Zuma painting is racist: ANC

2012-05-21 11:14

Johannesburg - The ANC's national executive committee (NEC) was still smarting over a painting of its president Jacob Zuma's genitals, branding it racist on Monday as it prepared for a court challenge to have it removed.

"It's rude, it's crude, it's disrespectful, it's racist," said African National Congress secretary general Gwede Mantashe at a post NEC briefing in Johannesburg on Monday.

He said if it had been a white man depicted, the reaction would have been very different. As far as many people were concerned, black people were just objects, he continued.

"I said how about the idea of going to court tomorrow and as we sit there we can take off our trousers... we can walk around with our genitals hanging out... it's crude," he said.

The party was going to the South Gauteng High Court on Tuesday to try and compel the Goodman Gallery to take down the painting, and City Press to remove a photo of it from its website.

"We have not outgrown racism in our 18 years," Mantashe said.

He believed there was widespread condemnation of the painting and felt it was polarising society along racial lines. The only threat to freedom of expression was people who used it without understanding it, thereby destroying it, he said.

- SAPA