Cartoon controversies: law student views about free speech and Zapiro’s satirisation of South Africa’s president

Abstract

Although the Constitutional Court has been a protector of freedom of expression, major controversies about speech illustrate deep divisions among South Africans. This article explores attitudes of law students at the University of the Witwatersrand to freedom of expression. The authors take the realist view that these students are future legal interpreters of the Constitution and their attitudes may well have an impact on future jurisprudence. They follow-up previous research which measured attitudes to political freedom of expression by asking students about their responses to a sample of Zapiro cartoons depicting President Zuma. After exploring the role of cartoons in a democracy, the article looks at new data obtained by questioning final year students about the same cartoons four years after the initial study. The new data substantially confirms earlier results which indicate that Wits students would not robustly support Zapiro’s right to create his more controversial caricatures. This result reinforces the view that supporters of freedom of expression in South Africa may not be able to call upon consistent or robust elite and popular support in resisting banning or criminalisation of speech.