It defies comprehension. This is a man televised prancing around in loinskin and incongruous white takkies, his man-breasts roiling and thunderous thighs wobbling, to celebrate the acquisition of yet another wife.
This is a man with a harem but who is caught diddling with women a third of his age. At least two were the daughters of close friends. At least one became pregnant and another cried rape.
This is a man charged with corruption but who so determinedly suborned the political process to his judicial advantage that many South Africans glumly accept that their president – for it is he, Jacob Zuma, of whom I write – is a scoundrel.
This guy, while heading the government’s moral rearmament programme and anti-HIV campaign, recommended a brisk shower as a reliable antidote to infection. Zuma is the nation’s laughing stock, its presidential light relief, even among many African National Congress supporters.
Yet Zuma claims that he has been defamed by a satirical painting, just as he previously claimed – backed by intimidatory and as yet unresolved legal action – that for a cartoonist to mock him is to deprive him of his fundamental right to human dignity.
The president says he is ‘shocked and offended’ to be portrayed as ‘a philanderer, a womaniser’. He felt ‘violated’, poor diddums.
Brett Murray’s artwork The Spear, showed Zuma in pompous Leninesque pose but with genitals exposed. It was part of a series of biting depictions that use stock socialist imagery to mock a party that Murray believes sold out its revolutionary heritage to corruption and extravagant living.
The Spear has since been blunted, vandalised by some Zuma supporters and withdrawn from view. This followed threats by the Young Communists to rip down the painting and a call by the head of the Shembe church, which has between four to six million members, for the stoning to death of Murray.
The usual motley band of fronts, alliances and political supplicants that rally around the ANC expressed their shock and anger at the indecency of it all, especially directing their fury at the racist Eurocentric artist and, indeed, all whiteys who didn’t appreciate the freedoms kindly donated by the ANC.
No one within the governing alliance called for calm or objected to the death threats. It took Cape artist Ayanda Mabula to inject some good sense. The ANC reaction was ‘backward and illiterate’ and the time had come ‘for artists to express how we feel about what is going on in our society’.
Mabula has personal experience of irrational outrage. In 2010 retailer Truworths removed his paintings from an exhibition for fear of offending the public.
The work included depictions of rightwing leader Eugene Terre Blanche as a pig. Ironically, considering the present furore, one painting was of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu along with Zuma, both with their genitals exposed.
So why was the ANC reaction so muted then, so angry now? Part of it is that Mabula is black and Murray is white. The race divide remains real and raw: while you can mock the heroes of your own ethnic group, to mock other ethnicities is to stir fury.
Perhaps it is always thus. A few years back The Sun newspaper described as ‘vile’ and ‘obviously the work of a lunatic’ Spanish artist Paolo Schmidlin’s Porno Queen, an ultra-realistic sculpture of Britain’s aged monarch, her sagging breasts being groped by a pair of anonymous hands.
Another statue of Elizabeth and hubby Philip naked on a bench, he knees apart and hand suggestively poised and she with hands primly sheltering her genitals, also caused an uproar. It had to be removed from outside Australia’s parliament when it was vandalised by enraged royalists.
But maybe our thin-skinned, fat-headed president can learn something from Lizzy. Her majesty did not deign to notice or comment on either storm in a tea-cup. And it had all blown over by the end of the week.
I can see two possible reasons for the ANC and Zuma to have reacted the way they did to the painting: either they were are too short sighted to realise that making a fuss about the painting would mean it would became world news, now with its own page on Wikipedia, or they did indeed foresee what would happen and used it to deflect attention from their other problems of e-tolling, Richard Mdluli, Bheki Cele, the youth wage subsidy, and all their other current mess ups.
If it was the latter, I think they’ve been quite successful.
The whole point of the ANC chosing Zuma was for him to be as tribal Zulu as possible – to get the Zulu vote, the Tribal Homelands vote, and the vote of polygamous men – and be more Zulu than the IFP.
