Going eish at Ganesha cartoon

Last week Zapiro released a cartoon which has ended up generating some controversy in the Hindu community.

The thing of it is, I agree with the right to cause offence along religious lines. I can hardly disagree with it, considering my views on religion.

I think religion is overall a bad thing, and that one of the things that make it bad is how fiercely it inspires people to take offence when it is mocked.

But there is a problem – the cartoon wasn’t meant to mock Hindu beliefs, and so it comes off as misaimed.

Using Ganesha as shorthand for India fails because Ganesha does not particularly symbolise India, the deity symbolises Hinduism.

And thus the comic comes across as saying Hindus are somehow buying off our institutions, whereas it is actually more about geopolitics.

There is a certain degree of racism in this country aimed at Indians, and one of the more troubling aspects of this is the almost expectation that Indians be involved in some sort of corruption.

And Hinduism in South Africa is very much associated with people of Indian descent.

The cartoon bothers me because, unintentional though it may be, it plays into this sort of stereotyping.

It comes off as saying “Hindus are like this” whereas it actually means to say “Cricket SA’s relationship to Cricket India is like this.”

Which is the problem when offence is unintended; it hits people that it shouldn’t be aimed at.

If the cartoon had actually dealt with beliefs and mocked those tied to Ganesha, I would feel a lot more comfortable with it.

Actual blasphemy is in my opinion a good thing, one of my favourite webcomics is Jesus and Mo, but this comic isn’t really that.

It is an unfortunate choice of symbol; that ends up saying things it doesn’t really mean and which aren’t really true.

As much as I believe in free speech and I am uncomfortable with how uncomfortable that cartoon makes me, I think it is unfunny because it is untrue.