By Alec Hogg
There’s a public relations consultancy in London called Bell Pottinger known to take on any client, no matter how disreputable, provided the money is right. The firm markets itself as a specialist in “crisis” communication. Others, including former client Johann Rupert, use rather different descriptions.
Bell Pottinger’s highest profile South African client is the Gupta family, who pay a retainer reputably runs into millions of pounds a year. The BP-driven dark arts are mostly a rehash of tools long used internationally, thus easily discredited in most parts of the world. But as this kind of propaganda is new to SA, it ropes a lot of dopes.
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Among the tactics is “paid twitter” – a team of low-life who run dozens of Twitter accounts ascribed to fictitious people and created with the sole intention of promoting the client’s agenda. They continually bait selected enemies hoping some naïve soul (remember Chris Hart?) is drawn into an ill-considered comment which the paid “pack” can use to launch a campaign creating an impression of wide outrage.
I’ve become one of the targets for Bell Pottinger’s dirty tricks. Its paid twitter’s common refrain that my agenda is “undemocratic Regime change.” It helps to recall my favourite aunt’s saying of not expecting more than a grunt from a pig. But the attack did trigger reflection on the concept of Regimes. And those who regard political power as a licence to plunder.
That got me hauling out Henry David Thoreau’s marvellous essay on Civil Disobedience which shares the way to resist an unjust state. Among his many attributes, the brilliant Thoreau was a fierce abolitionist at a time when his USA resisted Britain’s war to end slavery. But he was also camped against the concept of ever rising taxation.
Penned in 1849, Civil Disobedience argues a government which governs least is best. And predicts that when mankind eventually comes to its collective senses, he will universally demand the very best government of all – none.
You are sure to love the piece. As a taster, Thoreau’s take on politicians and job creation: “Trade and commerce, were they not made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over obstacles which legislators are continually putting in their way. And if one were to judge these men wholly by the effects of their actions…they would deserve to be classed and punished with those mischievous people who put obstructions on the railroads.”
Equally apt for the current era of South African politics is Thoreau’s assertion that: “All men recognise the right of revolution: that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.”
So am I guilty of agitating for Regime change? That’s far too mild. I’d align more closely with Thoreau’s approach that mankind is best served by no Regime at all. But if we must have one, the smaller the better. And one that serves with honour and integrity.
