I spent four years covering courts in the United States. Federal and local, rural and urban, murder cases and white collar crimes. And not once did spectators at a trial ever break into song.
But now I am in South Africa, my first time in a courtroom for 18 months, notebook open and waiting for the verdict in the rape trial of Jacob Zuma, the country's former deputy president. The crowds outside are growing into the thousands, although we can't hear them in courtroom 4E. We are waiting for the judge and the lawyers -- something you do a lot when you cover courts. It felt familiar.
Then the singing started. First, it was a woman in the back row, her voice piercing and sweet, those first notes of an African tune you know will make you want to get up and sway. I tensed up. You do that when you think there might be a crazy person in the room.
But then more voices joined in. And more. Soon the whole courtroom was singing in perfect harmony: bass, baritone, alto, soprano, all somehow knowing their parts, weaving in and out of each other. A woman ululated. Then a man stood up, and a woman, and another, and all of a sudden the courtroom was dancing. It was totally impromptu, as if out of some musical, "The Trial of Jacob Zuma; Score by Andrew Lloyd Webber." Except Webber never made music like this, music that breaths struggle and joy and sadness at once.
What are they singing? I whispered to a South African journalist.
They are singing for Zuma, she said. It is a church song "Jesus' heart is pleasant." But they've changed the word 'Jesus' to 'Zuma.'
Outside, there was more singing. Car stereos blasted anti-apartheid struggle songs, and men and women clapped and danced the toyi-toyi -- a stomping-type protest dance that brings peoples' bodies and voices together in one defiant, beautiful movement. In a corner, behind a police line, a collection of a few dozen women's rights activists supporting the alleged victim -- men and women -- sang their own protest, as if trying to bolster themselves against the throngs of Zuma loyalists across the street.
For a moment I stopped wondering about Zuma, a politician who has been tainted by corruption scandals, a man who testified that he knew a family friend wanted sex because she wore a skirt to his house. I let my mind go, allowing myself to be simply amazed by this country of sound and struggle.
Momentarily, the lawyers walked into the courtroom. The spectators quieted, and sat. Then the judge came in and began reading his verdict -- a process that would take about six hours, with multiple statute citations and explorations of legal terms such as "relevancy." This, I thought, was more like it.