By Gillian Schutte
The Cold War was more than a geopolitical and military standoff; it was an intense ideological battle waged through culture, art, and media.
Frances Stonor Saunders, in Who Paid the Piper? The CIA and the Cultural Cold War, meticulously details how the CIA orchestrated a covert campaign to shape Western cultural and intellectual discourse.
This influence extended beyond the United States and Western Europe, infiltrating post-colonial societies grappling with newfound independence and seeking ideological clarity under the shadow of global superpowers.
In South Africa, the reverberations of this covert cultural manipulation resound within the media and cultural landscape today.
Neoliberal ideologies, steeped in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy, are engineered to steer public discourse away from truly transformative narratives.
As Saunders puts it, “the idea was to take the battle of ideas into the hearts and minds of people,” and South Africa has not been spared from this invisible war.
For those unfamiliar with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), it was established in 1947 as the United States’ primary foreign intelligence service. Tasked with gathering, analysing, and disseminating information related to national security, the CIA has a long history of covert operations across the globe.
Its activities have extended beyond intelligence gathering to include influencing political events, orchestrating coups, and shaping cultural and intellectual movements. All this occurs under the auspices of protecting American interests and “promoting democracy.”
Saunders notes, “The CIA wanted to enlist intellectuals in the war against communism, and this required subtlety and discretion.” No matter how subtle, the agency’s interventions have negatively impacted and even destroyed the political and social landscapes of numerous countries, including South Africa.
Prior to the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was responsible for gathering intelligence, conducting espionage, and coordinating covert operations behind enemy lines.
It was after the Second World War ended in 1945, with the dissolution of the OSS, that the CIA was established under the National Security Act.
At this point, the geopolitical landscape was dramatically reshaped, giving rise to the Cold War—a prolonged period of tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.
It was in this new era that the battleground shifted from conventional warfare to a struggle for ideological dominance, brought on by the recognition that the limitations and global repercussions of overt aggression were no longer viable.
The CIA thus transitioned from direct interventions to more covert strategies, becoming an agency that embarked on a covert yet pervasive cultural agenda.
Infiltrating artistic circles, intellectual forums, and media outlets, the CIA sought to “weaponise culture” and wage a war of ideas, crafting narratives that would shape perceptions and steer societies in a direction aligned with American interests.
Saunders reveals how disillusioned intellectuals, including Marxists and former communists, were strategically co-opted by the CIA to serve as gatekeepers of a new ideological front.
She writes, “Many of those who had once been enthusiastic supporters of Stalin’s project were profoundly disillusioned by the reality of Soviet communism.
The CIA exploited this disillusionment, cultivating an intellectual elite who could be relied upon to act as ideological gatekeepers, unwittingly advancing American interests under the guise of independence and critical thought.”
This strategy transformed these disenchanted intellectuals into a bulwark against leftist ideologies, repurposing their credibility and influence to craft a cultural narrative that aligned with US geopolitical goals.
Saunders asserts, “The CIA’s secret cultural war is ultimately a testament to how people can be manipulated, even against their own best interests.”
Her book deftly exposes a complex network of cultural organisations, intellectuals, and publications co-opted by the CIA to promote an anti-communist and pro-American worldview.
The Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF) and its numerous affiliated publications, art exhibitions, and conferences served as vehicles for this ideological offensive. These platforms provided a veneer of independence and intellectual rigour while shrewdly advancing the objectives of the US government.
The parallels in South Africa cannot be ignored.
Indeed, they are most blatant to those who are ideologically resistant to this form of co-option. I include myself in that category.
During the apartheid era, the country stood as a frontline state in the Cold War, with the US and its allies supporting the apartheid regime under the pretext of containing communism.
This support extended to the cultural sphere, where Western-funded organisations and media outlets promoted narratives aligning with Western geopolitical interests.
After apartheid, the legacy of this covert cultural warfare not only lingers but has, over the past three decades, escalated exponentially. During this period we have seen the replacement of the overt racism of the past with a subtler form of control, co-opting the language of liberation while continuing to maintain economic and social inequalities.
Saunders describes such tactics as “a covert operation which cannot be understood, yet which has massive consequences.”
In these years, we have witnessed funding mechanisms linked to the CIA, such as those channelled through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), imprint their ideology onto most aspects of South African cultural life through grants and funding.
