We are going to boo [deputy president Cyril] Ramaphosa back and it won’t be nice," ANC Youth League president Collen Maine said recently, in response to a Cosatu decision to deny President Jacob Zuma a May Day platform.
It’s not the kind of sentiment one would earmark for the Museum of Mature Political Commentary but, then, so few are these days. SA seems to operate more like a theatre than a Socratic forum and, for the most part, the main production is a farce.
The old adage has it that actions speak louder than words. It is true of a great deal of our politics. In societies with low literacy rates and weak education systems, visual images and physical action take on disproportionate meaning in comparison with the abstract appeal of ideas and arguments that are the hallmarks of more sophisticated modern democracies.
SA seems to operate more like a theatre than a Socratic forum and, for the most part, the main production is a farce
One of the reasons so much SA outrage revolves around art and cartoons, for example, is that these transcend the language barrier and, thus, the written word. Other factors, like low self-esteem, help drive a general intolerance for criticism and offence, but it is the visceral nature of a controversial picture, rather than any equally offensive rhetorical idea, that gets the blood boiling.
And it is why, as part of our grand political repertoire, so many demonstrable acts define our general response to disagreement and unhappiness. Booing is one of them.
When Zuma was booed on live television in December 2013, at the memorial for Nelson Mandela, the presidency fell over itself to explain away the response as insignificant. Perhaps it wasn’t a crisis, but in the theatre of SA politics, it was big — a defining metaphor that resonated more deeply and powerfully than any statement would have.
The ANC gets bad reviews every week. It doesn’t care. What do critics know? But when the audience boos, it begins to worry — because it’s not the review that matters; it’s the actual show that cannot be compromised.
Protestors routinely rely more on physical gestures than they do on memoranda or written appeals. Nakedness is common — everything from bottoms to breasts — and singing remains the bedrock of much activism. It is a means of articulating injustice and discontent in a manner that not only binds but also supersedes debate. And it is intimidating, too.
Disturbingly, as discontent intensifies, violence has come to accompany protest action. Things are burnt — not randomly, but as symbols: a library when education is the issue; a clinic for service delivery; a train carriage for transport; and a copy of City Press when The Spear, Brett Murray’s painting of Zuma, reduced the country to a state of apoplexy five years ago.
Essentially it is self-destructive. It takes years and millions to rebuild a library or clinic. And it is the community that suffers as a result; certainly far more than government.
Parliament is perhaps the ultimate theatre and for the real deal, one need look no further than the national assembly, where the speaker must regularly ask the gallery to behave, before turning to the main stage and the actors, who then turn on each other.
They are often dressed for the part. Hats, badges and uniforms, but they have also developed a theatrical repertoire: the fascist clap from ANC benches as the president is announced for the state of the nation address, the walkout, the impromptu speeches in an attempt to disrupt and delay.
But there are grander stages still. The stadium. The rally. They are all theatres of a sort. And rarely is it the script that anyone remembers.
Marches, another mainstay of SA political theatre, are fairly exclusive in this fashion. They are not for people unwilling to don a costume or assume their assigned roles in the production. They are designed and co-ordinated essentially to speak to a crowd, often artificially brought together, that is predetermined to love whatever is showing.
Social media has done much to involve even those seemingly removed from the show. Online, many sing along in their own way, following the appropriate cues.
And then there are those who don’t need a script at all. The Hlaudi Motsoenengs of this world are street performers who can turn any old soapbox into a playhouse.
Yes, in SA politicians must learn to dance before they can walk; to sing before they can deliver a speech; and to dress up before they can be authentic. It is ironic because the script — the one gradually playing itself out — is a tragedy, not a comedy.
Even funerals, the oldest playhouse for political theatre, have fallen prey to this kind of hysteria. Ahmed Kathrada’s memorial, like Mandela’s before, was reduced to a cheap extension of parliament, replete with an invasion from the ANC Youth League.
It’s all upside down. We applaud when we should be silent. We cheer when we should cry. We boo when we shouldn’t even have bought a ticket.
We have it all in SA: heroes and villains, archenemies, nemeses, victims and a vast supporting cast. Occasionally a memorable line is delivered. But no-one trades places. Because, for the most part, it’s the occasion we are all so heavily invested in, as we move slowly, inexorably, towards the final curtain.
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