Cattle go ‘moo’, sheep go ‘baa’, so who are they who go ‘boo’?

THERE was much jubilation four years ago when President Jacob Zuma was booed by the crowd at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in the presence of an array of international luminaries, including then US president Barack Obama.

Zuma’s days were numbered, the analysts opined.

Zuma’s foes are again celebrating after he was sent packing by boos at a Cosatu May Day rally two week ago.

“Boo” is an odd word in the English language, a nonverbal sound uttered by human beings. It’s in the same category as words such as “moo” and “miaou”, characteristic sounds made by cattle and cats respectively. But these are animals, and they, unlike humans, can’t speak. Those who boo can speak, but in certain instances prefer not to.

That said, booing is often a very effective tool. Not much is said, but it gets the job done.

There’s no question that Zuma’s presidency has been an atrocity, an unmitigated disaster. Only his oneeyed supporters and those profiting from the looting cannot appreciate the magnitude of the plunder.

But we should be careful not to destroy the larger, more important project in our haste to bring him down. Democracy thrives only when competing views are freely traded — the marketplace of ideas. Boos drown them. No one wins.

South Africans tend to pick and choose their likes and dislikes not on principle but on the basis of their political biases. It’s often difficult to make a case in favour of Zuma. He’s arguably almost beyond the pale. But this is not about Zuma. It’s an argument in favour of freedom of speech, which is the bedrock of any democracy.

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” goes the quote often attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire.

If it was wrong for the ANC Youth League to disrupt Pravin Gordhan’s Ahmed Kathrada memorial service in Durban a month ago, we should accept that it was equally wrong for Zuma to be prevented from speaking at the Cosatu rally in Bloemfontein.

When Zuma left the stadium with his tail between his legs, so to speak, some of us cheered. Our villain had got his just deserts. It may feel good to see him humiliated, but such actions denude and debase our democracy.

Booing is a stupid activity, the sort of thing that only animals should do. As any speaker can attest, it’s very difficult to compete with persistent booing. It shuts down any exchange of views, but achieves no purpose, except to prevent meaningful discussion.

The audience, in addition to being denied the benefit of listening to the speaker, is often left in the dark as to what the booer’s beef is all about.

“Don’t boo. Vote!” Obama kept telling people in last year’s presidential elections. They didn’t listen. Donald Trump went on to win in one of the biggest upsets in US history. The vote is unquestionably more effective and more constructive than booing.

Booing of course follows a long tradition of other methods of resistance, such as protests, the consumer boycott and the boycott of all apartheid institutions.

Coercion, even violence, became the modus operandi. Collaborators, especially those in state institutions or those defying consumer boycotts, were often harshly dealt with. In some cases, the dreaded necklace was used against collaborators.

Of course, the ANC, along with the rest of the liberation movement, supported such measures, because they were seen as necessary to bring down the apartheid state. The purpose was always to silence or delegitimise the other side.

But such methods didn’t disappear with the demise of apartheid. They have been honed to suit new circumstances and they have found new recruits who, given the new culture of openness and a less repressive state, have become even more daring.

Baleka Mbete complained rather naively last weekend that she never thought she would live to see the day when people marched against the ANC the way they had protested against the National Party. She forgets one thing: people often rise up against whoever is in power, or holds their destiny. The colour, or history, of the occupant is often immaterial. Right now the ANC is in power, and it’s failing the people.

In a way the ANC — and Zuma — are getting a taste of their own medicine. They supported such disruptive tactics when they were in opposition. They’ve now come back to haunt them.

What makes it even more painful for them is that it’s not the opposition but their own supporters who are dishing out the medicine. But they have themselves to blame. They haven’t delivered.

The booing in Bloemfontein could have a long-lasting effect. Last weekend Zuma cancelled a speech in Vuwani, in Limpopo, at the eleventh hour for fear of being booed.

But booing will lead to no more than red faces. There are fears that in the coming weeks there will be more than just rude utterances, given the jockeying for positions in the run-up to the ANC’s elective conference in December.