Apartheid functionaries and their descendants spreading pro-'GNU' propaganda

A closer look at the collaboration between Naspers, the Institute for Security Studies and the Hanns Seidel Foundation

Any objective assessment of media reporting and analysis since the announcement of the Democratic Alliance (DA)-African National Congress(ANC) coalition, which its proponents call ‘GNU’ (government of national unity), will find that all the largest media outlets in the country have produced systematically partisan reporting. This partisan bias is very evidently in favour of the ‘GNU’. This partisanship, which effectively amounts to propaganda, is enhanced by the equally remarkable silence or acquiescence of most high profile ‘civil society’ organisations.

If you have read some of my pre-election analysis this should not come as a surprise, since I pointed out that many of these organisations are covertly funded by one of the biggest funders of the Democratic Alliance. Michiel Le Roux has been the DA’s largest funder, including by abusing loopholes in party funding system, but is also the funder of the Millenium Trust which funds many high profile CSOs and directly funds some media outlets (like Daily Maverick and amaBhungane). It even funds the civil society media watchdog, Media Monitoring Africa. So it is not an exaggeration to say that Le Roux has effectively captured or co-opted a large swathe of institutions that should provide objective, critical analysis of political developments - including the ‘GNU’.

Unfortunately, the problem is far more widespread and there are other actors from the apartheid era engaging in similarly partisan manipulation of the public narrative. A recent example provides a valuable illustration of how foreign influence combines with apartheid-era individuals and institutions to promote pro-‘GNU’ propaganda as objective assessment and media reporting. The case study is a collaboration between News24, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the Hanns Seidel Foundation.

News24 is South Africa’s largest online news source. Its parent company is Naspers. Naspers itself was created as a media organisation to promote apartheid. The chairman of Naspers is Koos Bekker, the son of an apartheid intelligence officer.

The CEO of Naspers is Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa. Mahanyele-Dabengwa’s father was reportedly an askari [a traitor working for the apartheid government against the liberation movements]. He worked for the US Information Service and testified against Winnie Mandela for the apartheid regime - but his cover was blown. According to some sources he later bankrolled certain ANC leaders in the 1990s. Mahanyele-Dabengwa, his daughter, received all her postgraduate education in the United States and later worked for Cyril Ramaphosa’s company Shanduka, before being appointed CEO of Naspers by Koos Bekker.

What about the ISS? The chairman and founder of the ISS is Jakkie Cilliers. Cilliers was an enthusiastic member of the apartheid military apparatus before moving on to work in the apartheid intelligence apparatus. Cilliers claims that he left due to disillusionment, but he does not elaborate on this and there is no independent corroboration of his version. A short while later he founded the ISS, previously known as the Institute for Defence Policy, which worked as a thinktank to influence defence policy during the transition from apartheid to democracy. The ISS was started with funds from the Hanns Seidel Foundation and the Oppenheimers (via De Beers and Anglo American funds). ISS later expanded its scope across the African continent.

The third party in this collaboration is the Hanns Seidel Foundation. As already noted, they partly bankrolled Jakkie Cilliers at an early stage - seemingly quite happy to fund an apartheid military and intelligence officer to influence post-apartheid policy. As with many German foundations, it traces its roots to a particular German politician and an associated political grouping in Germany. While modern short biographies - especially from his foundation - are keen to emphasise that Hanns Seidel fell out with the Nazis, the reality is that he returned to Germany and served in the Nazi military for 5 years. He was then appointed as a district commissioner by the American military government after the Nazi regime collapsed. There is generally inadequate independent analysis of these foundations, but what is widely agreed is that the Christian Social Union political party with which the HSF is closely tied is a right-wing conservative party.

When we put these three individual and institional biographies together, we see very clearly how right-wing and apartheid-supporting individuals have retained or recreated influence in the post-apartheid era, across media and civil society. What is crucially different now is that they have a foothold [in fact much more than that] in the State itself. The result is that they are now becoming propagandists for the State, whereas previously - under ANC governments - they were vehement critics. The associated propaganda and bias is replicated across other major media outlets:

This example is one of many that demonstrates how some (perhaps most) pro-GNU hype is coordinated propaganda by historically right-wing groups and individuals that is going completely unchallenged. And that’s a serious threat to democracy and the broad public interest.