The State of the Nation speech by President Zuma is foremost on the minds of commentators, media houses and journalists across South Africa, but also elsewhere.

Many South Africans will be tuning in to listen to and watch President Zuma but perhaps for other reasons, which involve the new vigour that Parliament has displayed but mostly on our television screens. Sadly, many of our parliamentarians believe that Parliament is just a moonlighting job and that their attentions are required elsewhere (at our expense, of course).

Thursday, 12 February 2015 seems to be a day etched into the political landscape as the biggest day of the year, but also touted as a very big day in the presidency of Jacob Zuma and, by implication, the African National Congress. An organisation with an illustrious past, a host of great leaders, thinkers and people of integrity, and the current talk is that this day has pinned President Zuma and the ANC into a corner.

The State of the Nation is not simply a barometer of where we are as a country or a speech setting out the agenda of the executive, but in many ways it is required to be a show of leadership, reassurance to a populace that is troubled, to give comfort and direction to a country in pain.

Twenty-one years into democracy, this State of the Nation is not about the nation or its people, but rather it is about showmanship. This speech, this moment in our history, is about what the Economic Freedom Fighters will do when President Zuma ascends the podium to address a joint session of Parliament.

We will wait in that moment to hear whether #PayBacktheMoney rings out from the opposition benches, raised by way of a point of order politely and earnestly by Mr Malema and the other Fighters in the interests of accountability – or so we are told.

Twenty-one years ago, I was nine years old, and I remember joining my family as they made the journey of voting for the first time in what was a democratic, free and hopefully fair South Africa.

I remember sharing, in that moment, the visible fear and uncertainty of what the future held, but a sense of pride and hope – hope in the future that South Africa was now in the hands of its people, finally.

That hope is a reminder, a reminder for all South Africans, that we have done the impossible, that we bridged a divide deemed impossible and we shaped that moment where millions for the first time were treated as South Africans – the people had a voice and it was about them.

That moment has faded, the realities of the day cloud that memory and the inability of South Africa to boldly confront its demons still plague us.

We are a country struggling under an economy that just won’t create the jobs that we need, growing inequality, a debilitating education system and what appears to be a rudderless approach to tackling these issues and others head on.

This State of the Nation will not be enough; it will not be enough to address the growing uneasiness many feel about where we are going as a country. It will fail to address the recent outbreak of xenophobic attacks, racisms and prejudice, and the problems facing the Hawks, the National Prosecuting Authority, the South African Revenue Services, or the growing inequality, the stumbling economy, the sluggish electricity grid, or any of the other countless challenges facing us.

Just this week we have been outraged by the news of the rape and assault of a young man in Jan Kempdorp, Northern Cape. Words cannot capture the outrage, the sadness, the frustration, the anger and the pain that so many are feeling for this young man. These events rip away our innocence, our hope and lay open all our scars … these moments cannot be spoken away by President Zuma.

The State of the Nation will not bring us what we desire. Mr Zuma will remain President of the Republic, the speech will set out some agenda, the crises our government continues to deny will continue to play out, more promises will be made countless times after all next year is an election year.

We wait for leadership, we wait for a speech that not only reassures but also gives us hope – hope to believe as many did in 1994 that things were going to be better.

The blood has already been spilled. It would be easy to embrace a fatalistic approach to it all, it would be easy to say that the democratic institutions have been captured by the elite, that accountability can be negated by the rich and powerful and that the hope has been stolen.

We cannot afford to say that. South Africans are far too hopeful; we are tenacious, we are a strong people – and we must remind ourselves that against all odds, we took down an illegitimate regime that purported hatred of the worst kind on us.

We must never forget. We must never forget our own strength, but we must also never forget that it is our duty to keep that dream on track. Marikana is a reminder to us all what the costs will be if we don’t act.

The young man from Jan Kempdorp is counting on us all, as are the people from Nyanga, Soweto, Randfontein, Majakaneng, Malamulele – we cannot afford to let them down. The blood may have been spilled, but we have an opportunity to chart a different path so that our State of the Nation will mean something – that we can do things differently.

Twenty-one years ago millions of South Africa chose a new path, and with their fear charted a new journey. If we fail to do the same we will be complicit in the farce, the blood will be on our hands too.

As you enjoy the potential spectacle of Thursday night, remember that this show is costing us about R450 million a year, and that we deserve much more.

We need to figure out collectively how we change gears to direct our future away from the showmanship of clay-footed politicians. After all, as Shakespeare remarked, “it is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves”. DM