Zapiro gives Zuma old shower heads and other junk for his birthday

South Africa’s most well-known cartoonist, Zapiro, real name Jonathan Shapiro, had social media debating his second Zuma rape cartoon in nine years on Tuesday after he remixed his Lady Justice cartoon of 2008 on Tuesday.

On Wednesday morning on Daily Maverick, however, he was apparently back to normal, with a visual pun referencing the country’s recent downgrades to “junk status”.

The new cartoon features 75th birthday boy Jacob Zuma in a robe, the ever-present shower head on his forehead, and a mountain of second-hand rubbish dumped at his door.

One of the shower heads has a ribbon on.

Zuma looks at his guards, perplexed, and asks: “”Why would the people give me junk?” The guards clearly understand why, but are pretending not to.

The day before’s cartoon generated debate over whether using the theme of rape in satire could ever be funny. Former rape victims said that looking at Zapiro’s cartoon had triggered strong negatives emotions and recollections in them.

Zapiro countered that he had not been trying to make light of rape itself, and purposely chose such a strong message (again) because of his escalating frustrations at the Zuma presidency.

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