Optimism Without Action Is Just Wishful Thinking
If you’ve lived in South Africa for more than fifteen minutes, you’re likely familiar with the “Braaivleis Pivot.” You know the game I mean – the conversational gymnastics where we spend 40 minutes round the fire lamenting the latest collapse of a specific municipality, and the last five minutes before the meat comes off gushing about how spectacular this morning’s sunrise was.
I love South Africa with my whole being, but we are at risk of becoming a nation of professional hope mongers, treating optimism like a national currency.
So, as we blink into the light of January 2026, we have to acknowledge a few stark truths:
The exchange rate is still terrible, corruption is still rife, and a beautiful sunrise doesn’t fix a substation that blew up because it hasn’t been serviced since the 2010 World Cup.
Optimism without action isn’t a strategy, it’s a hallucination, and if there’s one thing we need to understand this year it’s this:
The time for “thinking about it” has officially expired.
Now that the silliness of the festive season is officially behind us, here’s the first reality check of the new year:
Gravity still applies.
We have to be honest about where we are, and the best description I can think of right now is “stable disfunction.”
We’ve become so accustomed to the absurd that we don’t even flinch when we see a “Road Closed” sign that’s been there so long it’s started to grow moss.
The electricity situation has moved from a crisis to a hobby for most of us. We’ve become amateur electrical engineers, discussing inverters and lithium-ion cycles with more passion than our own business plans.
But for the small business owner in Alexandra or the manufacturer in Gqeberha, it’s not something to joke about, it’s a death certificate.
Infrastructure decay is not something we can treat with the optimism of a neglected houseplant, assuming it will somehow thrive on a diet of “patriotic spirit” and zero maintenance.
Spoiler alert: it’s dying.
As forensic investigators, my team and I spend our days staring at the wreckage, but we don’t just see the theft, we see the boredom of it. Most of the corruption we uncover isn’t some Ocean’s Eleven-style heist. It’s a guy in a mid-level procurement office who’s realised no one has checked the “Reason for Deviation” column on a tender since 2019.
It’s the banality of the rot that should scare us the most.
But I have always – and will continue to – find cases for hope. There are always legitimate reasons for optimism. They just don’t involve selfies and hashtags.
Encouragingly, we’re starting to see a few checks-and-balances muscles being flexed.
The SARS turnaround is a great example, as is the increasing (if frustratingly slow) cooperation between the private sector and the NPA. And I know I’m not alone when I stand in awe at the courage and bravery of the countless whistleblowers who continue to risk their lives to expose corruption and fraud.
This is what optimism in action looks like. It’s not exciting or glamourous – it’s hard work that’s also often dangerous and lonely. It’s wonderful, competent people doing more than we should have to ask of them to make South Africa better.
And it’s action like this that moves the needle. Incrementally, yes, but also undeniably.
The potential energy in this country is almost terrifying in its intensity – and exciting in its inherent possibility.
What we need to do now is close the gap between the promises of our senior officials and tangible, verifiable progress. Because the difference between a true leader and a placeholder is what happens after the forensic report is delivered.
In our line of work, we submit binders of evidence. We can prove exactly how the money left the account, whose signature facilitated it, and which cousin’s carwash ended up with the “consulting fee.”
And then… we wait. Too often, the response is a press release promising a “commission of inquiry.”
But here’s the brutal truth:
If you know who the bad guys are but haven’t done anything because “it’s complicated,” you’re an accessory, not a leader. The problem in South Africa is not a lack of vision – we have enough “Vision 2030” documents to paper the entire N1.
The problem is a lack of will.
I’d like to start this year by issuing a challenge. Let’s make 2026 the year we stop celebrating plans and start celebrating repairs. Let’s reframe our idea of success to look less like a dodgy official being suspended for 3 years on full pay while we “investigate,” and more like them being fired.
Let’s employ municipal managers who actually know – and care – how many megalitres of water leak out of their pipes every hour. And let’s appoint CEOs who prioritise the integrity of their supply chain over the convenience of a connected vendor.
If we don’t, the cost of yet another year celebrating the status quo won’t just be financial.
Because when people stop believing that the rules also apply to the people who make them, they stop seeing a reason to follow the rules themselves. This is how you get a country of 60 million people trying to out-manoeuvre each other instead of working towards building something together.
So here’s my plea to you if you’re in a position to change the outcome of at least one major system this year:
Do it.
You likely have a budget, a mandate, or a team that looks to you to set the standard of what’s acceptable. So use them.
We need fewer “round the braai” fans of South Africa’s sunrises and more roll-up-your-sleeves mechanics. Let’s stop telling our friends how passionate we are about South Africa while our department’s audit is a disaster.
We don’t need passion; we need signatures on disciplinary charges and insistence on good governance and servant leadership.
Optimism is a wonderful thing, but it’s a luxury we can only afford once the actual work is done.