Jacob Zuma, the leader of the African National Congress and presumed next president of South Africa, has filed another suit against cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro (pen name “Zapiro”) over a series of “unflattering cartoons” that Zuma supporters consider racist.
“I’ve been accused of racism many times in the past seven or eight months. In the previous 25 years, I never got accused of racism at all. It’s all of a sudden happened and it’s all around Jacob Zuma. It’s pretty disturbing,” Zapiro told the Daily Telegraph.
This is my favorite line from the newspaper article:
“Behind all this lies Mr Zuma’s belief that satire is a Western imposition, trampling on Africa’s traditional sense of respect for its leaders.”
I had no idea that questioning the powerful was a tool of Western imperialism.
Power has no sense of humor, power has no sense at all.
The line that had me literally laughing out loud was
“Mr Shapiro promptly fixed a shower to Mr Zuma’s head in the next cartoon â?? and the shower has stayed ever since. “People keep asking me ‘will you keep the shower on him when he becomes president’ and I say ‘why the heck not’?” said Mr Shapiro, 50″
Genius stuff!