Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Cartoonist says art empowered him
AWARD-WINNING cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro said yesterday was a sentimentally important day for him as he paid tribute to his mother, Gaby Shapiro, and expressed joy that former president Jacob Zuma had eventually got his day in court.
The socio- political commentator was a guest speaker at UCT’s Faculty of Humanities graduation ceremony in the Jameson Memorial Hall yesterday.
Shapiro’s mother, who played an influential role in her son’s activism during the apartheid era, passed away 18 years ago to the day yesterday.
“She was someone who opened my eyes to the injustices around me during apartheid as I grew up. At the age of 53, she joined the United Democratic Front along with friends and myself.
“What inspired me was the egalitarian, ground-up movement that was the UDF… and later in the ANC,” he said.
Shapiro, a former UCT student, said it was significant that the day coincided with Zuma making his first court appearance to face corruption and fraud charges in Durban.
He referred to 2002 as the year “when the corruption that has beset Zuma and South Africa went into the public domain. We fought that corruption struggle for more than 15 years,” he told the packed hall.
“The guy I see with a shower on his head finally appeared in court,” he said to rapturous laughter and applause.
He was referring to his wellknown drawings of Zuma with a shower head.
Shapiro referenced a British rapper who, asked whether he knew who the South African president was, responded: “Isn’t he the guy with the shower?”
The cartoonist said art had empowered him.
Turning to the graduates, Shapiro said the new dawn in the country brought by a new president, and the confidence of graduating, should give a sense of hope to the graduates. “I hope you feel hope again as you graduate today.”