Portrayal of the COVID-19 pandemic in political cartoons in Tanzania

Abstract

Previous analyses of Tanzanian political cartoons unearthed corruption practices, impingement of democratic processes, stereotype representation of gender relations, and power relations between politicians. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic opened another avenue to investigate the contents of political cartoons in Tanzania, as had already been reported in Jordan, Nigeria and South Africa. This paper looks into the messages contained in caricatures of Nathan Mpangala and Ali Masound (Kipanya) through the lens of the theory of multimodality, Three pertinent verdicts emerge: (i) the foregrounded messages concern cautions about the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, preventive measures on the onset of coronavirus, control measures after the penetration of the pandemic in Tanzania, and the role of the interim President of Tanzania; (ii) as the traditional of caricatures, satirical and metaphorical styles had been employed by cartoonists to derive the intended messages; (iii) the predominance of Kiswahili (over English) appears to suggest the choice of the language of public communication to be reverted to Kiswahili-only, rather than the presence regulations, which permit both Kiswahili and English.

Keywords:

• coronavirus
• gendered representation
• political cartoons
• political leaders
• Swahili metaphors
• Tanzania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I am grateful to Nichlous Asheli Nyenza for the discussion about the contents of the political cartoons in Tanzania. I thank Florence Rutechura for pointing to me the utility of the theory of multimodality in the analysis of the contents of political cartoons. The anonymous reviewers of the paper pointed out to a number of lines that needed corrections and some literature to read. I am grateful to them. Nevertheless, the remaining shortfalls, if any, are mine.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amani Lusekelo

Amani Lusekelo, an Associate Professor of Linguistics in the University of Dar es Salaam, holds a PhD (African Languages and Literature) from the University of Botswana in Botswana and MA (Linguistics) from University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. He teaches courses covering contact linguistics, field methods in language studies, ethnolinguistics and ethnobotany, theories of morphology, and theoretical syntax. He conducts research in areas of lexical borrowing, language in education, ethnobotany, linguistic landscapes, anthropological linguistics, and language grammar. He mentored nine doctoral students and currently has seven PhD students. Some of his publications include ”Locating the Hadzabe in the wilderness”, Utafiti Journal, volume 17(1), 2022; ”African languages - Linguistic, literacy and social issues”, University of Western Cape/CASAS, 2021; ”Linguistic and social outcomes of interaction of Hadzabe and Sukuma in north-western Tanzania”, Utafiti Journal, volume 15(1), 2020; ”African linguistics in eastern Africa”, In A history of African linguistics, Cambridge University Press, 2019.