Across space and time, very high rates of unemployment, especially among young people, have led to major social upheaval, sometimes taking progressive forms and sometimes marked by an attraction to authoritarianism and a will to scapegoat vulnerable minorities. South Africa is not a viable society for a large proportion of the people who live here, and if history is a reliable guide to the future, something will have to give.

Things are bad. Things have always been bad here but maybe some of us have been given to think that things may be getting better. Sometimes events make me remember that I used to believe strongly that a radically unequal society can only be saved by concomitantly radical actions.

This article, written a month ago, read on top of some of the mortifying events which have taken place in the last few days have reminded me that, in fact, such a belief must be closer to the truth than what our facsimile of a government and democratic process lead us to believe. Are we in essence back to "no normal sport in an abnormal society"?