The English have long regarded Cricket as the most gentlemanly game on earth. We South Africans prided ourselves on its traditions being well maintained. The Willow & Leather community was rocked this decade with scandals of match fixing as money changed hands behind the scenes.
I enter marathons and am dismayed to see what people will do to obtain the well-padded purse for the world's big races. One man took a taxi from just after the start to near the finish so as to break the tape first. Another event was besmirched when twins entered as the same runner. One started and, you guessed it the other came in victorious, but wearing his watch on the wrong arm!
It's not that cheating happens that concerns me. I am troubled when ordinary people are not outraged. To break the rules is within every person's fallen nature, but is there a trend away from integrity in our world today? You perhaps like to think that your neighbors could trust you with their paycheck. It's that time of year again: can the US government trust you to "render to Caesar what is Caesar's?"
Are you happy to have the Olympics changed into a wealth-sponsored choreography of the mediocre? I don't believe so. I call upon you to buck the trend. Start taking a pride in the honesty of your personal dealings. Can your word be trusted once given or do we need a lengthy contract to ensure you won't weasel out of your promises? May the games be an extension of both the human endeavors to reach for the records but also of our commitment to compete in a fair arena.
The lapses in integrity that a nation allows in sport and politics today will become the norm for its adults tomorrow. Beware, the nation's children observe this. For a president to lie under oath and children not see negative consequences, results in seed that will produce a bitter harvest in the next 2 decades. 14,000 gifts were made to the White House during the previous presidency. They vanished! There's an integrity problem and our kids are watching. You can't be a NJ state trooper if there's tax fraud on your record, but that doesn't matter if you find someone powerful enough to appoint you as their boss! Is the "system" broken? This is the decay of integrity. If you think little deviations to playing by the rules doesn't matter, try convincing the Enron employees who've lost their life savings. The scriptures ask: "How long will you defend the unjust?" Rutgers University has a course that seeks to teach the ethics that toddlers ought to learn at home.
I call upon you to tell all who will listen that integrity still matters, but be oh so sure that first you tell yourself often.