Twitter turns on Bell Pottinger
The PR firm has been forced into making its Twitter account private by furious South Africans
There’s a delightful irony to how that despicable PR firm Bell Pottinger has been publicly shamed through Twitter, the very medium it used to create “racial hatred” in SA. Last week the UK company, which represented the Guptas and whose sordid behaviour has been exposed in the #Guptaleaks e-mails, was forced to make its Twitter account private. This follows an onslaught by angry South Africans against the PR company. As DA MP Phumzile van Damme tweeted: “A whole global PR firm hiding behind a protected account. We just want to talk, @Bellpottinger.”
They would never have imagined it, but the shared outrage has forged a sort of nation-building. As one person put it: “After destroying the livelihood of South Africans, creating racial divisions and giving birth to a myth about white monopoly capital . . . we’d like to see how you manage your companies [sic] reputation. SA is not a nation you can suppress. We fought apartheid, we will fight Bell Pottinger & your thieving clients, the Guptas!”
The company’s Victoria Geoghegan has emerged as a key player and one of the main targets of Twitter vitriol.
According to the leaked correspondence, Geoghegan led a four-person team to SA for a four-day consultation that cost the Guptas R5.5m, following a R1.6m consultation with President Jacob Zuma’s son Duduzane, to devise a “narrative that grabs the attention of the grassroots population who must identify with it, connect with it and feel united by it”. The result: the divisive, much-peddled phrase “white monopoly capital”.
The #Guptaleaks e-mails revealed that Bell Pottinger wrote scripts for Zuma apologist Kebby Maphatsoe, Duduzane Zuma, and ANC Youth League head Collen Maine. As one tweet, directed at partner Tim Falconer, put it: “A failure on your part to condemn the horrific sowing of racial hatred by #Bellpottinger in South Africa implies ACCESSORY . . .”
There’s even a parody, created by the writers of cartoon strip Madam & Eve and spoofing the Harry Potter books, called “Harry Bell Pottinger and the prisoner of white monopoly capital”. And yet, even as Bell Pottinger punted the phrase which created enormous rifts in society, it was paid R9.6m by SA Tourism to promote the country internationally.
It’s not their first skirmish with controversy. In 2011, Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales slammed them for manipulating the online encyclopedia’s entries about their clients: “I am astonished at the ethical blindness of Bell Pottinger’s reaction. That their strongest true response is they didn’t break the law tells a lot about their view of the world.”
Having represented some of the most vile people in the world (from Syrian President Bashar al-assad’s wife to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet), it’s telling that Bell Pottinger was forced to fire the Guptas as clients after the backlash from angry South Africans. We’re a fiery people, proud of our country.
#Guptaleaks revelations show how Bell Pottinger pushed the white monopoly capital line