Moment: Harare

With Zimbabwe's economy in ruins, millions of its people living as refugees abroad, and its security forces torturing and killing dissenters against President Robert Mugabe's regime, the country's opposition understandably has a few things to get off its chest. On Aug. 26, it had a rare chance. As Mugabe, 84, entered parliament to open the new legislative session, opposition members — who now form a majority and reject Mugabe's authority to call them together — broke out in whistles, shouts and song. MPs refused to stand, and a chorus of "ZANU yaora," or "ZANU is rotten," rang out around the chamber. (ZANU is the shortened acronym for Mugabe's party.)

The scenes were a stirring show of defiance from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which won the first round of a general election on March 29 and came out ahead in a simultaneous presidential race. Since then, for its insolence, the party has been punished by security forces: 166 people have been killed, according to Human Rights Watch, and tens of thousands more displaced.

Heckling and boos will not bring back the dead, nor rebuild houses destroyed by Mugabe's goons, nor fix the once vibrant economy he has crippled. But the extraordinary protest — Mugabe affected not to notice his hecklers, speaking on quickly but sternly though few could hear him — was, nevertheless, a direct jeer at the man who has ruled for almost three decades, a kind of national hiss after years of beatings and frustration.

Alas, the cries of pain and anger may just embolden Mugabe further. The octogenarian ruler told a state-run newspaper soon after his parliamentary appearance that South African–brokered talks had broken down and his party would again form the government, not the MDC, which he has sworn will never take power. Mugabe has long claimed to rule in the name of the people. (Though he allowed, after the opposition's victory, that the people sometimes make "a mistake.") It seems the former school teacher intends to correct such errors for a while longer yet.