OPINION | Citizenry’s trust in SA being put to the test

The capacity of South African citizens to trust is being severely tested. The situation today is hardly different from that during the apartheid government’s reign in terms of putting the citizenry’s trust to the test.
The effect, in the end, is that the populace is unsure who to trust.
In the current period, which is referred to as the post-truth era, we often find ourselves having to rely on our own personal skills to connect the dots.
Whoever lacks in these skills may find themselves at the mercy of those who manipulate and deliberately scatter those “dots” throughout society to achieve their own ends.
The ANC spearheaded the terrible political tsotsi-ism of over-promising and under-delivering for all the 24 years of democracy.
They delivered, in the long run, a president who had no regard for trust, except to abuse it, giving us the Nkandla scandal, the Khwezi rape scandal and State Capture, with all its constituent scandals.
Big business would not be left behind, delivering bread price and construction sector collusions, the Steinhoff debacle and Marikana.
The church gave us the Ngcobo massacre and now the Omotoso trial, in which a pastor stands accused of years of rape and human trafficking.
The murder of farmers in isolated locations, the violent rape and murder of women by people they often know and trust, the murder of teachers by pupils, the rape of pupils by teachers; all these take their toll on our ability to trust.
In the end we find ourselves besieged by fear, which has devastating effects even on our own children, as one Johannesburg parent, Tshabalala, shot and killed his own child thinking it was hijackers.
When we add it all up, it is really a sick society we live in.
In their 2005 paper, “All for All: Equality and Social Trust”, Bo Rothstein and Eric Uslaner make a very interesting observation concerning trust, which they refer to as “social trust” in their paper.
They say there is a correlation between social trust and inequality.
Where there is lack of social trust there is a prevalence of inequality, and where there is social trust inequality is minimised.
Part of the reason for this is that where there is social trust, there is openness and equal access to resources; basically a reasonably level playing field for all.
This allows people to act without fear of unequal treatment, unfairness or loss through such unfairness.
This is very relevant to SA, seeing that we are one of the most unequal societies on the face of the planet.
But you may still ask, how does this relate to a general lack of trust in South African society?
It is lack of trust which inhibits co-operation, establishment of new businesses and growth in corporate activity.
It is lack of trust that forces us to spend extraordinary amounts of money on security, diverting funds from desperately needed new economic activity.
It is lack of trust that keeps the old racial groupings created by apartheid intact, preventing us from tapping into one of the most extraordinary assets we have: diversity.
It is lack of trust that fuels corruption and crime, as each person feels they have to look out for themselves or their group.
The relevance is overwhelming. It is with this background that we must look at the damage caused by the media when it fails to stick to what has been its unrivalled contribution towards our democracy.
When the media allows itself to be abused by politicians and shady characters with twisted agendas, it ceases to be an instrument of democracy.
Once it does so, it misuses the trust we place upon it and adds to the great distrust which is strangling our society.
It should be relatively possible to trust that what is in the mainline media has been checked and found fit for public consumption.
Lack thereof is perhaps as dangerous as listeria-tainted polony being unleashed on an unsuspecting populace.
However, Sunday Times editor Bongani Siqoko’s apology may have gone some way to addressing what were seemingly glaring failures at the Sunday Times over a number of their stories in the recent past.
Obviously, at the very least more information is needed to build up trust again.
In the end, such trust will not only be trust between SA and the Sunday Times or the media more generally, but will contribute towards “social trust” throughout the country...

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