The Big Read: Pull the plug on this hypocrisy
Take down the marquees. Fold up the chairs. Put away the speeches. Stop the blue-light cavalcades. Pull the plug on the long television specials about Nelson Mandela.
There is nothing to celebrate. There is nothing to point at and say: "He would be proud of us for that, and that, and that."
We are being hypocrites, as we usually are. If he were to ask that he be given leave by his ANC branch in heaven so that he could come here for a visit, Mandela would be distraught at the state of the country he left us.
If there is anything that last Friday's countrywide commemorations of Mandela's death a year ago underlined then it was this: South Africa needs some smart people and some smart solutions. And they are needed now, for the truth is stark - we are drowning.
Nothing demonstrated this better than the country going dark as Eskom went on another load-shedding binge. The country grid-locked; industry came to a stop.
On the front pages of Friday's newspapers was a story that would make Mandela and his comrades weep.
The front page lead story in Business Day read: "Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga says the dismal Grade9 maths results in this year's annual national assessments point to a "death trap" on the road to matric.
"There was an improved performance in maths and literacy results this year, but Grade9 pupils achieved an average 10.8% in maths - a 27% decline from last year's 14%. In 2012 the average Grade9 maths mark was 13%."
It makes you want to weep, doesn't it? If there is anything that we should be getting right, 20 years after we attained democracy and - crucially - power, it should be education. But our children are still receiving the same level of education that apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd would have wanted them to receive.
It is worth noting that Mandela left four schools R100000 each in his will because he was a keen believer in education.
I can think of nothing that underlines our abject failure more strongly than our inability to provide quality education at public schools.
Yet, even in the face of such ignominy, many government employees spent the day off "commemorating" Mandela.
I met the man a few times, and I cannot claim to know what was going on in his head, but I think he would have liked to see more of us actually working instead of talking about how wonderful he was.
On Friday, newspapers reported that South Africans' views of who we are and where we come from differ quite drastically. According to The Times, only 53% of whites surveyed for the 2014 SA Reconciliation Barometer agreed that apartheid was a crime against humanity. This was compared to 80% of blacks, 77% of Indians and 70% of coloureds.
The non-racial project that Mandela embarked on is in trouble. In Western Cape blacks are targeted and beaten by whites for walking in "their" suburbs.
Mandela had great respect for the institutions of South African democracy. He appeared before a court in the 1990s because he was asked to do so.
He wanted every citizen to respect, uphold and enjoy the protection of these institutions. Many of them are now targeted for destruction, though.
The public protector is under siege. The judiciary is under attack. The National Prosecution Authority is falling apart.
The media are under siege, with the Protection of State Information Act hanging over them like a sword of Damocles. Parliament is where the corruption of the executive - yes, I am talking about Nkandla - is defended and rubber-stamped.
President Jacob Zuma refuses to appear before the National Assembly.
Then, of course, there are the state institutions and the state-owned enterprises, which have become the piggy banks of the political elite through patronage.
The SA Revenue Service, once heralded as the best thing about this country, is imploding spectacularly. Eskom, the SABC and SAA, have all been turned into Zuma's patronage honeypots.
The president has not even bothered to respond to allegations that the heads of bothSAA and the SABC are or have been his concubines. One does not mind the concubines. It's when they are allowed to make free with our tax money that things become worrying.
The rot at the heart of SA Inc gave off a particularly offensive stench when SABC board chairman Ellen Tshabalala called a press conference on Friday to tell the world that she would not resign despite comprehensive evidence that she had lied about her qualifications.
She was defying the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications, the body she lied to and has led a merry dance for months.
She was not ashamed to lie so blatantly. She is still in the job. That is who we are today.
Stop the celebrations. There is nothing to be proud of.