This has caused a pretty big furore here; I was wondering what everyone else here would think of it.

There is one main player in this story - a man named Jacob Zuma. Currently the President of South Africa, and leader of the ANC (powerful political party), he is both powerful and rich. He is a black man and a Zulu. He also has had a total of six wives; that is, as Nanny Ogg would say, "only the official score". Not sequentially, mind you, but concurrently; he currently has four wives, insofar as I can tell. There was also a rape trial a few years back... on which, it should be added, Zuma managed to be acquitted more-or-less on grounds of he thought it was consensual.

Now we have Brett Murray, artist. Brett Murray seems to have had something to say about Zuma's rather busy private life; and he said it by painting a picture of Zuma, entitled "The Spear", with his privates exposed to public view. (Not from life, of course). You can no doubt find the full painting on Google (temporarily) - it's been published in newspapers and on newspaper websites, though for obvious reasons it's somewhat NSFW. (I say 'temporarily' because the ANC has put forward a court application to try to take it off he newspaper websites). If you want to get an idea of the picture from work, have a look here - a bit of cropping and a man standing in front of part of the picture have rendered it SFW in that news article.

This painting was put up in the Goodman Gallery, and has been sold to a German buyer for several thousand. After it was sold, the newspapers noticed it, and bought it to people's attention. There were promptly two separate outcries.

Outcry the first: Zuma has a large and occasionally somewhat fanatical support base, who claimed that this was undignified, impugned the dignity of the President, and just plain wrong. Cries of 'Racism!' and 'Everyone else would object if it was Helen Zille!' (white, female, leader of the biggest opposition to the ANC) were heard.

Outcry the second: This consisted of people pointing out the importance of freedom of speech. In fact, the Constitution has very specific clauses regarding the freedom of artistic expression (section 16: "(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes ... (c) freedom of artistic creativity" - limited by subsection 2 to exclude propaganda for war, incitement of imminent violence, and advocacy of hatred based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, if it constitutes incitement to cause harm. None of those exceptions apply to 'The Spear', as far as I can see)

Either way, the painting had been sold to a German buyer. The fuss may have pushed the price up temporarily, but unless the German wished to turn a quick profit, that was meaningless; it remained on display in the Goodman Gallery for the moment, as it was part of a larger display (entitled "Hail to the Thief II" - one gets the impression that Mr. Murray does not like the current crop of political leaders). Until today.

Today, the painting was defaced. Two separate people, who apparently had not known each other beforehand, visited the gallery; one with red paint and a brush, one with black paint and his hands. Both registered their displeasure with 'The Spear' by painting over parts of it. Both were arrested and taken to the police station; the gallery has been closed, the painting moved to 'an undisclosed location', where apparently art experts are saying it can probably be restored.

A court hearing on the ANC's motion to prevent public display of the painting will be heard shortly.

Your politics are way more interesting then ours.

I would just like to point out that Jon Stewart's "Democracy: The Book" contains an illustration featuring all nine supreme court judges butt naked. Elderly, wrinkly, sagging, and naked. A controversial political figure ought to expect a degree of vicious satire. Distasteful? Yes. Racist? Probably not, but it depends on the context. Disrespectful to the president? Of course, that's the whole point.

To put the cries of 'Racist' in proper context, I should point out that 'Racist' is a common cry here whenever a member of the ANC feels attacked. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's on the borderline. Personally, I think this is a case where it's not. The painting protests Zuma's... um... adventurous and not-entirely-private private life, not his race.

Zuma's no stranger to satire; a cartoonist under the pen name of Zapiro did a series of satirical cartoons in the wake of Zuma's rape trial which also had his legal team going to the courts (not with any success, as far as I can recall). In fact, as a result of that whole sordid story, Zuma can now be easily identified in Zapiro's cartoons, as the guy with the showerhead attached to his head (the lady in question was HIV-positive, and Zuma had known that at the time as she was quite public about it, but he claimed he had no fear of catching AIDS because he took a shower immediately afterwards, which was widely ridiculed. One hopes that his doctor took him aside and explained that it didn't work that way; the newspapers certainly didn't think much of his claims).

The Spear is no longer being displayed on the City Press' website.

The poor City Press newspaper has taken a beating over its display of this image - though not only them. There are protests on the streets (that one's supposed to be starting about now, i.e. the time at which I am writing this post), and there have been some very nasty things being said. The ANC has called for a boycott of the newspaper; they're glad that the picture has been removed from the City Press website, but they'd still like an apology before calling off the boycott. They're still going ahead with their court application as well.

On the other hand, the DA has called the removal of the image unfortunate and has asked what this kind of self-censorship means for free speech.

