The stakes are high for South Africa’s future, yet beneath the surface rhetoric, the reality on the ground indicates that relations between citizens of different races remain broadly constructive, pragmatic, and good.

Across the country, polling data points to a far more unified and pragmatic society than South Africa’s public debate usually concedes. According to Social Research Foundation (SRF) polling, an overwhelming 87% of South Africans believe that government should appoint the best candidates to jobs regardless of race, a view held consistently by black, coloured, Indian, and white respondents, as well as supporters of the main political parties.

The same pattern appears in attitudes to government procurement: 86% agree that the state should choose the best service providers at the best price, again without regard to race. This is not mere lip service. On practical questions such as whether businesses should be allowed to operate freely if they pay tax and create jobs almost 80% of all respondents, including three-quarters of black South Africans, favour open markets and enterprise over government interference based on identity or ideology.

Community

These figures find confirmation in community life. Multiple waves of national polling show that a substantial majority of South Africans, across all groups, report good relations with neighbours of other backgrounds and high levels of trust across racial lines. In major national surveys, more than three quarters of respondents affirm that South Africans of different races need each other, and that daily relations are generally positive.

This is not to downplay real problems - there are still pockets of tension and incidents of bigotry - but it is clear that most citizens are moving in the opposite direction to the polarised national narrative.

Despite these facts, much of the dominant political and media narrative continues to revolve around conflict, grievance and identity politics. Doom mongers and populists on all sides have a vested interest in framing every policy or incident as a contest between competing racial claims. Yet, for most South Africans, day-to-day reality is entirely different. In communities across the country, ordinary citizens report high levels of mutual respect and practical co-operation across race and class lines. The pragmatic majority is held together by a shared belief in the value of individual opportunity, property rights, the rule of law, and the benefits of a dynamic market economy an outlook that bridges historic divides.

South Africans routinely demonstrate this shared commitment in the way they interact, work and raise families, revealing a striking degree of common ground that endures beneath the headlines.

Pragmatic

This pragmatic spirit is visible in support for common-sense reform: over 85% of South Africans say that labour laws should be relaxed so that more people can find work, and more than 86% want government to procure services purely on merit, not the race of the service provider. Even on emotive issues like land, a solid majority believe that black farmers leasing land from the state should be given title deeds to own it themselves, showing that the real appetite is for individual advancement and property rights rather than ideological experiments.

South Africa’s real challenge is not a divide among ordinary citizens, but the failure of political, business, media and activist leaders to harness the nations’ goodwill and pragmatism into meaningful policy reform. Instead, the national narrative is too often hijacked by those who seek to benefit from polarisation or who rely on historical grievance to sustain their own power. Yet, as the data shows, South Africans themselves are ready for a politics and a policy direction that affirms merit, individual dignity and equal opportunity over racial engineering.