Sunday, May 27, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Forward ever, backward never: the naked Zuma and the progress of outrage
After an outburst of protests from governing party and traditionalists against a painting of a naked Jacob Zuma, the countries' lefties are upset. Sixteen-year old South Africa has 'failed', says a former white politician, who in the past spoke out against apartheid. 'This is not progress', says a media guru with a similar anti-apartheid-outspokenness history. Another university professor: 'This is not a laughing matter. Tolerance was tested and failed'.
Is South Africa going backward, instead of forward? I believe the opposite is true.
Let's recapitulate briefly. A white South African artist has painted SA President Jacob Zuma in a Lenin-like pose, leading the way forward, in reddish tones. In the painting, Zuma's genitals are exposed -and they are, as many have noted, impressive. Many people like it. Those who like it (I am among them) are predominantly white (or beige/caramel), urban, arty, and progressive, and they can see the artistic value in combining the notions of a 'revolutionary leader' and 'sexual black male'. They can even appreciate that the image of the 'black man with the big penis' (an organ that, additionally and of course, leads him) has some roots in racist imagery.
But instead of wanting to forbid a portrait of this image, they see that an artist can, and must, creatively use all images to create new images -and debate, and emotion. That, after all, is what art is all about. And, on a much simpler level, if any black male leader ever asked to be portrayed with a lot of emphasis on his penis, it is surely Jacob Zuma? From his 'machinegun' song to his (self-embraced) reputation as a womanizer and a traditional male, he has played a large role in the creation of this image. Conversely, it can be argued that therefore a picture of Zuma-with-his-pants-off is NOT art -precisely because it is so much reality. Where is the artists' imagination? What does he add?
But boy, is Brett Murray an artist. In juxtaposing the sexual traditional male Zuma with the revolutionary people's leader Zuma, he has created something so daring, so controversial, and so true, that South Africa is bustling with debate, emotion, and even violence, as a result. The governing party and the presidency, who could have stayed quiet and make it go away, attracted worldwide publicity to the painting by their outraged press statement and court case. A black church leader called for the artist to be stoned. Someone threw paint over the painting. Whites from Cape Town to Ventersdorp started writing and phoning in really racist comments. This was fun.
Then a friend of mine wrote on Facebook "It is an insult to me to do this to my leader". He attracted a dozen comments, which I could not totally understand since they were all in isiZulu, but I gathered they agreed with what he said. It got me thinking that traditional values of respect for elders and leaders, and embarrassment with regard to depictions of nakedness, especially when combined with elders, do not only exist in Ventersdorp and Ulundi. My friend, and most of his friends, are urbane, modern people, who can talk about sex, believe in human rights and press freedom, and can make fun of, and criticise Zuma or any other leader. They would not jail artists or forbid paintings. Still, they feel that showing this painting to the world is bad form and offensive.
I then started counting tweets labelled #Zumaspear and saw that few of those who expressed pro-artistic-freedom-outrage in the face of traditionalist outrage, were black/African. Most black tweets focused, not on the painting, but on the roughing up by Gallery security guards of a black paint-thrower. (Seemingly, there was a white -paint thrower too, -and he was not beaten up. Another interesting side track.) One tweet, -judging by the picture from a young African woman-, said that the painting was "rubbish that reminds us of Sara Baartman who was paraded naked across Europe."
My friends' Facebook comments and the tweets on #Zumaspear show that the notion that South Africa once was a (sexually) modern, progressive, country, where you could ridicule and embarrass leaders without anybody blinking an eye, and that we are now 'failed', or 'going backward', is absurd. It never was a modern country. Only an intellectual, urbanised, westernized, relatively small, class in this country is modern. African societies everywhere are in the 1950's with regard to sexual politics and issues such as respect for authority, modesty and blasphemy. Many whites, too, especially in non-artistic, non-intellectual and rural spheres of life, would be equally outraged, and probably more violent, at sexually explicit images of Boer generals, Jan Smuts or FW de Klerk. And, remember, FW dumped Marieke to commit adultery with someone else's wife. (OK so he did marry her later, but then again, so does Zuma.). The only reason why conservative whites are not outraged at this painting of the president, is because it is a black president.
And what would we say, if an artist had painted such a picture of Nelson Mandela? Or a female black leader?
