Yesterday the presidency dropped their lawsuit against cartoonist Jonathan “Zapiro” Shapiro and the Sunday Times over the “Lady Justice” cartoon (pic above). Jacob Zuma initially wanted R5 million, but the amount was later reduced to R4 million. He subsequently dropped the charge of impairment of dignity and further reduced the amount to R100 000 for defamation and an unconditional apology, before dropping the case entirely.

But all is far from forgiven, with presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj even calling Shapiro’s cartoon racist yesterday. He added that the image was informed by “ingrained prejudices” about African male sexuality.

Let’s look at [the cartoon] through the multicultural lens of South Africa… in an atmosphere where we can listen to each other and stop pretending that any one individual has the infallible answers to all our problems.

Following the formal withdrawal of their complaint, the presidency challenged Shapiro to a public debate yesterday. Maharaj, who extended the invitation to Shapiro, said a debate would help “create an environment of dialogue rather than confrontation”, according to a report in The Star.

But the news turned out to be too good to be true. Maharaj now denies that the presidency extended an invitation to Zapiro for a debate. This according to a tweet from Beeld reporter, Pauli van Wyk.

Of course we cannot say that this has completely taken us by surprise. Just earlier this month Jacob Zuma also turned Helen Zille down after she called on him to debate the state of the economy.

Meanwhile, online support for a debate between Zille and Zuma grows ever louder.

The question remains: Why are they so scared to debate Zille? And Zapiro? If we didn’t know any better, we’d say that either they have something to hide, or they are scared.

[Source: News24]