Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Abbreviati Ons and Acronyms
- 1 Introduction: The ANC and the media post-apartheid
- 2 The relationship between the media and democracy
- 3 The media's challenges: legislation and commercial imperatives
- 4 Race and the media
- 5 Freedom of expression: the case of Zapiro
- 6 Social fantasy: the ANC's gaze and the media appeals tribunal
- 7 The Sunday Times versus the health minister
- 8 What is developmental journalism?
- 9 Concluding reflections: where is democracy headed?
- Eplogue
- Appendices 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- References
- Index
5 - Freedom of expression: the case of Zapiro
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Abbreviati Ons and Acronyms
- 1 Introduction: The ANC and the media post-apartheid
- 2 The relationship between the media and democracy
- 3 The media's challenges: legislation and commercial imperatives
- 4 Race and the media
- 5 Freedom of expression: the case of Zapiro
- 6 Social fantasy: the ANC's gaze and the media appeals tribunal
- 7 The Sunday Times versus the health minister
- 8 What is developmental journalism?
- 9 Concluding reflections: where is democracy headed?
- Eplogue
- Appendices 1
- Appendix 2
- Appendix 3
- References
- Index
Summary
Politics have changed. My principles have not changed. I'm still very much for progressive values. I'm railing against inconsistencies and contradictions. I have been sued. The Human Rights Commission should have defended my right to publish my cartoons, in the name of freedom of expression.
What does ‘freedom of expression’ mean in South Africa's democracy when internationally recognised cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro, who works under the name Zapiro, had claims for damages against him for R7-million in 2008, by President Jacob Zuma, over a cartoon? (This claim was reduced in 2011 and a trial date set for October 2012.) This chapter examines the alterity, otherness or radical difference of Zapiro through this cartoon and argues that the ideological interpellation, or name-calling, as ‘enemy’ and ‘racist’, coupled with the lawsuit by the president, caused ambivalence and loss for Zapiro. In addition, he appeared to make a half turn towards the voice of power when he removed the showerhead from the cartoons of the president, albeit temporarily. (Zapiro has depicted Zuma with a showerhead since the president announced in his rape trial that he took a shower after having sex with an HIV-positive woman. In all fairness to Zuma, he has subsequently explained that he never said he took a shower to prevent contracting HIV/AIDS. He said that when the judge asked him what he did after he had sex he replied that he took a shower.)
Before a discussion of the Lady Justice cartoon and the furore that it caused, let us turn to Butler's explication of ambivalence and loss, for which she is indebted to Freud. While Žižek's thought derives much from Hegel's dialectical materialism, his philosophical offerings are also psychoanalytical, based on the Lacanian interpretation of Freud. However, as Lacan suggested, and Žižek agreed, ‘one never goes beyond Freud; one uses him, one moves around him’ (Kay 2003.18). In the same way, this analysis of the cartoon, the subjection of Zapiro through interpellation and his subsequent reaction move around Freud.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fight for DemocracyThe ANC and the Media in South Africa, pp. 100 - 124Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2013