And yes, I am writing about sport. After all, this country is about politics, crime and sport and, most of the time, all three interlock!
Parliament is a crime of incompetence, and alive with sporting mishaps that deal with backstabbing and jumping to conclusions.
We are talking about sport because even our current standings on the world stage speak volumes with regard to our shoddy state of affairs in this country.
Remember the end of 1996? By then we had won the Rugby World Cup and the African Cup of Nations. Our cricket side have never, of course, won a world cup, but they were feared and respected.
Fast forward to 2016 and, two decades later, things have gone pear-shaped (or is that oval-shaped?) very quickly.
Let’s just pause here for a second and realise how deeply we have fallen in the mire of underachievement.
Yes, we take into account the quota debacle and the interference of politics, but politics were not really to be blamed for the Springboks’ shocking performance against Ireland in the first test.
South Africa did turn the tide in the second test (after another shocking first half performance), and whatever happens in the third test, the writing remains on the wall: we have settled for poor standards as the norm (remember we are playing Ireland!).
Just as our poor economy, poor governance, poor service delivery and poor leadership have become the norm.
Remember what happened in the last Rugby World Cup, when the Springboks crashed to Japan in the first game?
At the time there were all kinds of excuses and promises, but no excuse was good enough for losing against Japan. We should have hung our heads in absolute shame and should have withdrawn from the tournament.
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But the problem is not just with the Springboks. The same applies to soccer and cricket.
I mean, really, Bafana Bafana were incredibly poor in an attempt to qualify for the African Cup of Nations, against teams like Gambia and Mauritania.
Long gone are the days when we still felt a bit of pride in Bafana Bafana (who still played decent football at home in the 2010 Soccer World Cup).
The result of this enormously pathetic attempt, that underlines our mediocrity, is that the “powers to be” are assessing the matter, including the coach’s performance.
No, nothing needs to be assessed. It was woeful. Terrible. A nightmare. A disgrace.
We need to stop covering up our failures and take responsibility. It is because we play the blame game that we sit with high unemployment and a rebellious youth who burns down universities at will.
In addition, sadly, our cricket side has lost much of its fire – it has actually been extinguished for a long while, yet we bravely try to look the other way (possibly out of shame?).
The 2016 ICC tournament proved how far this team has fallen from its former glory days, even with players like AB de Villiers and Amla at the helm.
The latest showing in the Caribbean, against Australia and the West Indies, has once again underlined the fact that the Proteas are hardly feared to be a force to be reckoned with, like this country’s political presence on the world stage. Even if we win the tournament, it was anything but a great showing.
A killer instinct comes from confidence, which is fanned to a blazing inferno because of pride.
Somewhere along the line, sadly, the inferno has become a low flame, not even worthy to light a candle in the darkness of mediocrity.
Again I ask, where is the South Africa we knew, that would take on the giants of the world without fear, without flinching or making excuses, no matter the sport?
And I remind Coetzee: the All Blacks are waiting, and they are on a mission.
Back home, the mission of our sporting teams has hit a mountain in whatever form you choose, with the wreckage strewn all over the place, just like the wreckage of our economy.
