Whilst we rightfully pay homage to the sacrifices of the “children of Sharpeville, of Langa, of Soweto, of Umlazi, of Zamdela, of Lephalale” and remember them by commemorating their memories on Human Rights day, we have failed to deliver on their dreams.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s language skills are awesome, just as Zuma’s dancing and singing skills were memorable, but they hardly deliver what the Constitution proffers.

On Human Rights day Ramaphosa said “Bound by our belief in our Constitution, we continue to work towards the realisation of a country that is united, non-racial, non-sexist, prosperous and free.”

True, we believe in the Constitution. Less so, however, the ANC and the EFF that want to subvert the clauses protecting land ownership. So if in the upcoming election we grant these two parties significant support, even our Constitution may not be inviolable.

How can we be “united” when there is hardly an issue that enjoys national consensus? Is there agreement on what we should be doing about health (we rank near the bottom of the international index), or education (we rank poorly and the rankings of our Universities are falling), or refugees (our treatment of foreigners and xenophobia are appalling); or land redistribution or whether we should be supporting all the dictators of the world as our Department of International Relations does (Maduro, Putin and Erdogan).

In the past at least our sporting teams enjoyed national support, but of late with the political meddling of a Sports Minister, our sporting achievements have been paltry. Ramaphosa may inadvertently have undermined his own assertion of “unity”, by focussing on the resurgence of the diversity of our indigenous languages. Sure, we have diversity, which is a good attribute, but hardly “unity”.

To claim that we are “non-racial” and that “Discrimination on the basis of race… is forbidden by our laws”, is farcical and untrue. Every company encounters racial profiling every day - the race of every staff member is required by the state - for BBEEE scorecards and for adherence to the law. Every employment agency, is mandated on every job application to give preference to certain racial groups. Every tender requires disclosing your BBBEE score, which is increasingly nothing other than racial profiling. These are our laws, and increasingly employers are threatened with punitive remedies for failure to adhere to these racial laws.

The state of inter-racial relations is indeed at a very low level and the intensity of parliamentary debate reflects this. The ANC is succumbing to the populist hateful rhetoric of the EFF and it seems that recourse to the Equality court or to the judicial system is futile, and of little consequence. The ANC and its allies in the tripartite alliance and the EFF when confronted on issues first address the race of the interrogator. If white, the charges are simply dismissed as coming from a “racist” or a “colonialist”. Under these conditions no serious dialogue can ensue.

We often take some comfort in Ramaphosa’s claims that “We have a legal system that enforces and protects the rights of all”. This blithe affirmation overlooks a legal system that fails because it cannot prosecute the criminals. The ANC has broken down many of the critical institutions needed to deliver a working legal system.

The ANC, to the detriment of the whole country, protects and has fostered these criminals and has been the principal beneficiary of this breakdown. Our police are incapable of putting even a relatively simple case together, as with the Guptas, which resulted in the state having to release assets that had been forfeited. Our best investigative units, like the Scorpions, were dismantled to allow the police to become “captured”. We have just emerged from even a public prosecution service that was captured.

The ANC has had 25 years in government – in which time it enjoyed an absolute majority in parliament allowing it to pass any law that it wanted - and it failed dismally to give the people of South Africa the basic human rights of feeling safe and of work opportunities. We suffer more rapes and murders than almost any other country. In a similar period of time South Korea was able to leapfrog from being a poor country into a technological behemoth, because it had a vision, zero tolerance to corruption and a plan.

It is simply false for Ramaphosa to claim that “Over the past 25 years, we have worked hard to give expression to the rights our Constitution promises our people”. He and all his predecessors have worked hard for the ANC as a party but not for the country!