In every relationship, whether between individuals, communities, political parties, or nations, there is a choice about what to build it around. There are the wedge issues that divide people and the bridge issues on which they find common ground. Too often, the choice is to emphasise the former at the expense of the latter.

The Common Sense was founded in great part to do the opposite, to find, stress, and promote the bridge issues so that these can become the basis on which to build a great and prosperous future for all South Africans. Three examples from this newspaper over the past week demonstrate just how plentiful and strong the bridge issues are.

The first was our interview with the American ambassador to South Africa, Leo Brent Bozell III. Despite the present tensions between Pretoria and Washington, his interview showed that the common ground between the two countries in values, economic interests, and strategic objectives is considerable.

South Africa's greatest economic weakness is its exceptionally low investment rate. That weakness lies at the heart of its unemployment and poverty crises and was central to the economic failures that cost the African National Congress (ANC) its national majority. The United States possesses the capital, technology, markets, and strategic interests to help reverse that failure at scale, and the geostrategic interest to deepen its footprint in southern Africa. The potential benefits of cooperation are vastly greater than those of continued confrontation.

The second example concerns South Africa’s domestic condition. The government has failed its citizens badly, but South Africans have responded by increasingly taking responsibility for services and functions the state no longer performs adequately.

Polling published by this newspaper shows that this sentiment is shared across racial and political lines. Black and white South Africans, ANC and Democratic Alliance supporters alike, are all doing exactly the same thing in response to the same problem. This represents a substantial foundation for the social, and ultimately political, cooperation necessary to turn the country around.

The third example is perhaps the most revealing. Data published in the newspaper last week showed that AfriForum and March and March attract considerable support from white and black communities, respectively.

The kind of superficial analysis that is regularly parroted in the legacy media would leap at this as confirmation that South Africans are divided into irreconcilable racial camps. Yet the data published by this newspaper found that when South Africans are asked whether it might be good for March and March and AfriForum to come together to work together, more than six in ten South Africans, black and white, say that would be a good idea. Even where divisions appear most pronounced, the foundations for constructive cooperation are considerable.

These examples point to a fundamental truth about South Africa. Its people possess far more common interests than its political discourse and legacy media acknowledge. The task of serious leadership, whether in politics, the media, or foreign policy, is to identify these common interests, strengthen the bridges between communities, and build political and economic arrangements around them.

Pierneef was one of South Africa's greatest artists, known for his paintings of South African vistas. This column named after him aims to do something similar — sketch the broad vistas of South Africa's domestic landscape.