Big Read: Flawed diamonds and hard truths
In this edited extract from ‘Diamonds, Gold and Dynasty’, Michael Cardo reflects on the multifaceted legacy of mining titan Harry Oppenheimer
16 May 2023 - 05:00
When I started my research for this book, Harry Oppenheimer had ebbed from public consciousness. He had been dead 17 years; and in SA, a nation often preoccupied with the past, collective memory can fade astonishingly easily. However, the name was shortly to enjoy a revival.
In 2017, the London-based public relations firm Bell Pottinger (long since the agency of choice for clients with a chequered past) was exposed as the mastermind behind a campaign designed to stoke racial tensions in the postapartheid polity...
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