The Spear

MAY 29, 2012 / WRITTEN BY CHUCK LIGHTNING

 

This is the kind of post you never want to write…

but someone has to…

In South Africa, there is a rampant phenomenon known as corrective rape…

throughout the country men are raping lesbians in an attempt to “cure” their sexual orientation…

(watch an excellent Dan Rather corrective rape report here…)

overall the statistics are alarming…

In general, South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the world: 1 in 2 women can be expected to be raped at least once in her lifetime, and 1 in 4 men admitted that they had committed rape at one time or another.

Even the president Jacob Zuma has been charged with rape.

According to court testimony, he raped the daughter of his deceased friend: a 31-year-old woman and family friend at his home in Forest Town, Johannesburg. She was an AIDS activist and HIV positive.  Zuma knew this, and yet he did not use a condom.  He told the court that to reduce the chance of contracting the disease he took a shower afterward.  He also told the court that he believed the victim was sending him sexual signals by wearing a knee-length skirt and no underwear under her kanga, or wrap, and sitting with her legs uncrossed, and that it was his duty, as a Zulu man, to satisfy a sexually aroused woman.

(For a timeline of the trial read here.)

These comments bring the recent controversial painting of Zuma rendered by the white South African painter Brett Murray into a new light.  The painting is named The Spear, and in it, Zuma stands bravely like a Russian Lenin, a defiant champion of the people–and yet, there is something off with the civilized depiction, for he is nude from the waist down.

(Above please see the Brett Murray painting in question alongside its proxy, an actual portrait of Vladimir Lenin.)

With Zuma’s rape charge in mind, I would argue now that Zuma’s exposed loins are thereby revealed to be a brutal weapon, a weapon of twisted tradition and history, the embodiment of South African misogyny, patriarchy, and violence against women–and by extension, yes, the violence of Africans and Christians against the LGBT community. (Let’s not conveniently forget that South Africa is predominantly a Christian nation. And before Muslims rejoice at the savagery of Christians: let’s also remember that in 2011, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation led a walkout of Muslim states from the Human Rights Council in Geneva because  they thought the gay rights legislation promoted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would promote “licentious behavior” and lead to the “legitimization of many deplorable acts, including pedophilia and incest.”)

The Spear painting has been vandalized, and there have been uprisings and arguments regarding its significance- with black Africans incensed that a white South African could disrespect the ANC president by exposing his painted penis to the world.  But I wonder why these same Africans are not rioting in the streets over the victimization of women in general, and the rape and murder of lesbian women in particular, and the terrifying shouts of “We’ll show you you’re a woman” that resound in the night as these lesbians are raped and stabbed across South Africa.

The perverse irony is that, legally speaking, South Africa is ahead of America in the legal struggle for gay rights, and certainly ahead of Africa, and much of the world.

When the ANC came to power in 1994, the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the anti-apartheid crusader Reverend Allan Boesak supported gay rights, and in 1996, President Nelson Mandela spearheaded the adoption of a constitution that overturned sodomy laws, and gave the LGBT community rights in areas such as adoption, immigration, inheritance, and medical aid.  Gays now serve openly in the South African military, and in 2004, the South African common-law definition of marriage was changed to include same-sex marriage.

On paper and in the courts South Africa is one of the freest, most loving places in the world.

But in the streets and in the townships the battle continues against ignorance, against violence, against hate, against bigoted police officers, hateful Christian ministers, and THE SPEAR, Africans that believe “gayism” is un-African, and that “jackrolling”–rape by organized gangs–is the only cure.

How this African attitude toward gayness corresponds with black American attitudes and black church attitudes toward the LGBT community is the subject of a study or documentary I’d love to to see…

Until then, please pick up the May 28, 2012 New Yorker, read “Violated Hopes” by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, and support the movement to stop the madness.

You can begin your fight for change by leaving thoughts, comments and questions below.

Thanks for listening. And as we fight, may we all keep laughing to keep from crying.

–c.lightning

 

__________________________

South Africa painting of President Jacob Zuma highlights nation’s racial tensions

Jon Herskovitz, Reuters  May 24, 2012 

Jerome Delay / The Associated Press

Supporters of South African President Jacob Zuma gather outside the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on May 22 as the controversial portrait of South African President Jacob Zuma painted by Brett Murray was defaced at the Goodman Gallery. Footage shown on a national news station showed a man in a suit painting a red X over the president's genital area and then his face. Next a man in a hoodie rubbed black paint over the president's face and down the painting with his hands.

 

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s ruling ANC went to court on Thursday seeking to remove from public display a painting of President Jacob Zuma with his genitals exposed, saying the work is symbolic of the lingering racial oppression of apartheid.

Handout

A man paints a cross on a painting by artist Brett Murray of South Africa's President Jacob Zuma at a gallery in Johannesburg.

Proceedings were halted after a bizzare scene where Gcina Malindi, lawyer for the ANC, broke down in tears when a judge asked him how the court can halt viewing of an image widely distributed on the Internet.

The portrait shows Zuma in a pose mimicking Soviet-era posters of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, chest thrust out, arm raised to the side, coat tail flowing in the wind.

It has stirred one of the country’s most heated political debates in years with a divide growing on racial lines over whether the image is symbolic of Zuma’s failings or demeans the dignity of an African leader.

“From where I am sitting, that picture is racist. It is disrespectful. It is crude and it is rude,” Gwede Mantashe, the secretary-general of the African National Congress told Reuters this week.

“The more black South Africans forgive and forget, the more they get a kick in the teeth,” he said.

The former liberation movement ANC came to office 18 years ago when apartheid ended, pledging to end the economic inequalities that grew out of decades of white minority rule.

But its record has been spotty, with many in the ANC blaming white capitalists for not doing enough to transform Africa’s largest economy, while a growing cross section blames the ANC for enriching itself and allies at the expense of taxpayers.

According to Statistics South Africa, 29 percent of blacks are unemployed compared with 5.9 percent of whites, while IHS Global Insight, an economic consultancy, estimates that whites have an average income nearly seven times that of blacks.

“The response by ANC follows a pattern seen in the past where criticism of the party by white people is said to be racist, instead of dealing with the issue,” said Lucy Holborn, research manager at South African Institute of Race Relations.

The artist of the portrait, Brett Murray, is a white, anti-apartheid activist who once used his work to lampoon the rulers of the white-minority regime.

Related

• South African President Jacob Zuma penis painting vandalized in gallery

• Black farmworker found guilty in murder of white supremacist in South Africa

But he turned into an ANC enemy with the Zuma portrait that was part of an exhibit in Johannesburg gallery called “Hail to the Thief,” which lampooned growing corruption under ANC rule.

Tension was heightened when the painting was defaced this week by a white man — peacefully taken into custody by security guards — and a black man who was head butted and body slammed by a guard. The defaced painting has been removed from public view.

Adding to the mix is that Zuma, a polygamist married six times and father of 21 children, has been a polarising figure seen as having a colourful personal life but an ineffectual leader of the continent’s top economic power.

“This is a constitutional democracy, not a monarchy. Respect is earned, and very few would say that the president has earned our respect given his lifestyle,” political analyst Justice Malala wrote in an opinion piece for Britain’s Guardian newspaper.