Which is the opposite of the original ANC which was as opposed to tribalism as it was to communism.
Communism has no middle class – just “peasants and landlords”, “workers and capitalists”. Almost all the intellectuals of the middle class were put into slave labour camps in both China and Russia. One poor Chinese man who had worked for decades at a waiter and saved all his money to buy a piece of land was labelled a landlord.
So Zuma must be as “peasant” and “worker” as possible.
Also another difference between this Communist ANC and the original ANC is their interpretation of Pan Africanism.
What the original ANC campaigned for the most was CLOSING the borders of SA so cheaper labour could not be imported from across the borders by the mines.
This Communist ANC threw open the borders at the same time as throwing open the borders to all the unemployed of the Homelands which was lunacy!
All this on the excuse that “the rest of Africa helped us during apartheid”. Which help boiled down to about 6000 freedom fighters in camps, armed by Russia and paid for by the anti-apartheid movement, none of whom took any jobs away from the locals, and in fact increased income for the locals in what they spent. How does that justify millions of Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Somalis etc etc living off SA – getting schoolings, hospitals, clinics and even RDP houses for free?
And the ANC was thrown out of the frontline states after the Nkomai Accord anyway. Google it – and see Graca and Samora Machel and the Nat Afrikaners smiling away at the signing ceremony!
In fact what Zuma is trying to cash in on is the success of the Zulus as genocidal colonists. Had the whites arrived a few decades later – the rest of the tribes would have been wiped out in the mfecane (and the Shona by the Matabele in Zimbabwe).
Sorry – that is spelt Nkomati Accord
Your mean-spirited, twisted views which demean and dehumanize African culture is what makes whites feel unwelcome in Africa. Luckily yours is a dying breed headed for extinction as Africa rises to take control over her destiny.
Riding on your high-horse only affords you a twisted eurocentric perspective in which African culture is perceived as inferior and powerful black leaders are ridiculed by the continued abuse of our hard earned free speech rights – these rights that millions of blacks fought and died for so that we could have freedom of speech for the first time since South Africa was first colonized.
I also find this column mean-spirited and Eurocentric.
Black values are not less than white values. There is a tradition in black culture to defer in respect to your elders.
The writer mentions Lizzie… There is a tradition in British culture to fawn and fixate on their Dear Leader Lizzie. The entire UK landscape judders to a halt in positive adoration of Her Jubilee – all propaganda organs of the BBC on full volume, celebrating the Dear Leader’s hold over their non-democratic parliament, which has to defer on bended knee to Her Elitist House Of Lords and Her Royal Decree.
Could a black artist REALLY paint a picture of Lizzie’s vagina and hang it in a glitzy London gallery – to symbolise the British Empire’s disdain for complaints over the rape of Africa? I wonder?
Previously, white South African overlords saw that black peasants were stripped at gold and diamond mines to check for contraband. Black men were stripped and waterboarded at SA’s Guantanamo Bay – Vlakplaas.
There is a bad collective memory of racism in SA. We need compassionate understanding, not elitist 1% posturing over the ‘stupidity’ of the 99%..
A white boy hangs a painting in an elitist gallery owned by whites in the leafy suburbs.
The painting sells for money SA’s poorest can never dream of earning – and is bought by a German voyeur.
Who profit$ from the fame, publicity and hard cash? The white boy and the white gallery.
Dave Harris
Actually the majority of blacks were against communism and supported the IFP – tough but true. Read “People’s War” by Anthea Jeffreys.
Which is WHY the ANC started the townshio war of black-on-black violence and blamed it on the IFP.
Another obssession which stops farming development in SA is this obssession with ancestral graves and wanting to bury all the dead on farms – which puts farmers off employing permanent workers.
THINK about it – when did this “culture” start? Blacks migrated to Sub Saharan Africa about 5000 years ago across the Indian Ocean in outrigger canoes. They then migrated from East to West coast, found the Atlantic Ocean could not be navigated by canoe and started migrating south, killing off the indigenous Bushmen on the way.
