Let me tell you why ‘The Spear’ was a good thing for South Africa.
There’s been a bit of a teacup tempest this week regarding matters of race, culture, art and the President’s wang – You know, artsy shit. Brett Murray’s ‘The Spear’ started out as a depiction of SA President Jacob Zuma standing around in the (mostly) buff, but it’s evolved into so much more than that by way of the commentary that’s swept every news site, radio station, and most of twitter. The responses to the painting have been political, comedic, terrifying and one in particular was distinctly, um, racist, I guess. But I swear, it’s all for the best. Talk with me.
I’ve written what amounts to around a billion posts on how people don’t like talking about things, and how bottling up their feelings usually just leads to folks acting out in some pretty strange and terrifying ways. I’ve also said a few times that everything is a microcosm of everything else. So where we see a simple painting, obviously the artist intends a commentary. That much is obvious. Even smeared, The Spear did its duty as art in terms of opening up the rest of us to have a very specific discussion. Why else would a nation of meat-devouring, beer-guzzling people – most of whom are just trying to get by on less than R10 a day – suddenly give two or three proportionate fucks about artists’ rights, freedom of expression or the dignity of a guy who, while I really do like the guy, spends a lot of his time awkwardly clearing his throat during significant public speeches?
With all the debate raging on the internet, you’d swear 80% of the country took art history as a major and thought they’d justify that immense waste of time. Me? I’m not even sure I have an opinion on ‘The Spear’. I mean, sure it’s a piece of art that seems to suggest Jacob Zuma’s cultural leanings take precedence over the manner in which he governs the country’s secular interests, using that culture’s traditional focus on a naturalistic acceptance of manhood through physicality as a means of satirizing the President, and thus subtly undermining his traditional belief system in favor of a more secular system that has yet to prove its superiority in society. And yes it’s somewhat amusing that his reaction to this commentary is to take legal action against those who formulated and displayed this commentary, thus giving into their playground-style nyah-nyah-ing that their Judeo-Christian fundamentalist idea of nudity is somehow superior to a tribal cultural dress or, fuck it, just being naked cos it’s awesome to be naked… Ok, I guess I did have some things to say about the painting.
The Elephant in the Room
So why are we all getting so riled up by this damn painting?
The reason seems pretty clear. As a nation, South Africa is bottled up tighter than your childhood mustachioed cricket coach’s dream date. We don’t mean to be. There’s so much on our minds over and above the political, the racial and the cultural, but we’ve got something else keeping our lips sealed except for the occasional self-righteous and overbearingly angry and ignorant rant. That thing, ladies & gents, is fear.
South Africans – all of us – are afraid of each other. The DA is afraid of the ANC and the ANC is afraid of the DA. Capetonians are afraid of Jo’burg like Jo’burgers are afraid of their own city in the same way that Durbanites are afraid of anything too classy. This is the world we live in every day, and it’s bloated with fear. And who can blame us, really?
Black people have been shaking in their boots ever since a few Dutch okes asked if they could stay the weekend and ended up on the couch for the next century. White folks saw the raw power of “the native” at work and started wetting their scurvy-infested pantaloons and kept running across the country, looking for some place to settle where no one could hurt them. We like to think it’s not true, but the evidence that we’re still fighting the battle of fucking Blood River is all over the place if you take an honest look. We’re not just resistant to change but to acceptance as well.
That’s why the ANC trots out the racism argument as often as they do. And why the DA never mentions a policy worth getting behind and fighting for.
We made it through apartheid like one big, ugly, happy rainbow-colored family, but in the broader strokes, we neglected some of the big issues. That black people had spent an eternity trampled underfoot and never want to see that happen to themselves ever again. That white people are still trekking to different suburbs in the same city or the same country, raising walls and hoping they won’t have to see what’s outside and that nothing will get in to remind them. For the most part, blacks are still fighting a war and whites are still brainwashed into putting on their blinkers and pretending that nothing is wrong.
Neither approach is the right one. Neither side can see the other. Or even wants to.
‘The Spear’ was a kak painting in a gallery full of more biting commentary, if you ask me, but it was still the thing that pierced the bullshit so maybe, just maybe, we could get to talking about our feelings for once.
So stop fighting. Don’t be afraid. Let’s talk.