According to the tv news, ABC’s to be exact (I believe), South African president Jacob Zuma was recently booed. It was during Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Why would (some) people boo him? What is he alleged to have done wrong? They didn’t say, or if they did, I missed it.
Also, there is another question (I hope, unrelated) I have been wondering about for a long time (and I might as well include it here, since it also involves South Africa). How do S. Africans respond to their country’s unusually liberal policies towards gays? Here is the whole story, in case you don’t know. There reason why I wonder and ask, is because South Africa ranks very low on the scale of countries that openly accept homosexuality. Again, here is the graph. Read it for yourself.
Google “Nkandla”. He spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer rands on construction at his private residence. He claimed that taxpayer money was only used for security features needed because he’s President, and that he paid himself for the rest of the construction. But an investigation by the Public Protector (an independent ombudsman) has revealed that the supposed “security” features included such things as a swimming pool and a massive guesthouse. And in any case the law doesn’t allow spending on the President’s private residence as there are official residences in Cape Town and Pretoria. And the administration lied to Parliament about the spending. And they attempted to get the courts to block publication of the Public Protector’s report, on the basis that it would harm the President’s security. And they tried to tell the media not to publish photos of the residence, for the same reason.
As to your second question, most of the people don’t like it, but it’s not generally used as a party-political issue. South Africans mostly don’t base their vote on ‘social’ issues like gay rights; people vote on the basis of economic issues, perceived comptence/corruption, or what for lack of a better term I’d call ‘racial identity’ - e.g. white people vote for the DA because it’s the ‘white’ party. The African Christian Democratic Party, which is the major social-conservative party and makes its platform all about abortion, gay rights etc., got 0.8% of the vote last time round.
That’s pretty much true in all representative democracies. Social issues might make up a lot of the public debate but people vote for what directly effects them. Usually economic issues are well above social issues on most people’s personal lists.
ctnguy covered it, it’s about Nkandla more than anything. I also would not discount a lot of the boo-ers being EFF plants, because those guys are dicks.
With pride (speaking for this South African)
The Constitution of SA is an aspirational document - as such, it embodies some principles that the majority may not yet accept, in the name of human rights. A similar example is capital punishment - some polls say a majority of South Africans favour it. Tough.
Also, we’re a frigging shining beacon of enlightenment compared to the rest of Africa (and Asia except Japan and Israel)
Old news. Really old news, and unrelated to this occasion.
Obama was wildly cheered by the crowd. Presumably, at home, he would never be booed by any audience in the USA, right?
It’s all internal politics.
My favourite was when the Toronto Blue Jays had their first home game (ever). First, it snowed a little… after everyone in Canada had spent their life explaining to Americans “No, it does not snow here all the time.” Then, the announcer said “in the VIP box, we have the premier of Ontario, Bill Davis!”. The entire stadium booed loudly - then off in a corner, the chant started “we want beer!”. Pretty soon the whole stadium was chanting “we want beer, we want beeeeer…” The commentators explained to the astounded American audience that in Canada, you could not serve beer at public events.
Within a few months, beer was permitted in the Blue Jays stadium, and eventually it became a standard across Canada. Finally, we could have beer at hockey games too, to the horror of those rural god-fearing conservatives who had institued the next best thing to prohibition. Ah, crowds…
I heard something on NPR that discussed this in passing–apparently there is or at least seems to be a lot of corruption around Zuma. I do think it’s amazing he’d be booed at a funeral for the father of the country.
You’re kidding right? I was speaking specifically about the US. Social issues get the talking heads yelling at each other but voters vote with their wallet. The economy is always at the top of the issues.
