conflict inflicted upon the country. Unmet expectations to rise from poverty to some semblance of middle-class security is fuelling ongoing labour strife by South Africa’s working class.

Africa’s middle class has been classified by income level, which is always problematic given the wealth disparities within the economically variegated continent. A fairer definition for this growing demographic is this: A strata of society which has achieved a degree of consistent income that enables participation in the modern consumer culture, quality education for its children, and an ability to meet household needs with some funds remaining for savings and investment, and which shares common bourgeoisie tastes and desires for homeownership, and which obtained college education and upward economic mobility for its members and their progeny.

Africa’s middle class seeks comfort and security. They plan for the future and manage to balance modernity with traditional values and practices. In recent years, Africa’s middle class has been a marketing magnet and an electorate to be considered by politicians.(7) One hallmark of the middle class’ influence on the political class is a change that middle class sensibilities have brought to political rhetoric. During the post-independence era, African politicians thrived by appealing to largely uneducated masses through the use of populist rhetoric that masked leadership’s autocratic ruling intentions. Today, a new generation of politicians who offer policies and not just rhetoric. Actual plans and governing strategies must bear up to a more sophisticated voter scrutiny. With rising gross domestic product (GDP) levels throughout the continent, middle class numbers and influence, as well as the attention they engender from politicians and businesses, are destined to grow.

Popular criticism against police corruption led to a shake-up in Chad’s security forces early in 2013. The need for a discerning, informed and intellectually self-motivating population (all characteristics of middle class sensibilities) is at the heart of Chad’s education crisis. A middle class desire for affordable goods has contributed to the rise in sales of counterfeit goods. However, the negative effect counterfeiting is having on national economies and local businesses, and the lessening tolerance for inferior, bogus goods has prompted African middle class purchasers to press for greater oversight of this transnational crime.

Who makes up Africa’s middle class?

The 21st century finds, for the first time in Africa, a solidly established and numerically-significant middle class on a continent whose population was previously split between masses of the perennially impoverished, and high-living government leaders and cronies who looted national treasuries to finance lavish living. Arguably, because membership in Africa’s unstable ruling classes came and went, there were few permanent members of the wealthy class. Privilege was promiscuous in Africa. Meanwhile, the middle class gained grounds, absorbing some former ruling-class members whose descent did not land them entirely in poverty.

Africa’s US$ 1.8 trillion economy (8) is today not founded on the contributions of the poor and kleptocracies, but on a combination of conventional big industrial activity like mining, and the consumer spending and solid output of small- and medium-business people. Joining the latter are such middle class occupations as company middle-management, public sector workers, social services and health providers, including NGO employees who earn middle class incomes.

The middle class also represents real economic progress for a long economically-blighted continent. Stronger economies mean less unemployment, better social services and more social harmony for a country. The population has a stake in retaining the political and economic status quo that accounts for their prosperity, and they are less likely to be enthralled with demagogues’ disruptive appeals.

Indeed, the ranks of the middle class are boosted by the formerly poor.(9) Upward mobility is a demographic reality, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).(10) In 2010, 34% of Africa’s people (326 million) were earning middle class incomes in their countries, up from 27% in 2000. Upper-income earners actually decreased from 5% to 4% of the continent’s population during the decade, perhaps as democracy replaced rule by tyrant and cronyism, and lessened the number of politically well-connected individuals who grew wealthy through corruption. Concurrently, the number of the poor dropped from 64% to 60%, although the improvement was not universally enjoyed. Income levels increased in richer countries (e.g. Nigeria and South Africa) but stagnated or worsened in conflict-ridden or politically backward nations like Mali and Swaziland. However, the reality in those latter countries argues in favour of democratic reform and the continuing push for peace efforts in Africa’s remaining hotspots to boost economic prosperity and a concomitant middle class.

When France intervened in Mali in February 2013 and helped government forces quash the Tuareg rebellion, the motivation was to ensure the safety of France from terrorists based in northern Mali.(11) However, the destabilising of Mali by the rebel groups ensured that the country’s fledgling democracy could not deliver on its plans for uniformed national progress. Although the situation with the rebels is far from fully resolved, the situation for national peace apparently desired by the Malian population now has a chance to succeed. The necessary foundation for stable middle class growth exists.

Examining the AfDB’s older figures, we learn that a generation ago, in 1980, 70% of Africans lived in poverty. The middle class then constituted 25% of the population. On no other continent have so many people risen from poverty into the middle class in such a space of time. With population growth, another constant in absolute numbers, the middle-class has grown as well. Politically, this means a demographic that conservatively seeks to retain its hard-earned possessions and finds the stability it desires in democratic rather than autocratic, traditional or dictatorial governments. Economically, the hundreds of millions of middle class Africans represent a market for consumer goods that are both globally-known brand names and locally-produced items tailored for the African user.(12)

The absolute numbers also explain the proliferation of middle class environments throughout the continent, from residential neighbourhoods to private schools and shopping malls. 27% of Zambia’s 1980 population of 5.7 million people could economically sustain much less of such an infrastructure than can the 27% of Zambia’s 2012 population of nearly 13 million today, and this does not even factor for a rise in salaries over the decades.

