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| Thanks to Zapiro and the Mail and Guardian |
FOR
some time I’ve felt like we’ve been facing a dam wall on the whole Zuma issue.
Every time Zuma critics have opened their mouths they’ve been flooded with bizarre
conspiracy theories on social media platforms. Recently, as in the Ahmed
Kathrada memorial in KwaZulu Natal, the ANC bully-boys have been called in to crush
public dissent.
Zuma’s
irrational firing of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi
Jonas, on the basis of an “intelligence” report has only increased the social-media
volume. Riddled with schoolboy errors, the much-vaunted report seems to have
been typed on an android phone with predictive text and then pasted, without
editing, on to an official letterhead.
I have
often wondered who conjured up the document that supplies no supporting evidence
for its allegations of Gordhan and Jonas plotting against the state (in other
words, not unfreezing Gupta bank accounts and not approving the Russian nuclear
deal). Was it texted hurriedly from within the Gupta compound to the presidency?
Prominent
ANC figureheads and members have all expressed misgivings about the viability
of Zuma staying in office. What is it that holds him to the Guptas? These are damning
indictments of an amoral politician who not only faces over 780 corruption
charges, but the censure of the Constitutional Court.
This
is a president who cannot appear in public without being booed. This is a
president who caused even the middle-class to come out in the streets. This is
an economically illiterate president who went from being the lap-dog of the
Shaikhs to becoming the poodle of the Guptas.
Compromised
from day one, President Zuma has had to spend huge energies on ensuring he
stays out of a prison cell. But not only that, he has plundered the Treasury on
behalf of his family, friends and an army of worshipping acolytes inside and
outside the cabinet.
These
are the hard facts of a feeble presidency, marked more by dissipation and nepotism
than leadership. This is a presidency that has plunged the country into crisis
and the ANC, Africa’s proudest organisation, into a terminal decline. Granted,
some of the rot was evident during President Thabo Mbeki’s tenure, but nothing
that could not have been remedied after Polokwane.
All of
the above is well-known to every single thinking South African who has not been
sucked into the blind vortex of Zuma incorporated. Perhaps what is not publicised
enough, though, is that last year Zuma officially entered the world of fake
news. A 21st century phenomenon, fake news is difficult to counter
because of its relentless social media onslaught.
Taking
on Goebbels’ famous axiom that if you repeat something enough it becomes truth,
a measure of this is that in the US today there are nearly five PR
practitioners for every journalist. In Great Britain there are said to be about
60, 000 journalists to 83,000 PR practitioners. I haven’t been able to crunch
the numbers for South Africa, but there are hundreds more PR agencies than
media outlets, or journalists.
In
February 2016 (and this has been reported by The Daily Maverick, the Citizen,
the Business Day and the Sunday Times) Gupta-hireling Duduzane Zuma and Fana
Hlongwane – he of the arms deal – paid a PR company, Bell-Pottinger, to spin
for the Guptas.
This
was after Zuma had approached Durban PR specialist, Vuyo Mkhize, to manage the
Nene-gate fall-out. According to the Sunday Times, Mkhize fell out of favour
when he recommended that Zuma dump the Guptas. Ironically, Bell-Pottinger had in
turn been dumped by luxury brand company, Richemont, after its CEO Johan Rupert
had become a Zuma-Gupta fall-boy for white capital.
According
to former founding member Tim Bell – who subsequently resigned – Bell-Pottinger
is being paid over R 1, 7 million (100,000 pounds) a month for its services. This
allegedly happened with the blessing of Zuma, who met representatives of the
company, asking it to protect his son’s reputation.
The
Citizen reported (http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1476840/read-alleged-report-bell-pottingers-gupta-pr-plan/)
that one of the agreed strategies was to drive a social media narrative that
“white monopoly capital”, the SA Communist Party and National Treasury had been
standing in the way of transforming the South African economy.
Bell-Pottinger,
which earned over R 7 billion (540 million US dollars) in Iraq from 2007-2011,
has bolstered the election campaigns of politicians in Zambia, Kenya, Malawi
and Nigeria – and in its early years via Tim Bell – courted clients such as
Margaret Thatcher and FW de Klerk. It has also represented the arms deal company
BAE Systems, Oscar Pistorius and the scurrilous News of the World editor,
Rebekah Brooks.
Back
home, the Bell-Pottinger narrative has been echoed, literally, by the Zuma-Gupta
camp ad-nauseam. To this effect, Bell-Pottinger has evidently used fake
bloggers, fake commentary and unsubstantiated conspiracy to try and take the
heat off the Zuma-Guptas.
During
November last year, a Daily Maverick investigation revealed over 100 bogus twitter
profiles concerning Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela’s State Capture Report
(https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2016-11-10-paid-twitter-manufacturing-dissent-helping-guptas/#.WOtVftJ97c).
“Suspicious tweets” linked to Mzwanele (Jimmy) Manyi and Esethu Hasane, spokesperson
in the Sports and Recreation Ministry, were tracked and led to a trail of bogus
accounts.
Gupta “fronts”
allegedly funded, or aided in their founding by Bell-Pottinger or Gupta money, are
Black First Land First (BFLF) and Manyi’s Decolonisation Foundation. The BFLF, headed by
activist and former EFF parliamentarian, Andile Mngxitima, was officially launched
in 2016.
Investigators
note that since April 2016, Mngxitima – a regular guest on the Gupta-owned ANN7
channel – started attacking industrialist, Johan Rupert, a white capital target
of the Bell-Pottinger campaign. Manyi
threatened to sue the Sunday Times (http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/stnews/2017/03/19/White-monopoly-capital-chosen-distraction-in-PR-strategy-to-clear-Guptas1),
denying links to the Guptas or Bell-Pottinger.
In the
meantime, decent South Africans – rich and poor and black and white – relive
the final scene in George Orwell’s iconic Animal Farm, where the farmyard
animals – having overthrown the oppressive humans – have to suffer the
indignity of watching the hogs cavort and party at the expense of the farmyard just
like the humans did before they were toppled.
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