(The NED, formed in 1983, is yet another rebranded front for the CIA, designed to carry out similar covert operations of promoting U.S. geopolitical interests and influence under the guise of supporting democracy and human rights worldwide.)
These funds have found their way into news outlets, celebrity endorsements, foundations, educational projects, pop-up media orgs, films, music, and theatre.
Here, individuals and institutions are co-opted into pushing a neoliberal narrative, even if they are unaware of the underlying agendas.
As Saunders argues, “The most effective propaganda is often that which relies on soft power, with those spreading it not fully realising they are doing so.”
The Brenthurst Foundation, established by the Oppenheimer family, has long been active in promoting economic policies favouring free-market principles.
Through grants and sponsorships, it also supports initiatives in media and cultural programmes that align with a market-friendly vision of South Africa’s future. This mirrors the CIA’s Cold War tactics of using ostensibly independent organisations to advance specific ideological objectives.
Musicians, actors, and other cultural figures become participants in this narrative shaping. Through sponsored events, awards, and endorsements, artists often promote messages that align with neoliberal ideals, believing they are contributing to societal progress.
The Pied Piper analogy is apt here: individuals are led along a path orchestrated by unseen forces, their talents harnessed to advance agendas they may not fully understand. And even when they wake up to this manipulation, their economic comfort most often keeps them complicit.
In this ‘captured’ post-apartheid era, South African media and cultural institutions are now dominated by neoliberal ideologies championing free markets, individualism, and a depoliticised understanding of freedom.
Today’s mainstream media platforms present themselves as independent voices of reason and democracy.
However, it is plain to see that they operate within a paid framework that wilfully marginalises radical economic discourse and frames any challenge to neoliberal orthodoxy as irrational or extremist.
The portrayal of movements such as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), Fees Must Fall, Independent Media, the uMkhonto weSizwe party (MKP), as well as friends of non- US-aligned countries such as China and Russia, illustrates this legacy of cultural manipulation.
Mainstream media is mandated to depict these movements, countries, entities, or ideologies through a lens that emphasises violence and irrationality, echoing how CIA-funded outlets in Europe once dismissed socialist and communist voices as threats to stability and order.
Just as the CIA sought to stifle genuine socialist discourse in post-war Europe, today’s media landscape in South Africa doggedly demonises narratives advocating for land redistribution, nationalisation, and a departure from the neoliberal consensus. As Saunders poignantly states, “The real target of this campaign was not communism per se, but any challenge to the political and economic status quo.”
Saunders’ book highlights how the CIA’s cultural interventions were designed precisely to silence or marginalise radical voices threatening the status quo. In South Africa, the silencing of radical voices takes a different but equally insidious form.
Media platforms are quick to highlight corruption and incompetence within the African National Congress (ANC) but determinedly avoid deeper critiques of systemic issues rooted in the country’s colonial and apartheid past. “The ability of these institutions to shape public debate, while appearing to act in the public interest, is central to their power,” Saunders observes.
This selective framing ensures that critiques remain within a narrow band of acceptable discourse, preventing the emergence of a radically transformative narrative.
Much like the CIA’s strategy during the Cold War, this approach has successfully created the illusion of a free and open society while it subtly guides public discourse in ways that preserve existing power structures.
This is not conspiracy theory as many neoliberal gatekeepers will reduce it to. It is a well-orchestrated and socially engineered structural alignment of interests between global capital and local elites.
The legacy of the CIA’s cultural Cold War, as detailed by Saunders, offers a sobering lens through which to view contemporary South African media and cultural landscapes.
The battle for hearts and minds has not ended; it has merely evolved. Neoliberalism, the successor to Cold War liberalism, now wages its own cultural war, co-opting the language of freedom and democracy while stifling any challenge to its hegemony. As Saunders warns, “What was really at stake was not just who writes history, but who owns it.”
In a series of articles to follow, I will peel back the layers of this CIA-affiliated covert project that has infiltrated every corner of South Africa’s cultural economy.
From NGOs and institutions to media platforms, influential figures, and beyond, I will endeavour to unearth the truth behind this well-resourced masquerade of social cohesion and national unity.
The Pied Piper’s melodies echo loudly through our society—notes of neoliberalism disguised as democracy, consumerism masquerading as freedom, and insincere promises of progress that lead us further from genuine liberation. If we cannot pick up arms, then we must surely arm ourselves with awareness and resistance, refusing to be led blindly into the abyss.
**** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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