It took them 3000-2000 years to migrate from Cameroon to the Congo and from there to Southern Africa. So what was done about “ancestral graves” – they could hardly have dug the bodies up and taken them with them could they have?
@ Graham, I know of no man or woman who doesnt take a shower/bath or wash after having sex. Secondly, Jacob Zuma was found NOT guilty on both counts of rape and corruption, So where does this leave your argument? Blacks are not allowed to dance in their cultural clothes (?) and polygamy if practised by certain cultures throughout the world cannot be extended to Jacob Zuma. Question so which part of his culture can he practise and which part cant he? Also has every other world citizen the freedom to practise their culture except Jacob Zuma? Now lets get to Lizzy from your mother country. Not only is the history of the throne so tainted with blood, greed and sheer opportunism one can at least say that no artist, no newspaper or subject has degraded their beloved queen or any person of the monarchy in the way certain South Africans do. Now isnt that a collosal contradiction.
What upset me personally about Zuma’s “traditional” marriages was his wearing the leopard skin.
Firstly the leopard has been hunted almost to extinction by the Zulus, and Zuma should not have been wearing the skin of an endangered species.
Secondly in Zulu “tradition” only the Royal family is allowed to wear the leopard skin – so Zuma as a communist “peasant” or “worker” should not have been wearing it at all!
If Zuma wants to emulate King Solomon with 1000 wives and concubines – let me reminder you all that the ancient texts say that King Solomon’s wisdom was imparted to his by the Queen of Sheba who travelled from North Africa to Israel to impart it to him in return for the “bread of life” controlled by the Jews.
I suggest Zuma start looking for a source of wisdom!
One of the versions of this story, though not the only one, is the book “The Shadow of Solomon: The Lost Secret of the Freemasons” by Laurence Gardner.
Well, Dave Harris, isn’t it great that some of us use our promised freedom of speech?
Thanks, WSM, the subject’s getting a bit stale. At least you found a relevant angle!
I would tend to agree with Ann Coventry. The exhibition as a whole is a powerful denounciation of a corrupt ANC traitor to its own ideals. The obsession with this particular painting on formal grounds has totally eclipsed the intended message. Well done. In a 2nd thought, had the artist being more cautious – fig leaves can also be painted – his aim would have been better achieved.
The following was received via e-mail this morning. I do not know who the author is – but it is something everyone should read:
WHERE ARE OUR PRIORITIES????
The controversial painting has now been defaced.
2 guys (a white & a black) were arrested.
The ANC’s court case is going ahead on Thursday to force the gallery to remove the artwork.
- A 17 year-old mentally challenged girl was gang raped & the video went viral. No one marched.
- An 8-year-old girl was raped by a 15 year-old boy & her eyes gouged out. No one marched.
- Entire provinces are without school text books – it’s almost June. No one marched.
- Our imminent police chief is a gangster & has brought our police service to its knees. No one marched.
- Our country has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. No one marched.
- Our democracy is going down the toilet but no one marches.
But our country goes hysterical over a painting! We threaten lawsuits, protests & violent reprisals.
Where are our priorities???
What are we thinking??????!!!! We have now proven beyond doubt that our collective mentality doesn’t rise above the waist.
dave harris you’re a moron.
We have Mangaun coming, Zuma is making a full of himself and his popularity is waning, the majoroty of thinking Blacks are embarased by his indiscretions, the comies within the ANC are concerned, therefore they grab this oporrtunity to stir up emotions and revive Zuma’s image by stirring up racism.
Hopefully we will have a decent President post Mangaung and the comies will be trashed and this country can move forward as it so deserves.
Great analysis William and to the point, I am sure the majority of thinking people will agree with you.
@ WSM You are right, right and right again. And how well you write it!
