Is street protest and the burning of infrastructure the only tool available to achieve communication with the government? How do we hold to account those we elect to positions of leadership?Every day South Africa is confronted with angry masses of people who resort to violence to communicate their demands. As we get closer to the local government elections, we can expect more violent protests.Our failure as a nation to have a national dialogue about how we protest will result is our having to spend more money to repair damaged infrastructure that would have been better spent creating it.It cannot be that, when there is a problem with water supplies or Eskom cuts off people who don't pay for electricity, communities resort to burning down public buildings.Should we point a finger at the ruling party and its failure to manage public protest?It would be easy to target the ANC but the blame is that of all of us - we allow the protesters to destroy what has been built with our tax money.Why do we keep quiet and privately celebrate when the government is clubbed and accused of failure by violent protesters? Our suffering is increased by the reduction of a clinic or school to ashes.What stops us from finding alternative ways of communicating with a failing state? Violence cannot be the only means available to us.The answer lies in what brought us freedom in 1994 - dialogue.Dialogue is the key to our problems and the more we talk the closer we get to solutions.But it is easier to protest and burn down a building than to get people around a table to discuss solutions.Former president Nelson Mandela spent most of his time advancing the art of dialogue. He believed in engagement but we fail every day to follow in his footsteps.We cannot afford to burn down our future. Let's protest and engage with words...