Zuma Painting, The Spear, depicts cultural and political bigotry.

         I have an artistic eye and nobody may accuse me of aesthetic blindness as in the case of Asher Lev and his father in Prof. Chaim Potok’s novel My Name Is Asher Lev. Levs mother and father, conservative Jews, are scandalized by their son’s painting of a crucified Christ. The painting depicts levs parents standing on both sides of Jesus with Lev kneeling at the feet of Christ. The father walked out of exhibition gallery and accused his son of spiritual blindness. Lev in return accused his father of aesthetic blindness. You may not appreciate this dilemma unless you understand how conservative Jews (Judaism) view Christ (Christianity).

               The painting of President Jacob Zuma with his genitals hanging displayed in Goodman Art Gallery in South Africa by Bret Murray does not fall under the category of surrealists’ creative arts. It has a coded political message and utter bigotry lies within the minds that conceptualized  and the conspirators who will not remove it from City Press website. Except for the hanging genitals, the painting is wonderfully proportional and beautiful, which is not surrealists’ concept. The Zuma in that painting is younger than the real Zuma and I wonder why he looks over his shoulders. Alas! He moves forward with his Spear piercing the future while his mind is obstinately engrossed in backward customs and traditional practices that describe African Culture. The scope of this offensive is bigger than just Zuma’s culture and ANC regime. The absurdity of it all reveals the seething hatred for indigenous Africans who practice their culture in its purity without the corruptions and interferences of cross-culture.

              Famous artists who have revolutionized the art of painting, Leonardo da Vinci, Goya, Picasso, Van Gogh, Salvado Dali, Rembrandt among others have at one time or another, out of artistic fit of eccentricity, produce a piece that caused public furore. It is common knowledge that Leonardo Davinci produced many pieces but Monalissa stood out as the masterpiece. However, based on his concept of paintings Dan Brown invented the Da Vinci Code that angered Christians all over the world. Some even opined that antichrist was at the center of the Da Vinci works. Salvado Dali the surrealist painted so very disgusting unproportional potrait of Yosef Stalin in abominable acts that he had to seek refuge in America. These artists attacked an idea. Da Vinci and Dan Brown ridiculed morality of Christ thereby discrediting Christianity. Dali strained his relationship with his fellow surrealists by attacking socialism the Stalin way when at that time (after the defeat of Nazis) Stalin was a hero to the French. So what does Brett Murray ridicule with The Spear? The Zulus and spears have come a long way -remember Shaka Zulu wars many of which the whiteman lost.

              Notably, this repugnanat piece comes after Zuma has had his sixth wedding and not long after he gave a speech on African Pessimism. For heavens sake Zuma is the president of both Republic of South Africa and ANC whose firebrand youth league president has been the victim of whiteman’s epithets to the point of expulsion. When you are done with Julius Malema you must save your salvos for Zuma. Infringe on his privacy, ridicule his culture, and you create a pedestal for DA Hellen Zille or other stooge of the west. How best can you kill Zumas star? By attacking his inferior roots? His roots are in his past and traditional practices and cultural customs form roots of everyone’s past, at least in Africa.

                According to South Africa’s white bigots and the western world, polygamy is Philandering or womanizing. I am yet to know any African ethnic community that condemns polygamy. In Kenya all tribes practice polygamy. One luo man called Akuku Danger died at the age of 92 last year with over 44 wives. The Maasai and other nilots are established polygamous who fend adequately for their families. Even the Bantus too are polygamous .I must add that the founding fathers Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and his Vice President were polygamous. The western world, in pursuit of global population control condemns polygamy and rebrands abominable acts of sodomy and lesbianism as GLBTI protected under minority rights. Sodomy and Lesbianism have had a facelift and can be called same-sex relationship which may extend into civil-marriages.

               The polygamous African is now the bad guy! All major religions ordain polygamy as sacrosanct. I am yet to know any famous king of the Old Testament whose father had one wife. Anyway, all the famous kings of Old Testaments are polygamous, kings with immense talents, wisdom and war ablilties. How many wives did the prophet (Mahomet) have? President Zuma is facing moral assassination because he practices the Zulu culture. It is not Zuma these bigots hate but the incorruptible viable African institution of marriage imbedded in traditional values that they want to exterminate. Now you have to recognize homosexual rights as a government to get donor funding or else you are a homophobe state.

               Unfortunately, the painting in question has been bought by a German at a price of R136,000 (KSh 1.8M) which painting Zuma laments depicts him as a philanderer and  womanizer before the public, his family and children. That even after the entire apparatus of ANC has moved to court to seek an order directing City Press to remove the painting from its website they won’t comply may prompt one to know the owners of the paper. If that was Kenya or the United States of America, the painting would not have been conceptualized.

              The ANC leadership observes that the picture epitomizes racism and that is the last thing South Africans, who in the recent past have been described as Xenophobic, want. Well, someone, may be Malema or COSATU, should tell those cultural bigots to live the Zulu (African) culture alone.

              At the entrance of the Goodman Arts Gallery, you encounter Brett Murray biography praising him as a crusader against bad governance. I wonder how Apartheid escaped all his paintings as a theme.  You may hate Zuma as an individual but respect the institution of presidency if you have the weakness of judgment to make out the boundary of freedom of artistic expression and infringement on a cultural mans privacy. How can so private a matter as marriage the African way reflect the rot in all South Africa’s institutions of governance. We have all heard of escapes of President Clinton with Jenifer Flowers, Monica Lewinsky and others, the debauchery of former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi with underage girls, but none of their active genitals ever featured in art exhibition galleries. The reason could be that they were not presidents in a country where black African culture overshadows whiteman’s aberrations. All in all Murray’s hatred for Zuma’s culture blinded his judgment of what is and what is not freedom of artistic expression.