While North African citizens demonstrated in the Arab Spring revolutions, a number of Angolan youths launched a movement against the regime and peace policies of President José Eduardo dos Santos. The wave of protests that emerged in Angola in March 2011 has revealed some of the social tension hidden behind an apparently peaceful and successful transition to democracy. The Angolan government is exploiting peoples’ fear of a new war in a country still recovering from a long civil war and is responding violently to youth protests.