I flew into SA in the second week of spring. This time the new season did not herald hope and renewal. It was the spring of despondency. The country had plummeted into the foulest mood I had experienced among my fellow countrymen in decades. News of Uyinene Mrwetyana’s brutal murder was still fresh. The crime statistics were horrendous. Economic indicators showed we are a country in crisis. The currency was plumbing new depths.

Again and again I was reminded that it’s not just the whites who are leaving. It’s the blacks too, I was told. Business confidence indices sealed the cocktail of pessimism, saying the mood was the bleakest since the mid-1980s...