Soap Created the Third World

Though we think nothing of bathing and the use of soap today, both began as unknown, expensive commodities in Europe. Soap became a type of cultural system for representing social hierarchy; first reserved for the elite classes, soap eventually became available to the masses. It has been said that "Europe [was] literally the creation of the Third World," with particular reference to the social history of soap. In a sense, Europe created the Third World through the colonization of such countries as Africa; without Europe and its influence, the Third World would not and could not exist as it did. Although it seems that Africa was at a significant advantage, being influenced by European civilization; this same influence, however, also led to commodity racism.

References to the "Third World," denote a lesser world, as compared with the superior, more advanced European civilizations. Soap first became a prevalent commodity in Europe and then eventually its influence spread to Africa, particularly encouraged through the use of advertisements.

In one of the first advertisements "a black man stands alone on a beach, examining a bar of soap he has picked from a crate washed ashore from a shipwreck" (212). The idea of this ad centered around the myth of first contact and the birth of civilization in Africa. Considered by the Europeans to be incredibly primitive in their culture and experience, this advertisement implied that civilization was born the instant the black man made first contact with Western civilization and Western goods; thereby clearly classifying the black man as inferior to the white man.

Another popular soap advertisement depicts an even clearer distinction between the European perceptions of the white man and the black man. This advertisement featured a black child and a white child in a bathroom:

…the black child is out of the bath and the white boy shows him his startled visage in the mirror. The black boy's body has become magically white, but his face - for Victorians the seat of ration individuality and self- consciousness - remains stubbornly black (214).

This representation is also demonstrative of the white man's burden, the responsibility of bringing the black man to the brink of civilization through culture and commodity. It is in this very way that European colonization led to the creation of the Third World in Africa.

Soap and bathing helped Africans to become a more civilized group in the eyes of the Europeans. Still, the use of European soap advertisements - which clearly demonstrated commodity racism and the superiority of the white man - did not allow Africa to become anything more than a Third World nation.