SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: March 1, 2022] The Devil Made Me Do It
As South Africa entered the new millennium, things were progressing very slowly (and sometimes regressing). And Zapiro was watching.
Homophobia was spreading throughout African nations. There’s a banner that says Queens against Mugabe. Zapiro ties it together nicely with a picture of Queen Elizabeth with a paper that says “Mugabe lambasts U.K.”
And an anti-rape ad (starring Charlize Theron) was banned because there was public outcry. Which leads to a later strip in which children learn the rape message: it’s not bad to rape someone in your own family (A lenient sentence was given to a man who raped his daughter); rape is less offensive than an anti-rape ad that offends men; you can get away with rape if you are famous and hire a hotshot legal team.
Apartheid fallout was still happening.
There’s a an amusing picture of Apartheid Hell and the devil is showing all of the people there a video called No person shall be discriminated against on the basis of race, gender ethnic or social origin, culture, sexual orientation….” Although clearly the powerful men aren’t all getting punished as we see Craig Williamson, a constant figure in these battles, telling the Amnesty Committee to sit, lie down and fetch his amnesty.
I don’t know the context of this joke, but even without it the point is clear: there’s a documentary filmmaker shooting the “S.A. War 1899-1902” and he tells the black participants and victims to get out of frame for more authenticity.
Thami Mazwai has applied to be on the South African Broadcasting Corporation with the quote “Editorial independence and press freedom should never be placed above the national interest.” Yikes. Zapiro shows him driving a car with “Have you hugged your censor today” and “journalists do it with a gag on.”
Back in the U.S the WTO conference was protested by everyone from unionist to environmentalists but they largely ignored third world needs.
I’m guessing that taxis in South Africa are very dangerous. He has a LOT of cartoons about them and the danger they pose, including one with a Santa chalk outline.
And of course there are plenty of Y2K observations. Including a good one of doomsday preppers in a bunker with their bibles and their gun and a guy walking but saying never mind there’s always next millennium.
There were two big cartoonist deaths in this issue. A loving tribute to Charlz Schulz and a more zany tribute to Don Martin from Mad magazine.
The Apartheid trials were heating up–this time they were going after the chemical warfare kingpin Wouter Basson–but he is ruled to have worked outside of the jurisdiction of the court. Zapiro’s comparison is Mengele being freed because Auschwitz is outside of Germany’s borders.
AIDS was also rearing its head in Africa and Zapiro makes a strip about how Doctors, Scientists AIDS researchers and the national AIDS consortium representing 230 NGOs were all excluded from the government’s National AIDS council. Later at the world AIDS conference, we see SA President Mbeki supporting voodoo science rather than anything effective. He said poverty was a major cause of AIDS.
And Zimbabwe is till under fire. The great nation is in ruins because of Mugabe’s policies. He shows off new farming implements: spears and petrol. (He supported the land invasion taking away farmers land).
South Africa hoped to host the 2006 World Cup, but were denied at the last minute. He has a “fun” (although not for them) cartoon of a n SA player shooting a goal. The German goalie goes for the ball, with the caption: Spot the ball! Answer on Thursday. SA lost by one vote–the New Zealander abstained.
There are several strips about a match fixing scandal in cricket. This must have been a massive deal as there are almost a dozen strips about it, including a principal meeting with parents: “The bad news is your son cheats, tells lies, and bullies his peers into doing bad things The good news is he could becomes South Africa’s cricket captain.” And apparently the Bafana Bafana soccer team was really really bad (even without match fixing affecting them).
The match fixing even enters into other stories as the UN withdraws election monitors from Zimbabwe citing gross irregularities–(the official shouts ‘match fixing’). It then shows Mugabe peeing on a ballot box that says “free and fair.”
And in another anti-gun strip there a quote from Constand Viljoen who says an Afrikaner’s guns are second only to his wife.
More medical/corporate concerns arise. He notes: Asbestos related diseases: collapse lung. For corporate suits: hardened heart. And in his annual Anti-cigarette strip, he has three cigarette parodies: B&H Share the Feeling Share the Taste (a guy hacking while in a wheelchair on oxygen); Welcome to Marlboro Country (a graveyard) and I Choose Lucky Strike (the “I choose” vending machine has “Lung Cancer,” “Throat Cancer,” “Emphysema” “Stroke” or “Heart Attack.”
The book ends on a really sad note as we see a father and son looking at a rainbow that’s one black stripe and one white stripe and he says “then one day it changed back and we realized the rainbow was just a temporary illusion.” The next strip is an empty panel that says “whites who never benefitted from apartheid.” Let’s hope the new millennium sees a brighter day.
You can see more of his cartoons at https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/zapiro and at www.zapiro.com.
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