AfricaIs aCountry

The Soap Bar

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

The Soap Bar

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o6Rxc_JZKg&w=480&h=295]

Sudanese went to the polls yesterday and will do so again today in two days of voting for a new president or in the case of a depressing scenario that the controversial incumbent, Omar Al-Bashir, gets another term. The latter scenario is more likely. However, one outstanding feature in this depressive scenario has been the Girifna Movement, a social movement, that encourages people to vote and works for peaceful change in Sudan. This is an ad they’ve created for the election and their use of media.

In the ad above, a man washes a dirty t-shirt with the image of Al-Bashir on it.

The ad says something like this:

If you are disgusted don’t worry there is Girifna soap bar!
It would not be easy after 20 years with out change
You will have to scrub, scrub and scrub then squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and squeeze,
But you will like the result
girifna soap bar for the future of Sudan!
I bet Nicholas Kristof won’t report this because it does not fit his picture of Sudan.

Further Reading

No one should be surprised we exist

The documentary film, ‘Rolé—Histórias dos Rolezinhos’ by Afro-Brazilian filmmaker Vladimir Seixas uses sharp commentary to expose social, political, and cultural inequalities within Brazilian society.

Reading List: Barbara Boswell

While editing a collection of the writings of South African feminist Lauretta Ngcobo, Barbara Boswell found inspiration in texts that reflected Ngcobo’s sense that writing is an exercise of freedom.

Kenya’s stalemate

A fundamental contest between two orders is taking place in Kenya. Will its progressives seize the moment to catalyze a vision for social, economic, and political change?

An annual awakening

In the 1980s, the South African arts collective Vakalisa Art Associates reclaimed time as a tool of social control through their subversive calendars.

More than a building

The film ‘No Place But Here’ uses VR or 360 media to immerse a viewer inside a housing occupation in Cape Town. In the process, it wants to challenge gentrification and the capitalist logic of home ownership.