South African politics are a joke, seriously

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2007

CAPE TOWN (AFP) — As South Africa contemplates the deadly serious business of who will head its fledgling democracy, satirists have no shortage of material for gags designed to cut their leaders down to size.

Whether lampooning ANC leadership hopeful Jacob Zuma for trying to beat AIDS by showering, President Thabo Mbeki as being stuck in an ivory tower or the country's police chief as a mafioso, cartoonists and stand-up comedians hack away relentlessly at the indiscretions of the powers-that-be.

But the laughs and innuendos mask only superficially the need for sober reflection as these modern-day court jesters hold the mirror up to South Africans grappling with the very essence of their 13-year-old democracy.

"The satirist in South Africa today has become...