May Day own goal

THERE has been more than a little schadenfreude across social media and on some traditional media outlets at the sight of President Jacob Zuma being prevented from speaking at Cosatu’s Workers’ Day rally on Monday.

Despite being asked to rescind the invitation to the president by the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union and the Communication Workers Union, the president of Cosatu, S’dumo Dlamini, forged ahead.

Zuma was never allowed to speak; instead, he was forced to leave, humiliated.

For those who detest Zuma and everything he stands for, it was a red-letter day, a victory. For those who love the constitution, it was exactly the opposite.

We dare not have no-go areas in this country, of any kind. We do, though. No one has ever marched on, or even near, Luthuli House, the ANC’s headquarters in the Joburg CBD, but many have marched in Cape Town to the ruling DA’s office.

WE had no-go areas in KwaZulu-Natal in the ’90s, where even a luminary like Nelson Mandela had to tread very carefully, often letting the greater good trump principle. Thabo Mbeki, his successor, was once notably publicly heckled but was allowed to deliver his address.

Zuma, though, has broken new ground. He has been publicly heckled in a stadium before but he managed to finish. Monday marked a nadir in this country’s public discourse.

There are those who will point to the ANC’s own intolerance of dissent and speak wisely of chickens coming home to roost; the truth of the matter, though, is that once again we are entering very dangerous territory.

The success of our now often-derided miracle transition has been the underlying premise of tolerance, guaranteed by the constitution – that living document which also gifted us the very instruments we find ourselves clinging to in a sea of uncertainty and tumult.

That selfsame constitution gave us freedoms that unshackled us from the tyranny of the past. No freedom can be used to trump another’s, not even the president’s.

We would do well to remember that.