SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: February 9, 2022] The Hole Truth
Nothing can make you feel ignorant like reading a book of cartoons.
This is a collection of South Africa-based cartoons that Zapiro wrote in 1996. Who remembers what was going on twenty-five years ago?
Well, this book has an introduction from Archbishop Desmond Tutu (who appears a few times in cartoon form). Tutu writes that Zapiro is there to skewer hypocrisy but that he has a desire to help the country into realizing their potential–even if it means gently nudging the people he supports when they mess up.
Every country has its share of corruption. That’s the way of power. A book like this makes it seem like there was nothing but corruption in South African (and with apartheid, that was likely the case). Of course, the cartoonist assumes the reader knows what’s going on, so they don’t need to explain their cartoons. If you don’t know what’s going on, well, you may not get the joke. And then you feel stupid.
Minimal background awareness: The ANC, the African National Congress has been in power in South Africa since 1994–the first year of free elections. Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and successfully ran for office in 1994 (until 1999). Also in 1996 Mandela and Tutu created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a flawed by successful body of justice that was designed to aid the transition to democracy.
The ANC and the TRC take up a lot of this book. The general tone is that it’s really hard to do something right and people are always going to try to mess them up (and maybe they’ll give in to the bad people as well).
Those names also rang familiar to me, and yet I did not remember Eugene de Kock–and how could one not remember a name like that? He was (according to Wikipedia) a former South African Police colonel, torturer, and assassin, active under the apartheid government. He was convicted in 1996.
On less specific news, evidently the country had a reputation for drug deals as a UFO lands and the aliens ask to be taking to their dealer.
He took on the pro-life movement with a simple Q & A: Until Catholic Bishops start experiencing sex, pregnancy, childbirth, parenthood. why should anyone listen to what they have to say on the subject? There’s another with pro-lifers protesting in front of abandoned children who say wouldn’t it be nice is they showed the same concern for us after we’re born.
Although the focus of the book is South Africa, Zapiro has always looked outside of South Africa as well.
He digs right into Benjamin Netanyahu (he has been around for that long!) and the first thing Zapiro shows is Netanyahu dragging the Middle East peace process back to square one. Later he shows Netanyahu bulldozing a peace dove by site clearing a project for Jewish settlers in occupied Palestinian land.
Zapiro has a timeless cartoon that can be applied to events today. A large fly strip labelled Truth has a whole bunch of flies buzzing around it sticking to it. I don’t know who the faces are on the flies, but I can see a contemporary one with our former President’s cronies all on these flies.
There’s also one for police captain Brain Mitchell who is seen washing clothes with the bloodstains of eleven people. By using the special powered Amnesty, it cleans the shirt spotless. He says “Amnesty changed my life.”
He turns to the U.S. and shows Bill Clinton chasing away Saddam Hussein (with a sign that says “I’m not a wimp, re-elect me”). And another one with a newspaper headline “Clinton threatens Iraq with more “punishment bombings” and God saying “Tell America to stop playing ME!”
There’s not a lot of cartoons about Clinton so it’s hard to take Zaprio’s read on him. The only one we get really is Inaugural 93 with a list of promises: health care, welfare, gay rights, balanced budget. And then Inaugural 97 with promises amended to com-promises.
A great play with words sees Mandela saying referencing two of Africa’s greatest sons. Someone asks how can you describe Mobutu as one of Africa’s greatest sons? Mandela says the first draft read one of Africa’s greatest kleptomania, tyrant sons-of-bitches. Diplomacy is just careful editing.
There’s also a jab at Pacific Teal for spilling nuclear waste into the sea (with three-headed sea creatures looking on as the legal tea lies about it).
There’s a sad reflection on the cyclical nature of the world with a comment about Syria (in 1996 there were arms deals to Syria from South Africa).
And this one about the TRC. It has Tutu on the edge of cliff holding a map. And across the gap is Reconciliation and Tutu just looks up and says “oops.” It’s flowed by a cartoon of a white man listening to the radio. It says “White South Africa hears the Truth about Apartheid” and it all goes in one ear and out the window. Also one of Mandela and his Rainbow Nation but can these colors really bridge from Black to white?
I also loved Tobacco Companies are Child Killers with a tobacco guy holding a cigarette that looks like a gun and he says “This image is so over the top. Sure we target kids but actually it takes decades to kill them.
Apparently his most famous cartoon is from this era September 4 1997 he shows the Olympian gods then and now (now its the IOC hanging out the winning bid for the next Olympics to Athens, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Rome or Stockholm. And the winner is … (8 September 1997) Not Cape Town.
You can see more of his cartoons at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/zapiro and at www.zapiro.com.
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