In Senegal, there is mounting evidence of alternative job creation going on that eventually may attract Pay Yourself types. Let’s look at the figures.

There are 12.5 million people here. More than half of them are under 20 and this country most certainly harbours an explosive youth bulge of at least 30 percent of men between 15 and 29 years old. And what do they do? Go to jail? A few. Riot? A few. Go to war? Not yet. Emigrate? Most definitely.

Success stories
the headlines anymore but they still leave these shores. Some do very well indeed: there are stories of success for music stars, football players and indeed the occasional trader, entrepreneur or hustler.

But even rich economies don’t need huge numbers of imported sportsmen, rappers, let alone craftsmen, traders or taxi drivers. They do need unskilled hands here and there, for instance in construction or the hospitality industry. That’s where a lot of migrants end up, in the margins of the shadow economy. That story never reaches home.

Wrestlers
hile, the weekly magazine La Gazette published a list as long as my arm of violent incidents involving self-appointed “security” outfits. It is chiefly religious leaders who surround themselves with these fighting boys. But the ruling party has also taken to using gangs, locally known as “nervis”, to intimidate and harass the opposition. Wrestlers (another symbol of muscle for money and a huge business in Senegal), celebrities – they all hire informal and well-organised security outfits. Officially, these are illegal.

So here’s the question. Does the state, or do the religious leaders in this land have an opinion about this? It seems they do. It seems they think this is all fine and good. If these young men organise themselves and create their own work, well... the elites can sit back and relax, and damn the consequences. But these may be severe: how many more steps are we away from the emergence of a faintly religious protection racket? Ominous signs at this week’s pilgrimage to an important town in Senegalese Islam: Tivaouane. Youth were policing the decency of women’s attire...

Old Europe
And how many more steps are we removed from a local instalment of Operation Pay Yourself? Or are we witnessing, like we did in Old Europe all those centuries ago. The painful birth of new empires through mass emigration...? Longer established Diasporas have paid important roles in building expansive economies – think India and China. Why not Africa?

It’s probably of all these things. As for Gunnar Heinsohn’s youth bulge theory, I certainly have my reservations about it being a catch-all explanation of violence but it also seems to me that its core is valid. A society with a surplus of idle young men is a society heading for trouble. The leaders who run these societies have the same options their European colleagues had all those years ago. Create work for them. Lock them up. Send them packing. Or prepare to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

And finally, where does all this leave the West? Simple: at the receiving end of the youth bulges existing elsewhere in the world. After all, Old Europe sent its young men overseas for centuries; the rest of the world is simply returning the favour.