Business Day Ropes Bush In

In one of the most grotesque displays of moral equivalence seen for a while in the South African media, the Business Day published this cartoon likening George W Bush to Saddam Hussein.

This is the depths of anti-Americanism to which the South African mainstream media has sunk. It is the product of a child-like mind that has not yet developed the ability to reason. I have blogged before about how, when it comes to Israel and America, much of South Africa’s intelligentsia seem to be stuck in stage 1 of Kohlberg’s moral development, unable to distinguish between deliberate mass murder and the unintentional deaths of civilians as an unfortunate consequence of war (see Not-So-Smart Bombs But Even Less Intelligent Critics).

But this phenomenon no longer just poisons our reaction to the West, it has now also corrupted the domestic political discourse in our society. It is this same perverse logic that affords former apartheid strongman PW Botha the status of peace maker and musters national mourning at his passing. A society that lacks moral clarity is a sick society and one that will ultimately not last. This refusal to differentiate between tyrants and liberators places our democracy on a one way road to the gallows.

Comments

[Gary]

I suppose the illustrator of this cartoon is trying to out-ZAPIRO ZAPIRO.Sooner or later cartoonists in the SA press will be competing to see who can come out with the most anti-Western and anti-Israel propaganda

[gersh]

I gotta be honest Mike. When I saw the cartoon this morning I thought it was pretty clever. I thought the pun was on Bush having cost the Republican's the upcoming election becuase he could not create order in post-war Iraq.

I'm a big Bush fan and most of what you have said in your post I do agree with, but I think this one in the bday is worth respecting. They are by far the most balanced of SA's morning newspapers.

[Steve]

Gersh, I think you are wrong on this one. Mike's interpretation is correct. See the top left of the cartoon - it says 'war criminals'. There is no other interpretation that can apply. He is clearly saying that Saddam was a war criminal in pre-Bush Iraq but that in post saddam Iraq George Bush is a war criminal and he too, like Saddam, deserves to be hanged.

People who agree with it may like it. But it certainly isn't clever and there is no pun. Its just a brash statement.

The BDay may be our best daily but Brandon their cartoonist has always had a raging anti-US and anti-Israel world view. He rarely, if ever, lampoons Arab leaders.

Have a look at this cartoon he did on Sharon. It was really disgusting and reveals a deeply nasty character.

Download Bus Day Sharon toon

I have alot more of these type of cartoons by Brandon.

[mike]

Gersh, I don’t think it has anything to do with the mid term election. It’s worth noting that the election is about the house and the senate and actually has very little legally to do with Bush. He has another 2 years no matter what happens today. So he is not really getting the death penalty. Clinton spent many years as president with a republican congress. So it’s a stupid analogy.

As Steve has pointed out the title is war criminals, not dead politicians His point is clear. Saddam is being hanged for the violence he caused in Iraq and George Bush should also be hanged for the unrest he has created. Its not clever, funny or even original. I think you underestimate the extent of anti-American feeling in South Africa.

The saddest part of the carton is that the Businessday is one of our most conservative English language newspapers. If they not pro-America, then who will be?

[Richard Griffin]

It's not that we need them to be pro-US. But we do expect them to not take a demented anti-US stance which their cartoonist frequently takes.

[Gary]

Unfortunately the rabid anti-American stance almost always go's hand in hand with a violent hatred of Israel
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3325160,00.html

[mike]

You 100% right Richard. I put that badly. What I was trying to say is that the Businessday is one of the most right wing pro-capitalist English language newspapers in South Africa. Now in other countries that normally translates into a strong pro-America position. But in SA even the ‘rightwing’ newspapers are rabidly anti. The point was trying to make is that on foreign policy there is no diversity in our mainstream media. Everyone takes a leftist anti-Western line

[Gary]

The irony of the anti-Western consensus in South Africa, is that it was more western pressure that made De Klerk hand over power to the ANC , than the help the ANC recieved from the Sino-Soviet Bloc.

[Darren]

Quite correct. If anything, the Soviet bloc's shenanigans probably served to delay the advent of apartheid's end. Without the West's fear that South Africa would become a Soviet proxy or a de facto Soviet state, the country would never have received the political and diplomatic cover that it did, while sanctions may have been instituted sooner.

Things might have turned out very differently, and far less bloodily.

[gersh]

sorry guys I missed the descrption on the top right. My opinion us hereby retracted.

[Steve]

An easy oversight - i actually reduced the size of the image so it can easily be missed.

[Lukipak]

Spare a moment's thought for the million or so people who have died in Bush's war of terror - he is a war criminal! This is not anti-US, this is anti Bush and so it should be.