{"id":11410,"date":"2013-10-31T11:13:50","date_gmt":"2013-10-31T11:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=11410"},"modified":"2013-10-31T11:13:50","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T11:13:50","slug":"outrage-at-zapiros-cartoon-goes-global","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=11410","title":{"rendered":"Outrage at Zapiro\u2019s cartoon goes global"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hindu\"<\/a>The controversy over Zapiro\u2019s Lord Ganesha cartoon is causing outrage among the world\u2019s 1 billion Hindu devotees, who are calling for an international apology and the removal of the cartoon from the internet.<\/p>\n

As South African Hindus prepare to hold mass meetings and demonstrate at the Sunday Times offices in Durban, the Hindu community abroad has added its voice to the growing furore.<\/p>\n

President of Universal Society of Hinduism, Rajan Zed, in a statement from Nevada in the US on Wednesday, said Zapiro\u2019s cartoon of Ganesha was hurtful and a trivialisation of a highly revered deity.<\/p>\n

Zed urged Sunday Times editor, Phylicia Oppelt, as well as cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro to issue a formal apology immediately and remove the cartoon from their websites. He also urged the Hindus on the Times Media Group board to resign if no apology was offered.<\/p>\n

The Sunday Times and Zapiro said they would not apologise for the cartoon.<\/p>\n

Shapiro said his cartoon was not about religion and the image of Lord Ganesha was used as a metaphor.<\/p>\n

Phylicia Oppelt, editor of the Sunday Times, said the cartoon made no comment on Hinduism or on Ganesha, but rather on the issue of CSA\u2019s decision to sacrifice Lorgat to secure a lucrative Indian tour to South Africa later this year.<\/p>\n

The cartoon depicts Lord Ganesha \u2013 as the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) \u2013 offering money to Cricket SA (CSA) in return for the sacrifice of its chief executive, Haroon Lorgat.<\/p>\n

Zed said unnecessarily tying Ganesha in with the BCCI, depicting human sacrifice at his feet, and him holding a cricket bat and wads of money in his hands, instead of usual objects, like conch shell, was \u201chighly inappropriate\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said Hinduism was the oldest and third-largest religion of the world, and was rich in philosophical thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cSymbols of any faith, larger or smaller, should not be mishandled,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ashwin Trikamjee, president of the South African Hindu Maha Sabha, agreed.<\/p>\n

He said he had been interviewed by a number of Indian media houses, including The Times of India.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have also spoken to the president of the BCCI and sent him a copy of the article, so I\u2019m expecting a reaction soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trikamjee said the Hindu community was insulted by the refusal to apologise.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at pursuing legal action. The reaction from the Hindu community has been that of outrage. I don\u2019t know if Shapiro is just pig-headed or doesn\u2019t realise the impact on the community, particularly a week before Diwali. Lord Ganesha is revered by Hindus and is the object of prayer during Diwali.\u201d<\/p>\n

President for the Hindu Dharma Sabha, Ram Maharaj, said a mass meeting would be held next Wednesday at the Durban Hindu Temple at 7pm.<\/p>\n

He said Shapiro\u2019s refusal to apologise was \u201cfuelling the fire of fury\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not allow anyone to trample upon Hindu insensitivities with impunity. We will take this to the constitutional court if we have to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Hindu Youth Network plans to hold a peaceful demonstration outside the Sunday Times offices in Durban where it intends to hand over a memorandum of its concerns.<\/p>\n

Pregasen Pillay of the youth network said he was not surprised by the international response to the cartoon.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cTo us, Lord Ganesha is like your best friend and when someone says something bad about your best friend, you will get upset. We would like Zapiro and the Sunday Times to reflect on what they have done and hopefully apologise. Our peaceful demonstration will reflect the values of Hinduism and we hope the Sunday Times will see that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Freedom of Expression Institute said it was concerned by the outrage over the cartoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn advancing rights we see as due to us by the constitution we must not be forgetful of other rights that are crucial to the functioning of our democracy, key to which the Right to Freedom of Expression is. Included in this right is artistic expression. The importance of artistic expression is the provocation and facilitation of crucial debate that is often ignored or \u2018brushed under the table\u2019, as it inspires engagement on subjects that would otherwise not be spoken widely of, yet they are of key public interest, the importance of this to democratic discourse cannot be emphasised enough,\u201d the organisation said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is therefore important that such manner of expression is not censored in favour of personal interests that are far outweighed by the public good. In a manner of speaking we cannot have topics being \u2018out of bounds\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurther a continued sacrifice of artistic expression to the wishes of some sections of society at the expense of the public\u2019s right to be informed and having informed conversation and debate, may set a crippling precedent to the right of freedom of expression and journalistic freedom as it may advance to shield issues of concern such as corrupt practices and political malfunction. –\u00a0Daily News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The controversy over Zapiro\u2019s Lord Ganesha cartoon is causing outrage among the world\u2019s 1 billion Hindu devotees, who are calling for an international apology and the removal of the cartoon from the internet. As South African Hindus prepare to hold mass meetings and demonstrate at the Sunday Times offices in Durban, the Hindu community abroad … Continue reading “Outrage at Zapiro\u2019s cartoon goes global”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,123],"tags":[7217,7216,7215,538],"class_list":["post-11410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","category-world","tag-global-outrage","tag-hindu-devotees","tag-lord-ganesha","tag-zapiro"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/hindu.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11412,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11410\/revisions\/11412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}