Madam is white and bourgeoise. She likes to shoe-shop, watch soap operas and pose as a liberal of Johannesburg’s wealthy northern suburbs. Her 80-year-old mother likes gin and tonic, rugby and firing her catapult at black street traders. Their black maid, Eve, wields a feather duster and plots in vain to wangle a pay rise.
A decade after apartheid fell, characters in the cartoon strip Madam and Eve are icons of the new South Africa. Elections last week passed off peacefully and on 27 April the country will celebrate democracy’s tenth anniversary with hymns to racial reconciliation. But the storylines in Madam and Eve betray the enduring edge in racial relations. Madam’s mother beams as snow falls. ‘Thousands of snowflakes landing everywhere. What can be more beautiful than a white South Africa?’
In another strip, Eve responds in kind, professing herself a rugby fan because it is the only time she can watch 30 white guys beat each other senseless. A broken vase found on the ground prompts the household to host its own version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
South Africa boasts of success in nation-building and a kinder, gentler society is reflected in the cartoon, but so are the often hidden tensions over corruption, crime and lingering racism.
Twelve newspapers run the strip and a spin-off television sitcom has become a hit. Nelson Mandela is a fan. Issues that politicians and media pundits might duck Madam, her mother and Eve tackle with relish — be it President Thabo Mbeki’s eccentric views on HIV/Aids, cronyism in the African National Congress, or the forked tongues of supposedly liberal whites. An advertising agency’s testing found that South Africa’s million-strong domestic workers regarded Eve, seldom without a white apron and feather duster, as a spokesperson.
‘Eve is quite aspirational, but the sad reality is that life hasn’t changed that much for many people,’ said Rico Schacherl, the strip’s illustrator. When fed up she lies on her ironing board with a newspaper over her head. Yet Eve remains cautiously upbeat and reflects many of the 69,63% of voters who chose the ANC last week despite disappointment over unemployment and poverty.
When the strip started in 1992, Madam was a crusty conservative verging on racist. But after the first multiracial elections in 1994 she embraced the new dispensation — inspired partly by Mandela, partly by the realisation her privileged lifestyle would continue. Madam is often outsmarted by her maid but prevails in pay negotiations.
‘I love her. The monumental blandness is so representative,’ said Pieter-Dirk Uys, a leading satirist whose drag alter ego, Evita Bezuidenhout, resembles Madam.
But as Madam became more liberal the cartoonists sharpened the storylines by introducing her mother, a returned emigrant full of misgivings about the new order. She echoes the six in 10 white South Africans who tell surveys the country is headed in the wrong direction. ‘She can say things some people might agree with, but aren’t allowed to say in public any more,’ said Stephen Francis, who writes the text for the strips.
Both author and illustrator feel race as an issue has ebbed in the past decade. Bob Mattes, a pollster at Cape Town-based Afrobarometer, agreed most people felt racial relations were improving. Even Madam’s mother has mellowed. Challenged about racist remarks in previous strips, she says: ‘That’s not fair! It’s an old cartoon! I’ve changed since then!’ – Guardian Unlimited Â