Zapiro responded to Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula's charge that his cartoon depicting the new Springboks coach was 'insulting' and 'racist'.
Zapiro however has responded that the minister misunderstood the cartoon.
Speaking to John Maytham at Cape Talk, Zapiro said that the cartoon didn't mean that Allister Coetzee had to choose between transformation and winning, but rather that he had a tough task ahead of him as he had to achieve both.
"I certainly didn't expect people to say I don't support transformation," Zapiro said.
"I've always supported transformation, and I still do," Zapiro said.
He further said that transformation should have begun at a much lower level a lot earlier, so that Coetzee's task would be easier now.
However, that a task is difficult doesn't mean it is impossible.
You can listen to the full interview here:
Audio posted to SoundCloud by Primedia, which owns Cape Talk.
Zapiro has now released a new cartoon alongside a letter to explain his position.
"The difficulty facing new Bok coach Allister Coetzee is that over two decades, transformation has not moved fast enough. By now SA rugby should have transformed all the way to the highest level. The SA public quite rightly wants to see both transformation and winning teams.
"In Zapiro’s cartoon of last week in The Times, the snapshot scenario is poised: the coach may find it extremely difficult to catch both balls but there’s always the possibility that he could do it. That hypothetical tension is the hallmark of many editorial cartoons.
"Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula did not see any ambiguity in the cartoon. His pessimistic interpretation was that failure was the only thing the cartoon could mean.
"And following on from that, he went further to say that the cartoon was therefore racist. And he went even further: having completely missed the deliberate ambiguity in the cartoon, he stated that newspapers should not be allowed to publish such racist cartoon."
He has also created a gallery of his anti-racist and pro-transformation cartoon on his website.
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