Alternative roads to justice do exist

Isn’t it interesting that when the Gupta-Zuma alliance and its sundry band of hangers-on launched their propaganda fightback campaign, the focus was on white monopoly capital – but the message was crafted by white spin doctors? Those spin doctors operate from a country where the art of propaganda has run parallel to that of colonialism for centuries. London PR firm Bell Pottinger’s “white monopoly capital campaign” and the network of “useful idiots”, not to mention automated digital robots, that they used to implement it, did succeed in moving the national debate away from the Guptas, President Jacob Zuma and state capture.

The reality is that the campaign was based on exploiting racial divisions, as the DA claimed in its complaint about Bell Pottinger to the Public Relations and Communications Association in the UK. The body this week agreed with the DA and said Bell Pottinger’s conduct had brought the entire industry into disrepute. The firm was expelled from the body for five years.

What is significant about the ruling is what it says about the alternative avenues that are open to South Africans to pursue justice. In a country where the organs of state justice, including intelligence agencies, the Hawks and the National Prosecuting Authority, appear intent on denying justice by delaying it, the people of South Africa will have to look for these alternative avenues.

Already, a number of non-government lobby organisations have sprung up to pursue those who will not be investigated seriously by the authorities, or to enforce compliance with our constitution. Everyone, from the EFF to AfriForum, has been using the courts to do the job the government can’t, or won’t do. It is sad things are this way, but it shows we do have options we can follow when the situation does look bleak.