Tag: GIZ

Manufacturing Consent: How the United States Has Penetrated South African Media

Ms. Cat1 Comment

The CIA has played a role in controlling South African media from the days of apartheid to the present.

In recent weeks, South African public discourse has been focused on concerns about alleged Chinese influence in the country’s media landscape. However, these conversations have tended to overlook the already existing spheres of influence within South African media. Politically motivated sponsorship of prominent South African media outlets by the United States dates back decades to the apartheid era. According to internal U.S. government documents, the aim of these operations was “to counter the strong Marxist campaigns” in the country. This funding was circulated by the National Endowment for Democracy, an organization created by the Reagan administration in order to re-brand U.S. covert operations that were previously carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency. Today, as Washington becomes fixated on combating Beijing’s influence around the world, the National Endowment for Democracy and its private sector partners continue to penetrate large swathes of the South African media ecosystem. This web of influence has caught major publications, including Mail & Guardian newspaper and amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism.

Manufacturing Consent: How the United States Has Penetrated South African Media

How the NED, Open Society Foundations and NATO collectively fund institutions driving development of Canadian political thought

Ms. Cat

How the NED, Open Society Foundations and NATO collectively fund institutions driving development of Canadian political thought

NATO, along with the Europeans and Americans are playing a crucial role in driving Canadian political thought. While some elements of the Canadian left understand the influence which foreign foundations and semi-NGOs play in Canadian politics, very few hard examples have been provided to back up this inherent understanding. The paranoia being spread by Canada’s political elites, think tanks and national security friendly public figures about “Russian and Chinese infiltration” and “elite capture” appears as projection, designed to deflect from the overwhelming sources of foreign financing in Canada’s civic sphere. The funders only involve themselves in Canadian civil society because there is something to be gained from it. They are responsible for part of the intellectual bedrock that upholds Canadian militarism and interventionism.