President Thabo Mbeki was not “pushed out” by a benign ANC leadership in September 2008. He was not removed to hasten the project of improving poor people’s lives. It is now clear that his ousting was a ruthless, cynical, internal coup d’etat, an upending of SA’s constitutional norms and values.

Those who kicked him out were not interested in deepening democracy or upholding our constitutional principles. They were intent on gaining raw power and using it to undermine our democracy and enrich themselves. They had to remove him swiftly, brutally, to get their hands on the levers of power.

The usefulness of the state capture report is not just that it identifies the thieves and gives us tools to prosecute those who looted from the state. It also gives us an opportunity to reflect on our recent history. It allows us to see just how deeply we were fooled by Jacob Zuma and his cronies. It opens the curtain and shows us that we were brought to the brink of being a failed state...