Go, Brett Murray! In as much as an artist has engaged the conservative establishment and provoked national debate, this is not deterioration -it is progress. Blacks are even going to galleries now! Granted, they are marching rather than visiting, but even that is progress. This is how progress happens.
Every second, there is more progress on Twitter. One black tweep wants input from black male visual artists, a wonderful request (come on black male visual artists, we haven't heard from you yet, I think?) Another black tweep opines, rather maturely and to the point, that a President 'who lets it all hang out' is the problem, not the artist depicting him. Zuma should step down, because he, not the artist, embarrasses public opinion. A lot of other black tweeps want attention to revert back to school books, toilets in poor areas, employment. I read a whole lot of creative, constructive, forward-thinking inputs. I see no Taliban, there is no police or military action. Not the artist, but the defacers were arrested. The ANC goes to court, as it should. That is what the court is for. And the painting,damaged or not, shoots up in value.
To finish, here is what Ferial Haffajee, editor of City Press, a newspaper with a large black readership, has to say. '(some of us at the paper) wanted the image to lead the arts section, but too many people objected on grounds that ranged from us being a family paper to concerns about dignity and cultural values. We put the image inside and ran a funny version on page 1, its indignity coverend by a price tag.' She continues: '(SA) is a sexually aware, satirically sussed and progressive country. At the same time, we are a traditional society with a president who is most well known for his many marriages. Our identity is not as simple as the cultural chauvinists and dignity dogmatists like to make out. Ours is, by design, a live and let live world.'
In the body of her article, Haffajee also states very clearly that 'as journalists worth our salt' we cannot condone, or be complicit, in censorship. So we don't destroy pictures, we are not at the beck and call of the establishment. The fight between art, free thought, and power, is on, as it has always been. But that doesn't mean anybody is going backward. Forward ever, backward never, as Lenin, the man whose pose the painted Zuma adopts, would say.
Is South Africa going backward, instead of forward? I believe the opposite is true.
Let's recapitulate briefly. A white South African artist has painted SA President Jacob Zuma in a Lenin-like pose, leading the way forward, in reddish tones. In the painting, Zuma's genitals are exposed -and they are, as many have noted, impressive. Many people like it. Those who like it (I am among them) are predominantly white (or beige/caramel), urban, arty, and progressive, and they can see the artistic value in combining the notions of a 'revolutionary leader' and 'sexual black male'. They can even appreciate that the image of the 'black man with the big penis' (an organ that, additionally and of course, leads him) has some roots in racist imagery.
But instead of wanting to forbid a portrait of this image, they see that an artist can, and must, creatively use all images to create new images -and debate, and emotion. That, after all, is what art is all about. And, on a much simpler level, if any black male leader ever asked to be portrayed with a lot of emphasis on his penis, it is surely Jacob Zuma? From his 'machinegun' song to his (self-embraced) reputation as a womanizer and a traditional male, he has played a large role in the creation of this image. Conversely, it can be argued that therefore a picture of Zuma-with-his-pants-off is NOT art -precisely because it is so much reality. Where is the artists' imagination? What does he add?
But boy, is Brett Murray an artist. In juxtaposing the sexual traditional male Zuma with the revolutionary people's leader Zuma, he has created something so daring, so controversial, and so true, that South Africa is bustling with debate, emotion, and even violence, as a result. The governing party and the presidency, who could have stayed quiet and make it go away, attracted worldwide publicity to the painting by their outraged press statement and court case. A black church leader called for the artist to be stoned. Someone threw paint over the painting. Whites from Cape Town to Ventersdorp started writing and phoning in really racist comments. This was fun.
Then a friend of mine wrote on Facebook "It is an insult to me to do this to my leader". He attracted a dozen comments, which I could not totally understand since they were all in isiZulu, but I gathered they agreed with what he said. It got me thinking that traditional values of respect for elders and leaders, and embarrassment with regard to depictions of nakedness, especially when combined with elders, do not only exist in Ventersdorp and Ulundi. My friend, and most of his friends, are urbane, modern people, who can talk about sex, believe in human rights and press freedom, and can make fun of, and criticise Zuma or any other leader. They would not jail artists or forbid paintings. Still, they feel that showing this painting to the world is bad form and offensive.
