Africa Is a Country

Sunday Ephemera No.5

Sunday Ephemera No.5

By
Sean Jacobs

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZyd-vDzKlg&w=500&h=307&rel=0]

I am still trying to figure out what Kate Bush‘s 1979 tune “Egypt” and its video (part of a Christmas Special in the UK) is all about. I Newsreel, orientalism, and an odd plot (Kate gets threatened by what looks like Egyptian government goons at the end? Is this a protest against authoritarianism?), doesn’t help.

If you still care, here’s the lyrics:

Follow the Nile
Deep to much deeper.
The Pyramids sound lonely tonight.
The sands run red
In lands of the Pharoahs.
Their symmetry gets right inside me.

I cannot stop to comfort them.
I’m busy chasing up my demon.
I cannot stop to comfort them.
I’m busy chasing up my demon.
Oh, I’m in love
With Egypt.

My Pussy Queen
Knows all my secrets.
I’ll never fall in love again.
I drift with dunes.
I whisper of the tombs.
They offer me Egyptian delights.

She’s got me with that feline guise,
Got me in those desert eyes.
She’s got me with that feline guise,
Got me in those desert eyes.
Oh I’m in love
With Egypt.

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.

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?

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.