In the 1980s I lived as a Canadian for eight years in South Africa during apartheid — Nelson Mandela was securely in prison as a “terrorist”. Living in that beautiful country I gradually learned how apartheid had survived for over 40 years:
- all open public dialogue and dissenting opinion were shutdown
- only state sanctioned and censored media coverage/messaging were permitted — media acted either as the propaganda wing of government messaging or it was severely censored
- state messaging was state enforced with all the privileges of compliance and penalties of non-compliance
- social division, conflict and suspicion were the norm
- the politics of fear were the norm.
In 2021 I live in Saskatchewan. Deja Vu?
Doug Reichel
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
