De Lille's Boo Monday

Today we celebrated Human Rights Day. Dancing, singing and simply enjoying one another's company. Everywhere, people were rejoicing as one.
Well, almost everywhere.

Patricia de Lille was not one of those fortunate people. She got a rather rude welcoming at a ceremony at Athlone Stadium. When going up to do her opening speech, she got "booed" from a certain section of the crowd, that were obviously representing a certain political party. Funny though that she would be denied her Right to Freedom of Speech on Human Rights Day.

But what mindless people would perform this mindless act?
How mindless was the act?

I have no doubt that the individuals who performed the act was mindless. However, could this have been planned?
If you look at the situation. You find that on the one hand, you have a political party (ANC) in control of a country. In control of every province except the Western Cape. On the other, you have the direct opposition (DA) in control a province that you want to rule.
What do you do to try to strengthen your position?
Well that's simple. You induce a picture of unhappiness and instability relating to your opposition. So you get a group of mindless individuals to "boo" your direct opposition. This will give the impression that you have a strong political backing within an area and if you are lucky, you will have the person who is "bearing the brunt of it" maybe react in a manner that undermines them and gives their political party a bad name.

There is also another aspect that we can look at. And this is the position of the new ANC premier Marius Fransman. You can have him looking like someone who has control over the masses by stopping an "out-of-hand" crowd to protect your opposition. Now how powerful and great a person must you not be if you can save your enemy. This action could spring-board your reputation.

Did it work?
Unfortunately not. Simply because of the media. The media are writing it as it should be seen, as a disrespectful act. This is not the attention that the ANC needed.

But maybe there is a silver lining. This could distract the attention away from the happenings in Pietermaritzburg where an ANC meeting went horribly sour with allegations of corruption in selecting of ward candidates.

This hasn't been a good couple of weeks for the ANC has it!