1. Your description of Zuma is right on the button: “prancing around in his loinskin, manbreasts rolling, thunderous thighs wobbling, … diddling with women a third of this age … charged with corruption .. a scoundrel
(btw didn’t he ‘okay’ Richard Mduli who has just been suspended?)
2. You’re right about the Painting … “part of a series of biting depictions that use stock socialist imagery to mock a party that Murray believes sold out its revolutionary heritage to corruption and extravagant living.”
And, it does.
3. And you’re right about artist Ayanda Mabula who painted both Zuma and Archbishop Tutu with their genitals exposed; and who says:
“The ANC reaction is ‘Backward and illiterate” and the time come “for artists to express how we feel about what is going on in our society.”
Strange how quiet the ANC were about Mabula –( like Queen Elizabeth was when she was spoofed.)
It is obvious that this present debacle about ‘The Spear’ has been engineered by the ANC to try and make political profit from it.
It never ceases to amaze me how Dave Harris always manages to be the first one to deliberately stay two steps behind everyone else on an intellectual level. Dave, you are just trying to get someone to stroke your spear on this one, are you not ? When you step across that fine line, demarcating humanity, in the name of barbaric culture, you have lost the plot that you claim to be fighting for, human rights. These human rights that have been shoved aside for greed and self fulfillment, thinly veiled as culture, and other poor reasoning by the president should be exposed. This painting has done an incredible job at bringing the attention needed at these failed areas from everyone, including the international community. There are real problems here, that are sidestepped, and overlooked, all the while the suffering in Safrica is real, and getting worse. You do not need a university degree to understand where this is going and that these problems are going to get much worse. Or, for that matter, how much this greed and corruption will compound the problems. If the issues were not real, this painting would not have been able to hit a nerve, in the manner that it did.
We need a president, as well as leadership that has all South Africans at heart. A government that has South Africa at heart. Not just their self, and their own choice of a selected group of cronies and family. One that will stand up to crime, stand up for the rights of everyone, including woman and children…
I heard the judge’s question and Zuma’s attorney break down on the rasio news before the judge issued his interdict. It broke my heart!
It had nothing to do with his ability as an attorney – he had handled a grueling session with the judges very well. In my opinion, it was not even the difficulty of the question – which he had already answered, and could have re-answered.
What I sensed was that the realisation flashed through him that even if he won the case, or won an appeal, he could not stop the internet and people snickering over the painting – which he, personally, obviously found very offensive.
Unfortunately the interdict meant that I could not hear the judges grueling of the other side, which I had been looking forward to.
Jimmy Manyi says the Judges should not have interdicted. That is simple to remedy. The judges would lift the interdict tomorrow if Zuma’s attorney requested it.
@ Choosing Civilisation
One correction – the DA marched for employment, much to COSATU’s disgust. So the ‘capitalists want people to work while the ‘workers’ don’t.
Defending turf just like the outcry over this painting.
I also reckon Anne’s second point is spot on, the ANC cynically saw an opportunity to smother the bad news going round and the media fell for it.
@Cyberdog
“This painting has done an incredible job at bringing the attention needed at these failed areas from everyone, including the international community.”
Actually the painting has done an INCREDIBLE job of showing the world:
1. How brazen the racists have become by hiding behind our hard won free speech rights.
2. White privilege in Africa, demonstrated by the heavy-handed treatment of th black vandal and the gentlemanly treatment of the white vandal by the security at the Goodman Gallery.
BTW. To understand the nature of REAL large scale corruption, just look at the banking industry in Europe and the US.
@ Cyberdog
I like what you said: “We need a president, as well as leadership that has all South Africans at heart. A government that has South Africa at heart. Not just their self, and their own choice of a selected group of cronies and family. One that will stand up to crime, stand up for the rights of everyone, including woman and children…”
Our ‘Democracy’ now means:
“‘Government Of the ANC, By the ANC and For the ANC ”
… and with the distortion of Lincoln’s words to Kennedy’s:
“Do not ask what you can do for your country
Ask what the ANC government has done for you – and the country – over the past 18 years?”
