So this is where we are now: the political noise is at full blast, the whites say the blacks are revolting and incapable while the blacks say the whites are revolting and selfish. If you were to listen to many so-called South African leaders, on social media and other public platforms, that is where our country is today. A country divided, our backs to each other.

A mere 24 years after we seemed to cohere under the vision of a united, non-racial, non-sexist and democratic South Africa, we are swiftly disintegrating into a country of us and them, of camps and villages where we are defined by the colours of our skin. We are pointing fingers, we are shouting, we are angry. We cannot hear each other. We cannot bear each other.

Meanwhile, the ideological glue that has held it, largely, all together is coming undone. The ANC, the self-styled “leader of society”, is a party whose every regional or provincial meeting is characterised by the throwing of chairs, the intimidation of members, the paying of bribes and the shouting-down of leaders.

There is no thinking, no reflection, at ANC conferences. There is merely the warring for positions. The ANC cannot hold itself together. It cannot, therefore, hold the rest of our society together.