Zapiro’s latest cartoon is a “vulgar portrayal” of President Jacob Zuma, lobby group AfriForum said on Monday.<\/p>\n
The cartoon was “a vulgar portrayal of the president [and] unproductive and in poor taste.” AfriForum spokesman Ernst Roets said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The cartoon by Jonathan Shapiro depicts an erect penis with a showerhead and legs standing before a mirror with an accompanying limerick about Zuma.<\/p>\n
It was published in the Mail & Guardian on Friday.<\/p>\n
Roets said the cartoon did not contribute towards finding a solution to South Africa’s problems.<\/p>\n
“AfriForum is of the opinion that controversial issues in South Africa must be approached constructively and that it does not contribute to finding a solution when other people’s cultures are insulted in the process.”<\/p>\n
Roets said although AfriForum supported freedom of speech and artistic experience, this cartoon called into question the matter of dignity.<\/p>\n
He suggested artists “evaluate the possible consequences of their work before displaying it to the public”.<\/p>\n
On Friday, government called for the removal of the cartoon from the Mail and Guardian website.<\/p>\n
Spokesman Jimmy Manyi said the cartoon was a “defamatory attack” on Zuma’s character and violated his rights to dignity as enshrined in the Constitution.<\/p>\n
SA Communist Party spokesman Malesela Maleka called it “B-grade schoolboy lavatory stuff, unworthy of a once talented cartoonist and unworthy of a newspaper that pretends to be serious”.<\/p>\n
The African National Congress found it ” unacceptable and shocking”, while its Women’s League condemned it.<\/p>\n
“The Zapiro cartoons rely on their shock value to make an impact, but calling the president of this great nation a ‘dick’ is unacceptable…” ANC Women’s League spokeswoman Troy Martens said.<\/p>\n
Responding to criticism of the cartoon, Shapiro said on Friday the public should have the democratic right to be irreverent about leaders, especially those who “display hypocrisy”.<\/p>\n
“My latest cartoon is meant to be scathing but humorous,” he said in an email, issued by his office, to Sapa.<\/p>\n
“It’s also serious commentary about a seriously flawed, hypocritical leader.” – Sapa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zapiro’s latest cartoon is a “vulgar portrayal” of President Jacob Zuma, lobby group AfriForum said on Monday. The cartoon was “a vulgar portrayal of the president [and] unproductive and in poor taste.” AfriForum spokesman Ernst Roets said in a statement. The cartoon by Jonathan Shapiro depicts an erect penis with a showerhead and legs standing … Continue reading “Zapiro’s cartoon of Zuma is ‘vulgar’ – Afriforum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[543,539,544,538,345],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-south-africa","tag-afriforum","tag-cartoon","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-zapiro","tag-zuma"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702","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=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":704,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions\/704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}