The problem is not whiteness. The colour of a skin is nothing. It is what it symbolises. Whites don’t believe they are superior because of the colour of their skin. They were born that way and it really is not a big deal to them, believe it or not. They believe that they are superior because of their culture (which they deem to be freer and and more civilised) and because of their achievements, which have resulted in them dominating global events for many many decades. Everyone wants what the people in the west have, but at the same time, everyone hates the west and the attitudes and behaviours that they have employed to achieve that dominance. The west have dominated because of one thing – an unshakeable belief in the worth and potential of the individual and his/her right to go out there and shake the world, whatever the cost – personal or otherwise. The great discoveries that have benefitted humankind were made by individuals who had the freedom and courage to go against the grain, and never by collectives who obey like sheep. It is a culture that seems to let go of redundant cultural practices more easily than others when they don’t make sense. They are perhaps not so emotionally vested in such traditions as others. But it is a culture that is waning precisely because of its individuality. I wonder how big the white race will be in 100 year’s time ?
I see on TV that one of Zuma’s junior wives is also wearing a leopardskin collar on her kaftan, and his supporters are also all dressed in leopardskins. It does not appear to worry any of them that the leopard is being hunted to extinction.
Since the leopardskin can only be worn by Zulu royalty, it appears that Zuma has declared himself the new King of the Zulus. So typical of the Communist elite – to declare themselves the new royalty of their “classless society”!
It appears that the Zulus have the same problem as the Swazis – they now have two kings, and they can vote in or out neither of them.
if you dont like zuma attack him not his culture. by attacking his culture you are attacking a millions of people who dont trust you one bit but do trust Zuma because he dances like us, he is polygamous like us when he makes a mistake -getting a friends daughter pregnant – he does the right thing by the slighted family – like us.
the shower thing- what would you do if you slept with someone through the heat of the moment and realise you have made a mistake. i would take a shower i would. its the only thing available.
never mind he should not have done it in the first place.drunk drivers should not be on the road – so many die every friday.unwanted pregnancies galore. in the heat of passion- not rape- things happen.
so if white people continue on this line- they are making themselves irrelevant in black eyes and they have the vote.
sure it makes these galleries(how many black people have visited these galleries latey again) money from white people the blacks dont give a fig about them. so they make money from sowing divisions, all is fair but how far does that get us.
you think it not about black and white – think again- there are agendas in agendas here.
This comment has been edited.
Still waiting for a single ANC supporter’s comment on the Mabula painting.
Deafening silence!
Which puts the whole uproar in perspective: a political diversion to get sympathy for Zuma (drawing on the baser instincts of the masses) who was in danger of being voted out in Bloemfontein. Which also makes Murray an unwitting(?) accomplice to this whole sorry saga.
I refrain from comment. I am truly ashamed to be a South African! We ARE a Third World Country now.
One can understand the ANC organising a march to defend the president’s indignity. But his ‘dignity!” Are you kidding?.
One has to hand it to him! (Mind you, he doesn’t need a hand does he?)
He singlehandedly made us the laughing stock of the world. Malema didn’t even come a close second.
Zuma will forever be remembered as a man, not of the people, but of the penis:
a man of ‘wealth, women and song’; whose sexual antics measures alongside his insatiable greed and insurmountable (or ‘mountable’?) tendencies to meglomania, money, power and women – in no particular order.
Lets get real: This painting was a blessing for Zuma and the ANC.
After days of being displayed in the Gallery, it was suddenly – not covered up – but brought to light BY the ANC itself!
Purely for political expediency, what the painting did, was cover up what is going on BEHIND the scenes – the arms deal, Richard Mduli, the Protection of Information Bill, Sanral etc. .. is there any end?
