I have discovered that as South Africans, we are a very angry nation. We have become a people whose first instinct is to throw a stone, verbally or physically. We no longer rationalise or try to understand what another is saying or doing. Insulting each other has become the norm.

We exculpate ourselves, or feel justified in our actions, because someone else did this, that, or the other.

If a person of a particular colour or gender, for example, does something senseless or wrong in our eyes, we tend to tar everyone of the same description with the same brush.

During the past few years, we have slowly but surely been sinking deeper into a culture of distrust and anger.

Violence permeates our societies, our very being as a nation; our minds and, most dangerously, our hearts. An attitude of animosity has captured South Africa. A culture of distrust. A culture of contempt. A culture of one-upmanship. A culture of destruction.

Kganthane R Lebaka

Mamoshalele, Sekhukhune