Nzimande calls for boycott of City Press

Cape Town 101102.Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande at a media briefing held at Parliament. PHOTO SAM CLARk, CA, Ilse Fredricks

Cape Town 101102.Higher Education Minister, Blade Nzimande at a media briefing held at Parliament. PHOTO SAM CLARk, CA, Ilse Fredricks

Published May 24, 2012

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SACP party leader Blade Nzimande has called for a boycott of City Press newspaper as retribution for its refusal to remove from its website the artist Brett Murray’s controversial depiction of President Jacob Zuma with exposed genitalia.

“This portrait (sic) is deeply offensive, is insulting, is demeaning and is one of the most serious violations of the black human body in recent times”.

Nzimande was addressing the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) conference in Kempton Park on Thursday morning, as an application by Zuma and the ANC to have the painting removed from the website and the Goodman Gallery, got underway in the Joburg High Court before a full bench of judges.

NUM deputy president Piet Matosa went a step further, urging the government, Cosatu and the ANC to stop advertising in City Press “because you can’t advertise in a newspaper that does not respect the President of South Africa”.

The painting, titled The Spear, is no longer on display at the gallery after it was vandalised by two people who – operating independently of each other – defaced it with red and black paint.

Nzimande urged delegates to cease buying or reading the newspaper “as of this Sunday” until such time as it removed the picture.

He referred to City Press editor Ferial Haffajee’s response to the furore that erupted after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon featuring the Prophet Mohammed in 2010, which enraged many Muslim people.

At the time, Haffajee had acknowledged that freedom of expression was not absolute and that rights had to be balanced with the responsibilities of not doing harm, causing offence or offending cultures, Nzimande said.

Now however Haffajee was saying the picture would not be removed and that Zuma had done more to impugn his own dignity than any artist ever could, he said.

Nzimande questioned why Muslim anger in 2010 was legitimate yet African people’s outrage over the picture counted for nothing. “This means every community in South Africa has a culture except African people... That’s why we can be insulted with impunity”.

There was a big difference between freedom of expression and the freedom to insult, Nzimande said.

“We’ve been insulted, our dignity’s been violated, we’ve been made to feel naked… Don’t tell us how to feel, ask us how we feel.”

Nzimande attacked the picture – and people’s defence of it in the name of freedom of expression – as part of a “anti-majoritarian liberal offensive” that threatened to roll back the gains of the majority.

He likened the portrayal of Zuma, in a version of a well-known poster of the revolutionary leader, Lenin, to the exploitation of Sara Baartman, the Khoikhoi woman displayed in 19th century Europe as the “Hottentot Venus”.

There were “sections of South Africa who’ve not accepted our gesture of reconciliation”, Nzimande continued. Instead, it was read as evidence of weakness.

Nzimande accused some white South Africans of “continuing with the same old attitude towards black people” and took a swipe at opposition DA leader Helen Zille, saying it was the “same thing” as her controversial statement that Eastern Cape residents who relocated to Cape Town were “refugees”.

However, he said it was important to still remain committed to non-racialism “because we’re higher than them”.

Political Bureau

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