And why did they do nothing about Ayanda Mabula’s painting in 2010 of Zuma and Archbishop Tutu with their genitals showing? This black artist expressed exactly the same idea as Brett Murray about the rotten, self-serving governance of the ANC.
As ‘respect’ is earned – not given …. so is ‘dignity’ determined.
Zuma, by his own actions, is worthy of neither.
And the ANC must take responsibility for placing him in the position he has so manifestly defamed.
@nguni, it is so obvious that you havent seen the painting of Mabula. Secondly there are various images in that painting and it is not only of the Bishop. The artist made a statement of INSTITUTIONS. Go and view that painting and come back to me. You & et al are using a second hand ”takeaway” to validate debauchery behaviour of an artist.
‘Actually the painting has done an INCREDIBLE job of showing the world:’ (Dave Harris)
The Dutch apparently have a saying: world famous in Holland. A tongue-in-cheek of local artists musicians and the like who perceive themselves at a par with their international counterparts.
The Spear painting of Zuma may be world famous in SA, abroad it is a virtual non-item.
Reading through the reactions it seems that freedom of speech, expression is limited and not allowed to cross certain boundaries. What these boundaries are is subject to personal/political/racial opinion and view of the world at large in ‘the eye of the beholder’.
Die rooi gevaar has been replaced by die Euro-American gevaar. And that makes SA a safe country to reside in. Like the advert said: the world in one country.
Because the REAL sinners are out there.
But not really….
Haiwa
The whole point is that Zuma’s lifestyle is NOT Zulu culture. It has never been Zulu culture to get women pregnant before and outside of marriage – and it is taboo to have sex with the daughters of friends.
@ Tofolux ‘et al’
‘The Spear’ in an indictment of the ANC government (just as Mbulas’ painting was) – and not one of Zuma per se. But even if it were, why the fuss? He has earned his penile reputation over and over again.
I repeat:
Zuma will forever be remembered as a man, not of the people, but of the penis:
… whose sexual antics measure alongside his insatiable greed and insurmountable (or ‘mountable’?) tendencies to meglomania, money, power and women – in no particular order ….
As ‘respect’ is earned – not given …. so is ‘dignity’ determined.
Zuma, by his own actions, is worthy of neither.
And the ANC must take responsibility for placing him in the position he has so manifestly defamed.”‘
As must the ANC take full responsibility for sowing racial division and hatred – and using it now for their own political agenda and expediency: for their contemptible corruption at every level of governanace, for lying to and cheating the poor to garner votes, for their theivery and false promises to every section of the community – which, together with their gross ineptitude, they could never hope to realise; for their nepotism and playing ‘follow-my-leader’ regarding their insatiable greed for money and power. And stuff the country!
This comment has been edited.
@Liendie, pray tell when did this whole issue become an issue about President Jacob Zuma’s sex life?
@Tofolux
“The artist made a statement of INSTITUTIONS.” That is your opinion, which is fine, but the fact is that there are two similar paintings out there. Two very different reactions (one deemed racist, the other deemed acceptable). I take great offense to seeing the Arch drawn naked. What race the artist is matters nothing to me.
I am not trying to validate the spear painting. My first impression was that the artist was interested in 5 minutes of fame. I do not agree with it. If the artist was black,my reaction would not change.
ZUMA MEMO UPDATE (or’ Up-Date’ L.O.L.)
or
RISING To The OCCASION
or
W.T.F.
Don’t Nationalise
Condomise
Don’t Politicise
Condomise
Don’t Dramatise
Condomise
Don’t Theorise
Condomise
Before you Fantasise, Womanise, Sanitise or Fertilise
Condomise
And b.t.w. … Get some proper exercise
@ Tofolux
“when did this whole issue become an issue about President Jacob Zuma’s sex life?”
Answer: Since you and your ilk applied your smokescreen double standards in defending the unfitting promiscuity of it for the role of president of a country;
and which you apply to ANC leadership as well – who have used this issue to gain ‘sympathetic’ support for their political future.
