Sona 2026: Forget Tintswalo, South Africa deserves reality
· Citizen
The unfortunate truth about South Africans is that we are allergic to the truth.
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We are so adamant that our truth needs to be painted with fairy dust. It has to be aesthetically and verbally pleasing. The real version of our existence shocks us because we are still living our best lives in Neverland.
In this South Africa with an appalling and terrifying crime rate, hopelessness and joblessness, we still believe we can live in absolute oblivion.
We watch the minister of police addressing the nation as though we have very little brain function; we watch politicians feign shock and horror at what their colleagues have done to the nation’s purse; and we realise just how vulnerable we are to crime and corruption.
Those meant to protect us are honestly in the dark on what they need to deliver.
We are under siege and without leadership.
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If that was not enough, every second company is retrenching.
There are men and women who leave their homes every morning, unsure if they will return home with pink slips – operational reasons cited as the push factor.
The rate at which the country is experiencing retrenchments is alarming.
We are a nation in crisis.
The ANC screams “together we can do more, let’s do it for the Mandela/Sisulu legacy”, then they silently turn around and sell the country out.
We are a country under siege from those we have put into power.
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They sold us a dream and we were left with the nightmare of a failing economy and a Cabinet that answers to not a single figure of judicial authority.
With hearts chained in loyalty, years of disappointment and truckloads of broken promises and broken dreams – surely this is how some government aid is received.
Not because of ungrateful hearts but because of a front-row view of blatant corruption in which politicians enlarge their own territories and accumulate generational wealth far beyond what is imaginable.
Ahead of today’s State of Nation Address, what we want to be addressed is the nothingness we are forced to contend with because a leadership lacking in integrity has burned a hole through our hope for the nation.
We do not want a story about Tintswalo who should rise above the disparities created by the same government that wants to applaud her for the bare minimum of survival.