ANC will take to the streets — Mantashe
WHAT the African National Congress (ANC) could not win in the courts, it would win in the streets, party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe said yesterday, declaring the march to the Goodman Gallery over the controversial painting, The Spear, a “mission accomplished”.
Against the backdrop of the ANC’s loss in court over the right to sing a struggle song and an unresolved court interdict against the painting, his comments could be viewed as a populist approach to tackling the country’s problems.
The now-defaced painting — depicting President Jacob Zuma with his penis exposed — was removed from the City Press website and from the walls of the gallery and will also be removed from its website. That followed a week of protests, talks and compromise.
The artwork whipped up the emotions of South Africans across colour lines, with some condemning it as insulting and vile, and others dismissing criticism of it as intolerant and undemocratic.
“They have not been interdicted by the courts, they have been interdicted by you,” Mr Mantashe told thousands of ANC members who marched in defence of Mr Zuma.
“That is your power.”
The thousand-strong march kicked off at the Zoo Lake, with poster-carrying protesters bused in from as far afield as Mpumalanga.
It snaked its way through the suburb of Parkview, up Jan Smuts Avenue, which was closed to traffic for its duration, and halted outside the gallery in Rosebank.
Protesters sang and danced as they approached. Some took the opportunity to campaign for Mr Zuma ahead of his battle for a second term at the head of the ANC. “Naked or not, Zuma for second term: Mpumalanga,” read one placard.
The Goodman Gallery, in its response to the ANC memorandum, said it never intended causing hurt or harm to the dignity of anyone.
The gallery had removed the painting from its walls and “looked forward to continue engaging with the ANC”. It gave Mr Mantashe an assurance that it would also remove the painting from its website.
The leadership of the ANC and its alliance partners, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the South African Communist Party (SACP), addressed the crowd from the back of a truck.
Mr Mantashe said there was a “very strong liberal offensive” under way against the movement, an “offensive on people excluded from the political system for many years”. He said the ANC had the right to defend itself, the country and African values and culture, referring to critics who accused the party of bullying the gallery into submission. He said “papering over the cracks of racial tension” was not going to help the process of unifying SA.
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, the general secretary of the SACP, called for the complete destruction of the painting.
“Don’t sell it, it must remain in this country and be destroyed … if it is allowed to go to Germany … they are making our president the second Sara Baartman,” he said. Baartman was a Khoisan woman taken to Europe in the 1800s and displayed because of her physical features.
The painting by artist Brett Murray has already been sold to a German collector for R136 000.
The rank and file of the ANC had taken the matter to heart, with workers forgoing a day’s wage to protest. Gauteng businessman and ANC member John Ndlovu said he empathised with Mr Zuma.
“Zuma’s got children, I just imagined what the children were thinking. I had to put myself in his shoes, I’ve got kids,” he said.