Cape Town: Jackwagon

It's been a long week, kids. On the bright side, I got a piece published about a cyclist who is riding his bike from Grahamstown, South Africa all the way over here to Cape Town. That's more than 11 hours driving (if you didn't stop anywhere). He's doing it to raise money for the grandson of his childhood domestic worker. The grandson, Dumela, just lost his mother to illness, and his father is irrelevant in his life. He is now in the care of his grandmother and aunt. Sesiwe, Dumela's grandmother and the domestic worker who essentially raised this cyclist, asked him to help her grandson--they are a poor family. So he's taking this bike trip to make sure all the funds necessary for Dumela's education are taken care of. It's a sweet story, because it's clear that he really considers Sesiwe as family. She still works for his parents (she's now in her 60s) and has been with them since he was a baby. He was telling me about how he rode around on her back before he could walk.

Anyway, here's a link to the story: http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/cyclist-hits-road-for-orphan-1.1301874
And here is Gunther's (the cyclist's) blog: http://gunthermarx.blogspot.com/

Moving on, I spent yesterday writing about a flower show (woo hoo! Plants and shit!) and today about some almost-smuggled snakes and geckos. So yeah, chugging along over here.

If anyone follows South African news, you'll know about the Zuma painting that has recently raised so much controversy lately. If not, here's the story: a white satirical artist, who was notoriously anti-apartheid back in the 1980s and early 1990s, painted a picture of Zuma in the same pose as Lenin in a notorious propaganda poster. The kicker is that Zuma was, essentially, rocking out with his cock out in this painting.

"Well, Ingrid, I think that the shading highlights the conflict between the abstract and reality...good God, is that a penis?!"

This painting was not very well-known until Zuma decided to bring the gallery to court for displaying this, after they refused his request to take it down. His case is that this painting "violates his constitutional right to dignity." 

There is no constitutional basis for his claim. He's just angry that someone was so disrespectful towards him, or whatever you want to call this painting. The African National Congress (ANC) is also furious; many officials have said that it should be burned, but who writes the checks that buy their seaside villas? Zuma does. 

This is a clear case of censorship--the painter is exercising freedom of expression, and the painting is not hurting anyone. This artist has also been painting things like this for years. Based on what I know about his work, he likes to use sexual imagery to represent power and patriarchy, and Zuma is...well, he hasn't exactly been a white knight to SA in terms of the way he's used his power. Of course, the ANC has also pulled out the "DAT'S RACIST" card, as it often does. If it can't be legally removed, it's labeled as racist or in line with old apartheid policies. The funny thing is that there is a black artist who also painted a picture of Zuma with genitalia, and nobody said anything about that. 

Anyway, the big news here is that yesterday, two men defaced the painting as it hung in the gallery. We watched in horror on our TV in the newsroom as it was painted on. E News, the main news channel other than the public station, SABC, happened to be there for another story (I still think they were tipped off--that's too much of a coincidence, and it was hugely sensational footage) and caught it all on film. The first man painted red Xs over Zuma's face and penis, and the other man dipped his hands in black oil paint and just smeared the whole canvas. This is what it looks like now: 

The security guard, of course, didn't arrive until the painting was already ruined (again, suspicious. This whole thing looked staged to me.) The case is still going to court, presumably because there are still millions of pictures of this painting online.

I just found this to be an incredibly interesting example of political dynamics here. But it does make me worry that when the day comes that another party can compete with the ANC on a national level, that the ANC won't let power go. It seems that it's only a democracy as long as everyone votes ANC.