There's mixed reaction - some say it should never have been published in the first place, others say it should never have been removed, that the City Press should not have "given in to ANC bullying".

Yet others say that the furore over The Spear is distracting us from more important news stories, and that the painting really isn't worth the time being spent reporting on it, one way or another.

But what does the City Press itself say about the matter? They say that "The Spear is down – out of care and fear". That there is fear in there is somewhat worrying.

The thought that occurs to me that it is in these sorts of issues, outside of formal electoral politics, that the social norms of democracy need to be established. Freedom of speech in the narrow legal sense means that if you say something politically incorrect, the government won't throw you in jail. But more broadly, it also means that if you say something politically incorrect, angry mobs won't threaten to string you up a lamp-post upside-down by your goolies. The second isn't written down anywhere, but without it, your democracy exists in name only. South Africa's non-white population is fairly new to democratic politics, and I sincerely hope they figure out these "soft" democratic norms.

So far, we're at the point where the angry mobs often book in advance and allow traffic to be rerouted around them. In theory, the mobs should be marching peacefully from point A to point B, at which point they generally hand over a petition expressing their greviences to someone who is able to do something about said greviences; the whole march is just a way for people to show their adherence to some or other cause. In practice, there's generally a heavy police presence and sometimes some people on a rampage.

And occasionally, you get angry mobs who don't book in advance (generally protesting either crime or the lack of basic services), but all the politicians, and everyone else I've heard talking on the issue, condemn those.

In this particular case, the pre-booked mob wasn't really an angry mob as such; they had their point to make, they marched from point A to point B (where point B was the Goodman Art Gallery) and then the ANC spokesman stood up and claimed victory; he was supported by both Cosatu (the Congress Of South African Trade Unions, a long-time ally of the ANC) and the SACP (South African Communist Party, the ANC's other long-time ally), which comes as no surprise since those three bodies have been allied for several years now, generally successfully. They claimed that those who "want to oppose the majoritarian rule of the ANC" would be resisted; they dismissed Brett Murray's anti-apartheid past; they called for the painting to be destroyed, removed from the gallery's website, and for the gallery to apologise. They presented a memorandum to the gallery, and then returned and claimed that the gallery had agreed to remove the image from their website.

Then everyone went home, in triumph.

The gallery later said that they had not, in fact, reached an agreement at all. Of course, by that point, the mob had already gone home.

At the same time, the Film and Publications Board is reviewing the image, looking at whether or not it should put an age restriction on it.

As to the painting itself, apparently the German buyer has decided he wants it as is (that is, including the black and red paint that it was defaced with). I don't think he actually has it yet, though.

Incidentally, if you want to see pictures of the march, there's a slideshow here.

The picture is actually pretty heroic looking! Of course, maybe I'd be less amused by it if it were my president on display.

I'm really rooting for the South African democracy. It took a lot of courage by Mandela to trust democracy rather than to hold on to leadership himself. This new guy sounds awful, but as long as he goes peacefully when his term expires the country should survive.


Now there's a headline worthy of the NY Post*!





* American paper famous for double entendre headlines

I don't for one minute imagine that he won't go peacefully when his term expires. Oh, he'll give heartfelt speeches, he'll submit court orders, he'll take some high-profile story (like this painting) and manipulate the publicity for extra votes, he'll claim there's a conspiracy against him if he happens to get voted out; he'll do all of that. (Constitutionally, he's allowed one more term still, if he's voted in again - there's a two-term limit, and he's had one term so far, and he'll pull all sorts of political strings to get that second term). He might even go so far as to try to have the Constitution changed when he nears the end of his second term, though that will be a difficult fight. He won't go silently. But he'll go peacefully.

I mean, he may have an objectionable personal life and I certainly don't agree with all his policies, but he's not an idiot; and it's a far better thing to be a rich ex-president who is on speaking terms with half the government in a prosperous country than it is to be a military dictator in a collapsing country.

Of course, it is worth noting that the ANC is holding a conference to decide on its new leader going forward reasonably soon, and while Zuma is a prime candidate for that position his candidacy is not assured; he may well be just using this painting saga to try to solidify his position.

Well, the court casse against the painting has been withdrawn, on the grounds that it would be fairly useless to continue. The Goodman Gallery won't display the painting because it has been defaced; the City Press newspaper has removed it from their website; and though the gallery still has the image up on their website they have indicated that it won't remain there forever (though they don't seem to have said anything about how long it will remain there).

Also, the Film and Publications Board has classified it as having an age restriction of 16 due to nudity. This has been greeted with incredularity by the media in general.

Madam and Eve is having fun with the saga, though.