Let’s not start with politicians. They’re the easy target, the low-hanging fruit. State capture, tenderpreneurs, Eskom—we’ve all heard the rant a thousand times. It’s exhausting.
Let’s start at the bottom. With us. With the small stuff.
You know the type. The guy who dodges his tax because “the system is corrupt anyway.” The neighbour who applies for a grant she doesn’t really need, because “everyone does it.” The friend who borrows 500 bucks and then develops a sudden, mysterious inability to reply to WhatsApps.
Then there’s the car that vanishes at 3am. The house that gets hit. The loan that never comes back.
And here’s the weird part: when someone pulls a fast one and gets away with it, we don’t always gasp in horror. Sometimes we smirk. “Sharp, hey.” “Street-smart.” “He knows how to work the system.”
We’ve started cheering for the escape artist.
So what’s actually going on? Is it just survival? After decades of inequality, unemployment, and watching connected people swim in gravy, maybe the rules started feeling like a joke. Why be the mug who plays fair when the field is already tilted?
Or is it something simpler? Greed? Example from above? A bit of everything?
This isn’t a sermon—nobody wants that. But let’s be honest: when honesty takes a back seat, trust evaporates—and life gets expensive. You can’t do business without a contract. You can’t trust the contract without a lawyer. You can’t trust the lawyer without another lawyer. Suddenly you’re spending your whole day just trying to figure out if someone actually means what they say.
Honesty is the cheap lubricant of society. Without it, trust vanishes, and everything grinds to a halt.
And we all know the little voice. That quiet nudge when we’re about to take the shortcut. “Nobody will know.” “They owe me.” “It’s just this once.”
The low road is tempting. It’s also crowded.
But here’s the twist: we’ve got plenty of good people left. The pensioner who pays every bill on time, even when it hurts. The small business owner who scrapes to make payroll and still does it. The person below the breadline who refuses to steal, even though stealing might feed their kids tonight.
The teacher who shows up. The cop who actually investigates. The prosecutor who won’t look the other way. The businessperson who says “no” to the bribe.
They exist. In numbers. They’re just quieter than the noise.
So where does the reset start? Not in a commission. Not in a new law. Not in another committee to investigate the committee that investigated the first committee.
It starts at home. At school. At the workplace. In that small decision that nobody else will ever see.
Do I pay back what I borrowed? Do I tell the truth when a lie would be easier? Do I return what isn’t mine? Do I do the right thing when doing the wrong thing would be so, so convenient?
That’s it. No fireworks. No tender. No grand national strategy.
Just the quiet, unglamorous, deeply uncool act of keeping your word and being straight with people.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly where the great South African reset has to begin. Not with a bang. With a shrug that turns into a habit.
Because if we can’t be honest with each other, we’ve got nothing. And we all know it.
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