Eh! Eh! Eh! They may have threatened City Press into taking down the online picture, but a whole lot of us will be laughing for a long time to come… and then some more. What a pathetic bunch are Zuma and his acolytes.
Spot on again WSM…
@ Tofolux of course I saw the Mabula painting before I commented.. So this is not second-hand information. Zuma has been quite distorted, not at all a glamorous pose as in The Spear. But he is instantly recognisable with his willie in a crutch.. So what if there are others in the picture? So what if they are supposed to represent institutions (what institution does Zuma with his broken willie represent BTW?) Fact remains: Zuma is painted naked and did not protest about it, never mind go to court! So he and his pals are either racist in discriminating against the white guy who painted him, or they have another plan: to use the uproar over ‘poor’ Zuma to help him to another term in office! – probably both..
The only ‘debauched’ behaviour is by Zuma, Murray is just the messenger.
@Beddy, the painting was done by a black artist so one can’t cry racism so, how can the ANC prove this was racism? The ANC are now saying the Gallery was racist for showing this work. The blacks in SA/Africa intellectuals are not saying anything to defend this artist.
Lana Turner did a better job in court with her scenes then this advocate.
@Clear Call, firstly the Presidents sex life has got nothing to do with you. Secondly, the painting is NOT about his sex life. Thirdly, if you believe everything papparazi nonsense you read, then you might as well believe that a story about three blind mice. Now, when one uses one’s tools of analysis you go to the crunch of the issue. You cannot make a mix-bredie of your arguments. You are far too predictable when attacking the President and one should ask why a certain section amongst us are so anti-black.. You didnt have anything on Madiba but you and YOUR ILK sought ways and means to attack him. But lastly, let me remind you Clear Call, NO PRESIDENT in the world today or NO HUMAN BEING living or dead is PERFECT. But that aside, deal with the issue at hand here and show us your ability to debate. Fair ask isnt it?
@Charcoal, you have mis-used the other painting to validate your insults against another human being and then painting this as freedom of speech. The problem I have is that you guys are using and mis-using any platform to spew your hatred against your fellow-countrymen. The bigger picture is that we have those who have defaced the painting one white person, in particular who gives clarity to the articulation to the national pyshe. The problem however is that you and your ilk suffer from wholesale amnesia and that is to your detriment because it is obvious that we are still prepared to fight. The joke however is that you guys are thinking that Murray is something that dropped from the sky. He a copy-cat satirist and not a good artist. So why are you worshipping him?
If the President wants respect from “the people” he must respect us, but he hasn’t and he doesn’t. He has embarrassed us non-stop with this sexual antics, his silent condonation of the treament meted out by his supporters to the woman who accused him of rape during his rape trial, fathering a child out of wedlock with a woman who is young enough to be his daughter, and his depressing patronage evidenced in the appointments of cronies who have to be removed from office almost as soon as they are appointmed, because of very dodgy dealings or behaviours which everyone warned him about before he appointed them – to name but a few. This is a man who is our PRESIDENT. How much respect does he show the people of South Africa? And his daughters are offended at a painting ?????? I for one would have been far more offended at the fact that my father sired a child with and “uncle’s” young daughter. Why didn’t he use a condom (again)? It boggles the mind that people are more offended by the painting.
I think though, that this backlash is symptomatic of a society that is trying somehow, to regain its moral compass. We seem to be swimming daily in a sewer of filth and corruption and we fear for its effects on our children, but at the same time we feel powerless to change it. So we resort to these gestures and debates. As a society we need to stand together and demand – and COMMAND – respect for our humanity. The tone should be set from the top.
@ Tofolux, I support you man!!!!!!!
The reaction is not so much to the painting its-self but to its title.
Like the French before them, South Africa very quickly accepted the myth that everyone was a resistant in the war.
The Spear of the Nation has more members now than it ever had before 1994.
