South Africa: Bell Pottinger Has Taught Us What to Treasure in the Long, Painful Haul Back to Freedom

analysis

Propaganda and disinformation has to find a remotely plausible foothold in a society in order to ignite and flare into an inferno. Racial tension and economic inequality were obvious stirrups in South Africa. UK-based PR firm Bell Pottinger knew these issues could serve as the perfect smoke bomb, obfuscating wide-scale plunder and capture of the state by their clients the Gupta family. What BP didn't anticipate is the resistance and pushback from ordinary South Africans. The cost could have been so high. So, how come we clung to the fraying threads of Mandela's Rainbow Nation when someone else threatened our peace?

Canada's Globe and Mail has cast South Africans collectively as the heroes in the Battle of Bell Pottinger, won late evening on Thursday, 6 July, 2017 when the PR firm's Chief Executive, James Henderson, issued "a full, unequivocal and absolute apology" that slalomed and made news across the world.

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