I then started counting tweets labelled #Zumaspear and saw that few of those who expressed pro-artistic-freedom-outrage in the face of traditionalist outrage, were black/African. Most black tweets focused, not on the painting, but on the roughing up by Gallery security guards of a black paint-thrower. (Seemingly, there was a white -paint thrower too, -and he was not beaten up. Another interesting side track.) One tweet, -judging by the picture from a young African woman-, said that the painting was "rubbish that reminds us of Sara Baartman who was paraded naked across Europe."
My friends' Facebook comments and the tweets on #Zumaspear show that the notion that South Africa once was a (sexually) modern, progressive, country, where you could ridicule and embarrass leaders without anybody blinking an eye, and that we are now 'failed', or 'going backward', is absurd. It never was a modern country. Only an intellectual, urbanised, westernized, relatively small, class in this country is modern. African societies everywhere are in the 1950's with regard to sexual politics and issues such as respect for authority, modesty and blasphemy. Many whites, too, especially in non-artistic, non-intellectual and rural spheres of life, would be equally outraged, and probably more violent, at sexually explicit images of Boer generals, Jan Smuts or FW de Klerk. And, remember, FW dumped Marieke to commit adultery with someone else's wife. (OK so he did marry her later, but then again, so does Zuma.). The only reason why conservative whites are not outraged at this painting of the president, is because it is a black president.
And what would we say, if an artist had painted such a picture of Nelson Mandela? Or a female black leader?
Go, Brett Murray! In as much as an artist has engaged the conservative establishment and provoked national debate, this is not deterioration -it is progress. Blacks are even going to galleries now! Granted, they are marching rather than visiting, but even that is progress. This is how progress happens.
Every second, there is more progress on Twitter. One black tweep wants input from black male visual artists, a wonderful request (come on black male visual artists, we haven't heard from you yet, I think?) Another black tweep opines, rather maturely and to the point, that a President 'who lets it all hang out' is the problem, not the artist depicting him. Zuma should step down, because he, not the artist, embarrasses public opinion. A lot of other black tweeps want attention to revert back to school books, toilets in poor areas, employment. I read a whole lot of creative, constructive, forward-thinking inputs. I see no Taliban, there is no police or military action. Not the artist, but the defacers were arrested. The ANC goes to court, as it should. That is what the court is for. And the painting,damaged or not, shoots up in value.
To finish, here is what Ferial Haffajee, editor of City Press, a newspaper with a large black readership, has to say. '(some of us at the paper) wanted the image to lead the arts section, but too many people objected on grounds that ranged from us being a family paper to concerns about dignity and cultural values. We put the image inside and ran a funny version on page 1, its indignity coverend by a price tag.' She continues: '(SA) is a sexually aware, satirically sussed and progressive country. At the same time, we are a traditional society with a president who is most well known for his many marriages. Our identity is not as simple as the cultural chauvinists and dignity dogmatists like to make out. Ours is, by design, a live and let live world.'
In the body of her article, Haffajee also states very clearly that 'as journalists worth our salt' we cannot condone, or be complicit, in censorship. So we don't destroy pictures, we are not at the beck and call of the establishment. The fight between art, free thought, and power, is on, as it has always been. But that doesn't mean anybody is going backward. Forward ever, backward never, as Lenin, the man whose pose the painted Zuma adopts, would say.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Note to my children
Like being 'not-a-racist', being good is not easy. Be wary of people who tell you you are good if you like their status, follow them, share their posts, sign their petition or buy their product. All those things do is give these same people a constituency, power, money. You don't have to do what Nelson Mandela did and spend 27 years in jail before you can be called 'good'. But you can't be good without spending some time and effort. Like reading up. Find out who is already busy doing the 'good' that you want to support. Find out how many groups claim that their thing is the best thing. (Just to hammer this point home: there were many, many, perfectly nice teenagers in a country far, far away, who followed a man called Adolf. They believed that Adolf's enemies were really vicious child-eaters. They were wrong, of course, Adolf was the really vicious child-eater and his enemies were the good guys.) I am not saying that your cause is wrong. I am not saying that it is wrong to try to be good. Please do try to be good. But do read up first.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
The invisible ones
And another thing. "I am not invisible", tweets a teenager from the region in Uganda where Kony was active up to 6 years ago. "I am Acholi". Which, maybe, indicates the real damage done to this childs' peers in the US, Europe and wherever else 'invisible children' are trending. The publics' strings are pulled in the name of something that cannot be seen. Or heard. We have been told about 'voiceless' people before, and donated money to individuals who claimed to be their rightful voices. We have swallowed that too, and felt all the better for it. Those invisible, voiceless beings make it rather easy for us to feel good about ourselves. We don't have to observe. There is nothing to see, since this is about invisible people. And since they are most probably voiceless too, we don't have to listen either. All we have to do is to watch and hear things presented to us by very vocal people with access to our screens and earphones. And follow them. Scary.
