On May 24, cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro — Zapiro — published a cartoon depicting President Jacob Zuma as an organ grinder and National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Shaun Abrahams as a monkey, dancing to the president’s tune and chained to his music box.
Above Zuma’s grinder a text bubble read: "Another state organ." Above Abrahams, the words, "Another organ grinder’s monkey."
The cartoon was met by strident criticism from some quarters. Offence was taken at the depiction of Abrahams as a monkey and the argument made that, in choosing to publish the cartoon, Zapiro had put his name to a racist metaphor or "trope", the destructive power of which lay in the representation of a person of colour as a monkey.
Given SA’s history and the history of anti-black racism generally, it was argued to depict a person of colour as a monkey was to evoke a cruel and degrading past, when the allusion was abused to suggest anyone not white was inferior or subhuman — a practice that often saw people of colour compared to primates.
SA’s particular history aside, the metaphor of an organ grinder and their monkey is a long-standing one, classically formulated as "talk to the organ grinder, not the monkey" — the suggestion being that one should engage with authority not a subordinate. Organ grinders were prominent around the turn of the 19th century but have since faded away, although one can still find them on occasion, sans the monkey. The metaphor, though, lives on and is frequently used.
Politically, the strength of the metaphor — especially when realised visually — lies in what it says about power. In the case of Zapiro’s cartoon, that Abrahams is no more than an unthinking lackey, irrevocably chained to his political master — as opposed to independent of him — and acting in accordance with his wishes. It might be added, seemingly in a state of some soporific, almost blissful ignorance.
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