English-speaking white right spreads the West’s disinformation
South Africa’s decision to open a case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) won it widespread acclaim across much of the Global South and among progressives in the Global North.
Of course, there was serious hostility from the Israeli state and its backers in the West, including local personalities and organisations uncritically aligned to the West. These personalities and organisations are part of a growing and well-funded right-wing ecosystem of civil society organisations and small media projects.
In South Africa when we think of the white right we tend to think of Afrikaner nationalism, of men in khaki, whether simply fascist like the AWB or just deeply conservative like AfriForum.
But there is also a largely English-speaking white right in South Africa that, while not rightwing on social issues, holds very right-wing positions on economics and international relations, where it is strongly pro-West, going so far as to support the devastation of Iraq and Gaza by the West (which includes Israel, though, it is in the Middle East).
This white right has built a strong base in organisations such as the Institute for Race Relations and the Brenthurst Foundation, as well as small media projects such as Politicsweb, Biz News, Daily Friend, Rational Standard, Chai FM and others. It is effective at winning plum spots in the more mainstream media too, where it has a loud voice that far outstrips its size in society.
We are a democracy and people are and should be free to fund whatever organisations they choose and to advance whatever political programmes they wish. However, there should also be free and open critique of all funders and their projects.
The need for this has been starkly, and perhaps shockingly, demonstrated by the way in which Frans Cronje, speaking on Chai FM, Paul Hoffman in an interview with Biz News and Nicholas Woode-Smith writing in Business Day all claimed that South Africa only decided to take Israel to the ICJ after the ANC was bribed to do so by Iran. Neither Cronje, Hoffman nor Woode-Smith have at any point provided any evidence to support their incendiary allegation.
If they do have some evidence, they are obligated to place it in the public domain, and to explain how they came to ascertain this evidence. If they do not have any evidence, then they are trading in conspiracy theory and, like all other conspiracy theorists, should not be taken as serious participants in the national debate.
This is not the first time important players in this growing right-wing organisational and media ecosystem have made public statements that are extremely damaging to the government’s foreign policy positions without providing any evidence.
When the Russian ship Lady R docked in Simon’s Town a number of people boldly stated that it had picked up weapons to use in the war in Ukraine. None of these people provided any evidence for their allegation and no evidence has ever been provided to support this allegation. Unless such evidence is supplied we can only conclude that once again people were trading in conspiracy theory.
Facts matter and people like Cronje, Hoffman, Woode-Smith and all the others who stated as fact that South Africa had sent arms to Russia need to be called on their habit of making damaging public allegations for which they can provide no evidence.
They should all be asked to either provide evidence to support their allegations or to apologise and retract their allegations. Rational debate matters and conspiracy theories are always damaging to the integrity of rational debate. All conspiracy theorists must be called to account, including those on the left such as Gillian Schutte and Jay Naidoo, who traded in bizarre Covid-19 conspiracies on their social media accounts.
There are important questions to be asked about the funding and influence of this right-wing ecosystem, just as there are important questions to be asked about all funding aimed at shaping the national debate.
Some time ago the media academic Herman Wasserman wrote a piece warning of Russian and Chinese disinformation. It should go without saying that when the Russian and Chinese governments engage in disinformation it should be exposed. But the same is true when the US or
Israeli governments engage in disinformation, which both have done. Who can forget the “weapons of mass destruction” lie used by the US to legitimise the destruction of Iraq or the “40 beheaded babies” lie used by the Israeli government to legitimise the destruction of Gaza.
But Wasserman showed no interest at all in the disinformation of the West. This is the same attitude that we see in the right-wing civil society and media ecosystem.
One cannot only be opposed to conspiracy theory when it comes from “the other side”.