THE state of the nation address comes once in a year. As always, the abiding wish is that life should be better than the previous year. This is an expectation that ordinary people believe should be the duty of everyone bestowed with the honour of being a member of Parliament.

Parliamentarians who believe the state owes them a good life have no business being in Parliament. The same goes to their regular hangers-on to whom the opening of Parliament is more of a fashion statement. To some of these non-comprehending regulars it is a wonder and a surprise what Parliament has got to do with miseries bedeviling the lives of ordinary people.

Why should the powerful, rich and famous bother about the powerless, poor and unknowns?

The measure of any nation's sanity is for the powerful not only to have a heart for the powerless but also take action to end the living hell that powerlessness brings. Common humanity demands that the gap between the high and the low be done away with. A nation that has taken a stand to walk in that direction finds its way irreversibly clear towards a just society. This is an ideal for a country in which Steve Biko said there would be no minority or majority but people.

Is the democracy that you expected President Jacob Zuma to speak on February 9 alive to Biko's ideal? If not, then your democracy should shut its door to the memory of June 16 1976, Sharpeville March 21 1960 and anti-pass women's march to the union Buildings on August 9 1956.

A democracy that never forgets savours its moments of victory with laughter without forgetting the tears through which unyielding martyrs gave their all for us to see the dawn we so fondly write home about today.

For the opening of Parliament to remain special, focus should not only be limited to dressing in styles typified by horse racing events and fashion shows. It should also be an energising moment for a nation fired with a sense of mission. The mission should be mindful of hypocrites that Bob Marley had warned against and who never fail to mingle with the good to selfishly bask in the glory of a cause they never bothered to fight.

The state of the nation is not simply about listening to the president's annual speech. It also about whether or not the president hears and knows the troubles the nation has seen. The address is a means by which to decipher whether a nation has a clear sense of vision to direct its course to higher levels of excellence possible.

On such an occasion the president is not the message but the messenger of a nation speaking to itself.

And what did the nation hear itself to be saying? The economy must make the living days of people worthwhile. Investors seeking policy certainty in unjust exploitative relations in society are a menace to the stability necessary for business to take root and flourish.

Corruption is not a public sector-specific malady. It is a running sore eating into every facet of society's endeavours. Business should stop throwing holier than thou corporate governance stones when it is just as culpable in aiding and abetting corruption by selling and buying it. Society should stop rewarding incompetence, worshipping mediocrity, punishing hard-working people and ignoring excellence.