The Oxford Dictionary defines resilience as “the ability to recover quickly after something unpleasant such as shock or injury.” Tolerance, by contrast, is “the willingness to accept or tolerate someone or something, especially opinions or behavior that you may not agree with, or people who are not like you.”
If resilience is about bouncing back and tolerance is about enduring, then the distinction between the two becomes crucial. A resilient society overcomes hardship by adapting, innovating, and ultimately improving its circumstances. A tolerant society, on the other hand, absorbs dysfunction, normalising what should never be acceptable. South Africans have long worn resilience as a badge of honour—but at what point does this so-called resilience become mere endurance of the unacceptable? When potholes become landmarks, when water shortages are shrugged off, and when corruption is met with weary resignation, are we truly recovering, or just surviving?
You've experienced it: Home Affairs offline (again), potholes requiring off-road driving skills, the eerie quiet of load-shedding at dinner time. You’ve rationed water, hidden valuables at traffic lights, and hesitated before taking out your phone in public. You’ve read about yet another state-owned entity collapsing under the weight of mismanagement, and you've learned to triple-check your locks. Corruption scandals? So frequent, they barely shock us anymore.
If resilience means bouncing back, then South Africa should be a nation of comebacks. And yet, the evidence suggests we are merely enduring, absorbing failure rather than overcoming it. Consider the state of our infrastructure: fewer than 6% of the country’s bridges are in good condition, with an estimated R16 billion needed for restoration. Water shortages have become routine, with the new year kicking off with a 72-hour outage that left over 100 suburbs dry. For millions, piped water remains a luxury rather than a given, and for those who do have it, supply is increasingly unreliable.
Meanwhile, Eskom—our national emblem of mismanagement—pushes annually for a 30% tariff increase, despite its long history of corrupt tenders and maintenance failures. Wages, in contrast, rise by a mere 4–6% if at all, leaving the consumer to foot the bill for incompetence. Local municipalities teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, drained by insiders who accept “special favours” while services collapse. On the roads, citizens don’t just fear criminals; they fear those tasked with enforcing the law, as bribes and abuses of power by traffic police have become a near-daily reality.
These are not the hallmarks of a resilient nation—they are the symptoms of a society that has normalised dysfunction. At what point do we stop calling it resilience and start admitting that we have simply learned to tolerate the intolerable?
The list goes on, but the fact of the matter is that everyone has experienced a moment with the government which has been less than favourable.
On the flip side our parliamentary members feel the velvet benefit of added security at their homes or during transit so why would they worry about the smash-and-grabber? While you carefully navigate pothole-ridden roads, government ministers glide past in blue-light convoys. As you sweat through load-shedding, their homes hum with generator power. When you stand in line at a dysfunctional Home Affairs office, they renew passports with a phone call. Their children go to private schools; yours face crumbling classrooms. You’ll call yourself “lucky” if you live on the same grid as some important figure called “government” because you’ll never experience the dreaded load shedding.
The question remains, what is government doing to earn these luxuries? Why can politicians thieve from the hard-earned income of South Africa and its’ citizens, for self-gain without ramifications?
Does it so simply come down to a question of “have I voted for the right party”? Or is there a larger scale of a justice system lacking much needed discipline, to set our leaders apart where they can lead by example? The culture of theft in this country runs rampant where lawlessness is disgustingly evident.
The CBDs were “free money” to the politicians where economic development flourished and today, the CBD is demarcated as a dangerous, poor and dirty place to be. How do you attract new development into an area when an enormous amount of funds are required to restore the buildings. How do you keep the area safe by police who are under resourced?
If you fall ill, a government hospital may offer little more than dark corridors and overworked, under-equipped medical staff. The environment where silent heroes in the medical field are expected to make groundbreaking recoveries in the dark and with no supplies. Our future medical generations are expected to treat patients with little to no supplies, beds outnumbered by the number of patients, no linen and disgruntled staff – all in unhygienic states.
Another critical topic, staying within the theme of “unhygienic”, talks to the lack of sanitation in government schools. Not only are students facing unequipped schooling infrastructure, but they’re also impacted by a lack of learning supplies, again due to a gross imbalance of funding allocated by the Government. Reducing pass rates, low attendance and an uneducated youth, is a lethal combination for a downturn in the economy for the future. Our Youth are our future and should be empowered as far as possible. There is not enough being done and most that can afford the transition are resorting to private institutions, whilst the top layer of government licks up the cream for self-enrichment.
Having read this far, we seek to ask you again: are we resilient citizens or are we rather tolerant of the mediocrity and low standards in which we are accepting to live by? The next question is what are you going to do about it?
Activate and elevate yourself by leveraging the important but overlooked characteristic of democracy called public participation! Public participation is a democracy’s right and should be enhanced to benefit the citizens. It’s time that we see more of the “cream” amongst our fellow South Africans instead of only with our politicians. Submit your comments before updating your Facebook status, be vocal in the right way and have your say today.
