Given the debilitating leadership crisis and political chaos threatening to tear our country apart, is it any wonder many South Africans are now beginning to ask the forbidden question?
Was the Struggle for freedom in South Africa worth the effort?
It's a highly charged and obviously sensitive question that would have been deemed politically indelicate, if not plainly unpatriotic, not so long ago.
But it is one that is being asked increasingly, both in private as well as in public, by many prominent and respected citizens concerned South Africa has reached a dangerous crossroad and urgently needs to change course if we are to ever reach the Promised Land.
One of them is celebrated actor and playwright, John Kani, who in a candid TV interview this week talked about how disillusioned he was with the divisive leadership battles, character assassinations and political killings bedevilling the landscape in recent months.
Had he chosen to continue his highly successful acting career overseas, Kani - who won Broadway's coveted Tony Award for Best Actor in 1975 for Sizwe Banzi is Dead and The Island - would have been a multi-millionaire today.
But he chose to come back to South Africa due to his passion for the country and its people.
“I am now 74. I was 51 when I voted for the first time. But I must admit there are times when I ask myself whether all the suffering was worth it,” he said in the interview.
Kani made no bones about his deep sense of disappointment and disillusionment with the present day leadership in South Africa.
What people like John Kani are saying today speaks volumes about concerns shared by many South Africans.
He is not by any means a politician in the conventional sense but was deeply politicised from a very young age. When he first met renowned playwright Athol Fugard in the 1960s, he realised he could use his acting skills to fight apartheid.
“Instead of wanting to pick up the AK-47, I could pick up a cultural AK-47,” he once said.
He continued his crusade years later when apartheid was overthrown and the challenge of rebuilding the country began.
I recall seeing him perform in his celebrated play Missing at Durban's Playhouse two years ago.
It told the story of an exiled comrade who returns to SA with his Swedish wife and daughter, expecting to take up an illustrious career in the new democracy.
But the comrade's hopes were dashed when he was left out of the negotiations and what followed is a plot filled with intrigue, lies, back stabbings, conspiracies and political infighting.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
* Dennis Pather's Tongue In Cheek column appears in Independent Media titles every Sunday.
* The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.