COLIN ROOPNARAIN

STEVEN Stead the Durbanborn director of the musical

Chicago, was 24 years old and full of wild excitement and hope when he voted in the 1994 election.

“I spent my whole early adulthood hating the government that ran my country and loathing the corrupt, morally bankrupt and incompetent politicians.

“It was overwhelming when we got to vote in our first democratic election. The whole country came together in a show of peaceful goodwill and forgiveness.

“The shock of joy was almost mystically intense. I, however, suspected it couldn’t last.

“In the last six or so years, I have slowly been falling back into that state where I feel perpetually angry and frustrated at the lack of integrity in the government.

“One set of corrupt careerist kleptomaniacs has been replaced by another, bleating racist rhetoric as a smokescreen for their failings and dodgy dealings.

“Tragically, it feels as though not much has changed. I’m not a teenager any more, so carrying around a plastic file in public with something vile about Zuma, as I had during school about PW Botha, isn’t an option.

“But the rage I feel, that’s the same. There is rage against injustice and hypocrisy.

“And the terrible sense of sadness, that it is all such a waste. It didn’t have to be this way. It still doesn’t. Where are all the good people?”