DESCRIPTION

"This magazine is just to say we're out there and we don't buy your shit. It's freedom of expression and the means by which a long-suffering artist becomes an entrepreneur, taking destiny into his own hands and out of the devious honkies who so love control," wrote self-proclaimed culture terrorist Elliot Josephs aka Zebulon Dread in the editorial of the first issue of Hei Voetsek! (loosely translated: Hey! Get lost!). A diatribe-of-a-publication, the magazine burst upon the Cape Town writing and peddling scenes in 1997, at a time when the South African cultural journals happily basked under the rainbow. Written, designed, drawn, photoshopped and photocopied by Dread himself, Hei Voetsek! dissected South African politics, culture, society and sex. No one was safe from Dread's virulent political tirades. Using Cape Flats taal, a street-smart mixture of English, Afrikaans and slang, Dread railed against everyone from corrupt politicians and conservative Afrikaaners and "darkies with a chip on their shoulders".

After the publishing establishment, scared off by his politically incorrect satire, refused Hei Voetsek!, Dread turned to small independent black printers. Next he took to the streets, becoming his own walking and ranting marketing and distribution machine, hard-selling the magazine to oft unwilling victims at book fairs, street corners and arts festivals countrywide.

Dread went on to add two new magazines to his empire: Poes! and Piel!, which parodied the sexist magazine industry. He also published numerous satirical books. Finally in 2002, disillusioned with the lack of transformation in South Africa, Dread committed ritual suicide. As Elliot Josephs explained: "I am going to give up the ghost of my alter-ego, Zebulon Dread, and depart for India in order to find the happiness that the liberation struggle failed to deliver." On dark stormy Cape Town nights, the dreadlocked visage of the "Last of the Great, Great Hotnots" can still be found haunting the city's Green Market Square with the cry: "Sies! Vark! Voetsek!" (Sis! Pig! Get lost!)

en français

PEOPLE

Elliot Josephs aka Zebulon Dread

RE/SOURCES

• Hei! Voetsek! on Wikipedia
• Zebulon Dread archive on Vetseun.
• Gilder, Andrew. "Wanted: Dread or alive," Mail & Guardian, 30 Aug 2002.
• "Fest article 'in bad taste'," Mail & Guardian, 11 Oct 2001.
• Dread, Zebulon. "Tourism is 'white people's crap'",Mail & Guardian, 06 Mar 1998.
• Dread, Zebulon. "Arts festival or Boerfest?" Mail & Guardian, 20 Apr 2001.
• Abrahams, Tasneem. "Zebulon Dread plans his 'ritual suicide'", Independent Online, December 09 2002.
• McKay, Kerryn. "The publisher is dead."