‘It’s Going to Be the Image of the Revolution’

This photograph of Alaa Salah's appearance during a protest this week against President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has swept through social media.CreditCreditLana H. Haroun

Every once in a while an image appears that so viscerally frames the human story in a time of social or political paroxysm that it becomes a symbol. Such was the case this week with a smartphone photo taken during a demonstration in Sudan against the repressive regime of President Omar al-Bashir, as the protests that have been going on intermittently since December reached a new intensity.

In the picture, a woman in a white thoub and gold disc earrings stands on the roof of a car. She is caught in profile, mid-speech, one arm raised to the heavens, finger pointing upward, the other clutching her waist, amid a sea of heads and arms waving phones to record the moment. Posted on Twitter Tuesday by Lana H. Haroun, it had 50,000 likes by Wednesday morning and had taken on a life of its own.

Though the speaker has since been identified as Alaa Salah, a 22-year-old student, some people have dubbed her the Sudanese Statue of Liberty, others simply “the woman in a white thoub.” Either way, her picture has had resonance far beyond its place of origin.

“I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the image of the revolution,” said Hind Makki, a Sudanese-American anti-racism educator in Chicago who reposted the photo on all of her platforms.

She wasn’t the only one who thought so.

Riot police raced toward Ieshia Evans during a protest against police brutality outside the Baton Rouge Police Department in Louisiana in 2016. CreditJonathan Bachman/Reuters

A demonstrator blocked the path of a tank convoy near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989.CreditBettmann Archive, via Getty Images