What do Kony and StopKony give our children that we don't?
Joseph Kony is on Twitter now. It's probably not him but it could be. "I give children belonging and respect", he tweets. If the StopKony campaign has had one result, it is now that all of us, really all of us, are debating on social media. No mean feat.
So I am here too. And am trying to distinguish between warlords who tempt children with belonging, status, shiny items and a cause, and a viral video that does the exact same thing. "In our village, we all wanted to join Museveni's army. It was the thing to do if you were a boy. From a nobody, you were now going to be a fighter. You were going to ride in jeeps. Your were going to do some good, you were going to matter. It was very exciting", Frank Nyakairu, now a multi-award-winning journalist, once told me. Nyakairu's dad wouldn't let him. The son became a journalist and a human rights activist instead.
If we look a bit further back, we might find a parellel between Kony on the one side, 'Stop Kony' on the other side, and the medieval Childrens' Crusades. Church leaders would come to villages and recruit children to fight for Christ, against the devilish Moors. Children, often leading pitiful existences, would feel elated at the prospect and join, often encouraged by relatives who couldn't feed them. On the way, the children would service the armoured church leaders, war lords of that time. They were cannon fodder, labour force, and, probably, providers of sexual services to those stronger or higher up the ranks. All for the good cause. Even Kony's army is called the Lord's Army.
What do parents do when our children come to us and want US$ 30,- to join the 'Stop Kony' crusade? Do we feel inadequate, since a bunch of slick Americans were able to inspire them, and we weren't? Do we lecture them to say that they don't know what they are talking about, that Ugandan activists have been fighting Kony and a corrupt government, and it would be better to listen to these people before you follow American crusaders and an agenda only the Lord (or Obama) knows? Do we inform them that it takes more to fight a warlord than to like a status and order a bracelet online? All of the above?
We are, of course, all green with envy at the fact that 25 million young people connected with each other, and with a cause. Kony gave them belonging and respect. Interesting, that.
So I am here too. And am trying to distinguish between warlords who tempt children with belonging, status, shiny items and a cause, and a viral video that does the exact same thing. "In our village, we all wanted to join Museveni's army. It was the thing to do if you were a boy. From a nobody, you were now going to be a fighter. You were going to ride in jeeps. Your were going to do some good, you were going to matter. It was very exciting", Frank Nyakairu, now a multi-award-winning journalist, once told me. Nyakairu's dad wouldn't let him. The son became a journalist and a human rights activist instead.
If we look a bit further back, we might find a parellel between Kony on the one side, 'Stop Kony' on the other side, and the medieval Childrens' Crusades. Church leaders would come to villages and recruit children to fight for Christ, against the devilish Moors. Children, often leading pitiful existences, would feel elated at the prospect and join, often encouraged by relatives who couldn't feed them. On the way, the children would service the armoured church leaders, war lords of that time. They were cannon fodder, labour force, and, probably, providers of sexual services to those stronger or higher up the ranks. All for the good cause. Even Kony's army is called the Lord's Army.
What do parents do when our children come to us and want US$ 30,- to join the 'Stop Kony' crusade? Do we feel inadequate, since a bunch of slick Americans were able to inspire them, and we weren't? Do we lecture them to say that they don't know what they are talking about, that Ugandan activists have been fighting Kony and a corrupt government, and it would be better to listen to these people before you follow American crusaders and an agenda only the Lord (or Obama) knows? Do we inform them that it takes more to fight a warlord than to like a status and order a bracelet online? All of the above?
We are, of course, all green with envy at the fact that 25 million young people connected with each other, and with a cause. Kony gave them belonging and respect. Interesting, that.
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