MONEY POLITICS
STEVEN FRIEDMAN: Fixation on the Guptas covers deeper ills
Shares and seats on boards went to the politically connected as a substitute for finding and recognising black business talent
Sometimes, revealing the truth can be a way of denying it. Right now, worry about what is wrong with this country has again boiled down to one family and the politicians it owns. This tells one truth, but hides another. The truth it tells is that the Guptas use money to undermine the democracy so many died to achieve. The one it hides is that they are symptoms of a deeper problem and, fixation with a single family prevents the country from facing it. The latest "disclosures" about SA’s least-favourite family have attracted publicity not because they are news — bar a couple of details, they confirm what everyone who does not believe ANN7 or the Gupta PR machine already knows. Whether they are behind a "silent coup" in SA is debatable but that does not alter the reality — that they are poster children for the important idea that democracies can remain democratic only if they curb the use of money to influence politics. The Gupta stories dominate debate not because they tell us anythin...
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