More On New Zapiro Rape Cartoon Featuring Jacob Zuma

The editor of South African cartoonist Jonathan "Zapiro" Shapiro declared the paper's support for a cartoon that extends a previously-used rape metaphor to a free speech issue currently facing the South African press. The initial cartoon, a worldwide sensation, was published in 2006. Shapiro is currently being sued by South African president Jacob Zuma for previous iterations of the cartoon directed at commentary on the legal system. The Mail & Guardian editor, Nic Dawes, pointed out the irony of threatened legal action against the new cartoon, that an obvious expression of free speech in support of free speech would be targeted for censure.

If allowing for a dissenting view is an admirable extension of those principles, Zapiro's newspaper can receive further plaudits for publishing the strongest criticism of its cartoonist's latest effort. Writing for the Mail & Guardian, Michelle Solomon proclaims that rape isn't just another metaphor, primarily because to make it so involves a preliminary act of abstraction that reduces the very real and present horrors of such an action. The Mail & Guardian published the initial cartoon last Friday.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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