Calling this myth into question in such a graphic manner detonated the storm which will blow for a while before it disappears.
@ Tofolux
I am not ‘you guys’ or any of the insulting epithets you throw around. I an individual who thinks for myself. I am also one of your ‘countrymen’ – whether you like it or not.
Nor do I ‘worship’ Brett Murray (what a stupid thought).
Just as Ayanda Mabula did with both Zuma’s and Archbishop Tutu’s genitals, Murray depicted an image which conveyed exactly the same message about the ANC – reflective of the degraded corruption of a POLITICAL PARTY concerned only with lining their own pockets – and who, as everyone knows, themselves created a furore over the painting for its own political expediency.
Neither are you an art critic. Simply answer Nguni.
ANC nepotism gives lucrative employment with exorbitant incomes to its own extended families. Yet, what have they done about employment for the masses – bar make ludicrous promises in exchange for potential votes?
But if you wish to continue to be used as ANC voting fodder and be suckered into false promises with no hope for your ‘countrymen’, it is your choice,
By your support of the ANC, you are complicit in bringing the country to even further ruin for your ‘countrymen’. Your ANC leaders (like Zuma – a ‘president’ without an iota of ‘dignity – and his huge overextended family) feed on the spoils and live in the lap of luxury while the poor starve..
For your continuing blind defence of the indefensible (the ANC), you should be ashamed.
@Charcoal. ok so now I have to fear your wrath… But let me leave you with this, those two artists are as different as day and nite, so how could their paintings have conveyed the same message. You see, what is so laughable is the fact that you are prepared to defend the indefensible that is while the culprits are falling over themselves to apologise for their immoral values, you and your ilk are defending them.
This comment has been edited.
Dear Tofolux,
re:@Liendie, pray tell when did this whole issue become an issue about President Jacob Zuma’s sex life?
The painting is precisely about Jacob Zuma’s sex life. Zuma has repeatedly drawn attention to his own sexuality quite apart from the Murray painting. This is the primary inspiration for the artwork. The artwork is also about other things, rendering it layered in meaning and qualifying it as an artwork with real aesthetic and semantic merit.
What do you think of this traditional African artwork?
http://s335942851.onlinehome.us/OldmalefigureBeninFonfromBenin_788_itm.php
@Jon Story
“Die rooi gevaar has been replaced by die Euro-American gevaar. ”
You forgot to mention “die media-mafia gevaar” and “die white-inc.-gevaar”.
@ Tolofux
1. You don’t have to fear ‘my wrath’ because you don’t even know me.
(Just try to listen to some sense for a change)
2. Don’t leave me with anything. I wouldn’t accept anything from you: SIMPLY ANSWER NGUNI’S QUESTION !
3. No two people are the same; so your obsevation is incongruous. . However, as both artists have each attested, the intention of both was to convey exactly the same thing:: and that was: (I repeat) -
“the degraded corruption of THE ANC who are concerned only with lining their own pockets” – and who, as everyone knows, created the furore over the painting for its own political expediency; which gives them licence to continue with their thievery and ruination of the country.
4. This is not the first time you have stolen words i.e. “defend the indefensible’ This is known as plagiarism.
5. There are no ‘culprits’. No crime was committed – except for the bullying of 2 women by the ANC, their organising a politically motivated march and ignoring the constitution. (Today, Lekota, quite rightly, called the ANC ‘Fascists’).
Nor is anyone ‘falling over themselves” … unless you are: Are you on something?
6 What is laughable is that the ANC have made a laughing stock of themselves (besides Zuma already being a laughing stock) by organising a protest to defend Zuma’s ‘dignity’ – when he doesn’t have any.
7. I have no ‘ilk’.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak.
Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” …. Winston Churchill
@Tofolux #
“those two artists are as different as day and nite”
Yes, one is white and the other is black. You are not fooling anyone lady!
Race card again and, of course, a black person is incabable of being racist or insulting.
Chill out ma’m