It was my privilege to have met Nelson Mandela a few times, including one small and memorable dinner at the Presidency. From what I saw up close, he deserves every one of many plaudits received. But right now, what Madiba would be most proud of is the way the people of his young democracy are responding.
Sentiment aside, Madiba’s legacy has become a wonderful rallying call for those fighting the dark forces assailing South Africa. So it comes as no surprise that yesterday, the official Nelson Mandela Day, saw a three-pronged attack launched by civil society.
Hindsight may show this to have been SA’s turning point.
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Most of the media attention was justifiably focused on a gathering of around 100 NGOs in Randburg. It was the most representative meeting of activists in SA since 1955 when 200 anti-apartheid groupings came together in Kliptown for the historic Congress of the People. This time the policemen kept their distance. But emotions were just as highly charged.
Six and a bit decades back the ANC-led gathering called on “the people of South Africa, black and white, to speak together of freedom” and work together to end an evil regime.
Yesterday, former ANC heavyweight and now SaveSA chairman Sipho Pityana delivered a similar message. But he warned, too, that the task is a difficult one with the goal of “disrupting ugly networks of international criminal syndicates…and sometimes governments in China, Dubai, India, Russia and some African countries.”
At the time Pityana was calling for president Jacob Zuma’s resignation, an equally formidable opponent of the dark forces was galvanising civil resistance in Cape Town.
Between 2009 and 2015 Kumi Naidoo was head of the world’s leading environmental activist group Greanpeace International. He resigned to return home and fight the proposed nuclear deal. Yesterday Naidoo was among faith and community activists in a #StopCorruptNuclearSA campaign which is gathering momentum.
Naidoo is a globally respected activist whom I saw in action many times in the rarified atmosphere of Davos. He reckons the nuclear deal “sets the stage for the biggest corruption the country has ever seen and will make the Arms Deal look like a Sunday picnic.” In local parlance, getting him on the anti-Zupta team is like importing Ronaldo to play for Kaizer Chiefs.
Yesterday’s third arrow was fired at London PR agency Bell Pottinger, which is in the middle of an existential crisis. The firm has already apologised unreservedly for work done for the Guptas, a statement quickly condemned in SA as too little too late. Now it faces a disciplinary hearing called by the PR industry’s governing body, PRCA, which yesterday said it will be held 18th August after a complaint was laid against Bell Pottinger by SA’s official opposition, the Democratic Alliance. The DA and Bell Pottinger have been urged to “provide full evidence.”
At Biznews we are convinced that, just as happened when the US banks pulled the plug on apartheid, the Zupta war will be won when international forces join the fray. Already McKinsey and SAP are rushing to sanitise reputations tarnished by their Gupta-linked SA subsidiaries. We expect them to fully ‘fess up’ and disclose absolutely everything.
So too Bell Pottinger? In a month’s time the London agency will have an opportunity to atone before things start getting really hectic. This presents a one-off chance to transform from zero to hero. But it would require spilling every last bean on its noxious former client and those whose aid it enlisted in its racially divisive campaign. Bell Pottinger has already stated publicly that the Guptas lied. Self-preservation tinged with the resentment of being duped, may cause it to forget any ethical concerns about abandoning client confidentiality. Hope springs.
