What lobby groups must understand, is that cartooning is a double-edged sword. When it satirizes in their favour, they welcome it, but when cartooning exposes their own failures, weaknesses, and contradictions, they invoke “their right to dignity not being violated”, and attempt to silence cartoonists through court actions and the like.

The same applies to some countries in the Middle East, who “live the modern life” but have not fully embraced modern liberal values. they allow cartoons in their media, provided they caricature “the West”. the moment they criticize local policies, attitudes and laws, they get thrown into jail. It brings to mind the recent persecution of a Saudi cartoonist.

Back home, it is highly unfortunate that so-called liberals such as Vavi, Mantashe, and the broader ANC, pick and choose when political satire suits them and when not.

Betraying his vows having sex outside of marriage.
Parading gross ignorance and callousness about AIDS and casual sex.
Handles his personal finances so bad that he risks being corrupted by unscrupulous opportunists like Mr. Shaik.

Rather than striving to a higher moral ground he chooses to sue the very people that should act as our guardians of scrutiny in our country’s leadership.

Mr. Shapiro is a cartoonist and in the end those cartoons are just his own (possibly skewed) view of things.

The issue is not whether Shapiro drew a derogatory cartoon or not – or whether Mr. Zuma should sue or not. The issue is that Mr. Zuma’s actions of the ANC’s leader exposed him to be a weak exploitable person – easy fodder for caricature and (as we have seen) manipulation.

Now every man has weaknesses and that we all accept. What is truly unacceptable is that rather than allying himself with people that can counter his weaknesses and strengthen his good points Mr. Zuma chooses to do exactly the opposite.

I therefore cannot trust Mr. Zuma, or the loudmouths that seem to back him trying to grasp an opportunity for manipulating the situation to their own advantage.

The ANC and South Africa deserves better leadership. My children deserve a better example of leadership; don’t yours?

In last week’s M & G you had an article by Anthony Brink on Suresh Roberts and his denialism of Mbeki’s denialism.

I am asking you please for a favour.

Africa has 7 Nobel Laureates, 5 of them from South Africa. Suresh Roberts wrote a biography on one of them, Nadine Gordimer, which was a travesty. A total betrayal of the trust she gave him.

Someone needs to clear the record – especially about where she disagreed with Mbeki. Would you not consider commissioning Anthony Brink to do this? It is a task way overdue.

I saw it, on Sunday, unaware of reaction that will follow, and thought it was a stroke of genius. People need to get the message.
Our justice system IS being raped people!

Does the cartoon depict reality so well that it’s frightened us to our very core that a fundamental pillar of our bloody hard won democracy is being so quickly assaulted? Geez, this is scary stuff!

Theorize all you want, but the writing is on the wall. And just in case you missed it, Zapiro’s drawn you a picture!

Brent

A newspaper editor — that is, a servant of corporate propaganda — is in no position to talk about the truth. He or she is not concerned with the truth. Newspaper editors are concerned to improve the image of their masters and to damage the image of their masters’ opponents.

Significantly, the divide between those who support Jonathan Shapiro’s cartoon and those who oppose it is a purely political divide. I have never seen a supporter of the cartoon who was not an enemy of the ANC and, more broadly, of progressive politics in South Africa. Virtually everybody who opposed the cartoon did so out of political bigotry.

Hence the value of the cartoon is that it shows how little the truth matters in political debate in South Africa (not only here, of course).