Introduction
As history reminds us, it is never easy to achieve and maintain a fair balance between an on-going struggle for democracy and political stability. Even more so in a greatly diverse and rapidly evolving African continent. For instance, the broader outcome of the 2011 Arab Spring looks still cloudy and controversial (particularly in Egypt, with new street protests against President Mursi and an upcoming Constitution referendum vote). And the December 7th election in Ghana for a new President and Parliament is considered by many observers as a “model for democracy in Africa.” While being acutely aware of the challenges ahead, African people are growing weary of a portrayal of a powerless continent, as in The Economist cover story mentioned above. There is a broader awareness for pursuing a fairer image of their countries, particularly by providing space and venues to actual African voices. Citizens are putting forward initiatives that showcase self-agency in solving local and regional issues. They specifically take exception of what they perceive as unfair or biased portrayal of the continent by outside observers. It is not by chance, then, that the campaign Kony2012 became an exemplary platform for African voices to take a stand in the ensuing debate. Kony2012 launched last Spring with a viral video aimed at making Ugandan guerilla leader and wanted war criminal Joseph Kony “famous” in order to raise support for his arrest. The campaign swept the Internet by storm, prompting a wave of backlash from many Ugandans, worried about the oversimplification of this message and its misleading outcome. As a result, a collaborative counter campaign promptly came about to highlight other aspects of the continent that are mostly ignored or underestimate by external observers. Taking full advantage of social media and other online platforms, African citizens have snatched the rights to tell their own story and there is no looking back. Expanding citizen empowerment This example underlines the increasingly powerful rise of technology in the whole continent. However, Internet and mobile telephony mirror the uneven evolution outlined earlier. Whilst Senegal can boast an amazing mobile penetration rate of 88%, only 0.2% of the population in Sierra Leone currently have access to the Internet. Probably the positive impact of technology is most evidently felt in Kenya, where M-PESA, a mobile money platform that has 68% market share and 14.9 million users, has proven to be a major player in driving the economic 7