"THE measure of a country's greatness should be based on how well it cares for its most vulnerable populations."

The words of Mahatma Gandhi have been quoted ad nauseam the world over.

But have any of us really internalised the message?

Events this week in Diepsloot, Thokoza and Katlehong tell us that we have not.

We seem to judge our greatness, or lack thereof, more often on the results of the latest Bafana or Bok game.

We judge our greatness on whether Pirates will do us proud in their African campaign.

We judge our greatness by the magnificent stadiums we built and the World Cup we hosted successfully.

We judge our greatness by the number of shiny new cars "our people" can now drive.

We judge our greatness by the fact that we emerged from apartheid horror, with the guidance of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and others, without hacking one another to death.

We judge our greatness on our economic performance, and cry that we are lagging behind and might soon be overtaken by Nigeria.

We judge our greatness by the number of home-grown musicians conquering the international stage.

We judge our greatness by having a South African go to space.

We never sit back and judge our alleged greatness by how we treat the most vulnerable members of our society.

Because if we did, we would find that we are not great at all.

Far from it.

You will read this in our news pages: "66387 cases of sexual offences were recorded between April last year and March this year. This means 127 of every 100000 people were violated.

"Rape (including that of children between 12 and 16) had decreased by 0.4%.

"The statistics are not specific about crimes against children under 12 and murders and rape of women, and do not specify sexual crimes against lesbians and males."

That's how "great" we are.

Someone once decided that they'd "run out of words" after the brutal violation and murder of Anene Booysen in the Western Cape.

But, to quote our colleague Mpumelelo Mkhabela, "we will never run out of words" when children die in Diepsloot, when lesbians are raped, assaulted and murdered in Thokoza.

Or when a mother allegedly poisons her kids in Katlehong.

Because the dry statistics above show us that we've got our priorities wrong. And there is not enough ink in the world to underline that point.