Valentine's Day turned out to be quite fateful this year. In a rambling late-night address, Jacob Zuma announced that he was resigning as president. It was a bizarre, clumsy end to a bewildering period.
Since then, a dramatic series of events have unfolded, including the dislodging of the Gupta network, the suspension of the commissioner of the South African Revenue Service (Sars), Tom Moyane, and this week the removal of Shaun Abrahams as national director of public prosecutions.
Tomorrow, the much-anticipated state capture commission of inquiry commences, which we hope will lay bare the full extent of the plunder by the Guptas and their political enablers.
February 14 was also a dramatic day in Parkland, Florida, in the US. Nikolas Cruz, 19, walked into a high school with a semi-automatic rifle and fired indiscriminately at pupils and teachers. He killed 17 people and wounded 17.
The killings sparked mass outrage but also had an unexpected outcome. Some of the teenagers who survived the massacre initiated a new strain of gun-control advocacy that is rocking the establishment.A month after the killings, the teenagers led the March For Our Lives demonstration in Washington, DC, with more than 800 sister protests in other US cities and around the world.
Eighteen-year-old Emma González addressed the rally and named those who had been killed. She then stood in silence to demonstrate the length of the Parkland shooting.
"Since the time that I came out here, it has been six minutes and 20 seconds. The shooter has ceased shooting, and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape, and walk free for an hour before arrest. Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job," she said.
González and other young activists have since been championing a high-profile advocacy campaign for tighter regulations to prevent gun violence. They are challenging elected representatives who are passive on gun control and have got under the skin of the National Rifle Association (NRA), a formidable lobby in US politics.
The NRA believes this to be a conspiracy by "gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites manipulating and exploiting children" to protest against the Second Amendment, the constitutional clause that gives Americans the right to bear arms.
The activists have been undeterred, stepping up their campaign to get more young people to register to vote and support candidates who promote gun safety. They are using social media to engage their peers and employ new technology such as QR codes, even on clothing, to encourage voter registration among young Americans.In the six months since the Valentine's Day shooting, the teenagers have taken charge of their destiny and become recognisable names and faces across the US.
Over the same period, South Africans have been spectators of the New Dawn, waiting for President Cyril Ramaphosa to conjure up a miracle to rescue the country from the doldrums. Some people appear to be genuinely disappointed that he has not done so yet.
Following the ANC's decision to amend the constitution to allow for land expropriation without compensation, there are all manner of expectations. Some people think title deeds for land will be handed out like free chilli-sauce sachets with a takeaway meal, while others fear they will be driven out by land invasions.
There has been much rhetoric, but nobody in the ANC or the government has been able to articulate intelligibly how the new land redistribution policy will be implemented in real terms.
Like with most things, we expect politicians to lead the way and are sitting back to see what happens.
Civil society activism against state capture, the #FeesMustFall protests and demonstrations against gender violence have shown that some people in our society do have strong convictions and are willing to take a stand.On other issues, however, we have fallen short. Six years after the Marikana massacre, there has been no public pressure to ensure accountability or reparations.
From Life Esidimeni to Sars to state capture, SA has one antidote for whatever goes wrong: commissions of inquiry that result in no action.
Despite the perpetual failure of leadership, there remains undue reliance on politicians to come up with solutions to the country's problems.
We elect political leaders to represent our interests and make decisions on our behalf. But this does not mean we should surrender our destiny to them.
This is precisely how the phenomenon of state capture took hold - society did not pay sufficient attention to political decision-making and woke up only after more than R100bn had been looted.
It is foolhardy to expect that a new president could suddenly change the country's economic prospects, and stop the culture of systemic corruption and nonperformance.
That will take an overhaul of the government and reorientation of society.
Through immense trauma, the Parkland teenagers decided to fight for their lives. Perhaps it is time that South African politics stopped being a spectator sport and we fought for ours...