In Nigeria, following a quintupling of GDP from US$ 46 million in 2000 to US$ 247 million in 2011, the financial group, Renaissance Capital, conducted a survey in 2011 and found that half of middle class Nigerians intended to purchase ‘big ticket’ white goods like refrigerators, stoves and similar domestic appliances.(13) 70% of middle class Nigerians were under age 40, indicating growth of the demographic from younger generations.(14) In Mozambique, 2011 saw the Port of Maputo expand its dedicated automobile terminal to accommodate consumer demand for cars shipped inland to destinations like Johannesburg, Zambia, Zimbabwe and landlocked countries further north. Further north in Africa, for instance, motor vehicle ownership in Ghana has risen 85% since 2006.(15) Given the disparity in incomes required to earn a middle-class ranking in various countries, car ownership is sometimes considered a more accurate measure of an individual’s entry into that demographic.(16)

Another material object that can indicate a person’s entry into the middle class is a home computer or a mobile device that is used for internet access. “The number of internet users, which can be used as a proxy for middle class lifestyles, has increased from about 4.5 million people in 2000 to 80.6 million people in 2008,” stated the AfDB report on Africa’s middle class.(17)

Middle class impact on resources and population growth

The AfDB estimates that Africa must increase economic output by 7% annually to provide jobs and enable the bank’s projections for an expanding middle class, which the bank nonetheless believes will happen.(18) This means more factories, businesses, construction, electricity usage, infrastructure of all kinds, and industrial waste and pollution. The environmental consciousness of the middle class for whom such progress is intended will determine how such growth is managed environmentally, or whether, once obtained, middle class lifestyles may be compromised by environmental unpleasantness.

Although the middle class craves stability, its own growth can ironically be a cause for instability. The environmental impact just mentioned is one example. Another is the need for more land, water supplies and arable land for cultivating food. These resources are strained in parts of Africa, and further competition for them can lead to conflict. However, it is in the interest of the competing nation’s middle class to negotiate peacefully for what it wants, lest conflict make desired resources too costly or even destroys them.

One thing we know about Africa’s century-long, resource-straining, environmentally-devastating population boom is that it can be mitigated by the middle class, whose families have less children on average than the poor. If AfDB projections hold, then 60% of Africa will be middle class by 2060, a strong mid-century counter action will exist against continuing population growth.

African middle class families adhere to budgets (or they will soon be middle class no more) in which needs and luxuries are balanced against income, and each new child represents not just another mouth to feed but proper clothes to purchase, enrolment in what is more often than not a private school, medical care and a desire to save for college educations.

A demographic that looks to the future

On a continent that for millennia has followed the timeless ways of never-changing customs, where past was present and present was past, the African middle class has as its greatest achievement the establishment of a sense of tomorrow, of a future of new possibilities obtainable by personal commitment. No wonder they are perceived as a threat and as an enemy to backward-looking ideologues and religious fundamentalist terrorist sects like al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The middle class is a forward-looking organism, and this demographic in Africa will ensure that the continent’s political and social structures will also be future-driven.

Any such organism that sees peace as instrumental to its survival and prosperity will exert pressure to preserve stability and harmony domestically and in relation to its neighbours. Any group that recognises conflict as a threat to its survival will actively seek ways to discourage conflict. Africa’s poor do not have influence over national policy. The rich of Africa, like the rich anywhere, are protected from conflict by their own wealth with which they can relocate to other countries or which they can use to purchase private security. The rich can even encourage conflict if they find they can profit from chaos. The middle class, however, has gained just enough worldly goods and security to fight for retention of these by seeking conflict-avoidance and demanding conflict-resolution.

Written by James Hall ⁽¹⁾

Notes:

(1) James Hall is Founding Editor of CAI’s Africa Monthly Monitors (AMMs) and critically acclaimed author, columnist and filmmaker. Contact James through CAI’s Conflict & Terrorism unit ( conflict.terrorism@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Dominique Gilbert.      
(2) Kabaria, J., ‘We will crush terrorism: Uhuru’, Capital FM, 22 September 2013.
(3) ‘Africa’s middle-class triples to more than 310 m over past 30 years due to economic growth and rising jobs culture’, African Development Bank, 10 May 2011.
(4) Ncube, M., ‘The making of the middle class in Africa’, How We Made it in Africa, 2 October 2013, www.howwemadeitinafrica.com.
(5) Abernathy, W., ‘Of democracies and demagogues’, Wild Bells, 12 August 2012.
(6) Mulderig, M., ‘Adulthood denied: Youth dissatisfaction and the Arab Spring’, The Frederick S. Pardee Centre for the Study of the Long-Range Future, 21 October 2012.
(7) Ojambo, F., ‘Africa’s fast-growing middle class’, The East African, 5 January 2013.
(8) ‘A continent goes shopping’, The Economist, 18 August 2012.
(9) ‘Building Africa’s middle class’, The Harare Herald, 3 September 2013.
(10) ‘A continent goes shopping’, The Economist, 18 August 2012.
(11) Diallo, T., ‘al-Qaeda rebels wanted Mali as base for global attacks: France’, Reuters, 8 March 2013.
(12) ‘Let’s make a market for locally-produced goods’, The Herald (Zimbabwe), 16 September 2011.
(13) Agabi, K., ‘Nigeria: Survey highlights growth of nation’s middle-class’, Daily Trust, 6 October 2011.
(14) Ibid.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Campbell, J., ‘Counting cars to measure Africa’s middle-class’, Africa in Transition blog, www.blogs.cfr.org.
(17) ‘Africa’s middle-class triples to more than 310 m over past 30 years due to economic growth and rising jobs culture’, African Development Bank, 10 May 2011.
(18) McGroarty, P., ‘Africa’s middle class to boom’, Wall Street Journal, 13 October 2012.