How the modern world works

Last autumn, as the protests against Sudan’s leadership and particularly its president Omar al Bashir gathered pace, a Russian oligarch and big mate of Vladimir Putin called Yevgeny Privozhin decided he’d better do something to defend his interests, namely a gold mine he owned in Sudan. Afraid a new government might be more liberal and start taxing him properly, or even start looking into his work practices and suggest he pay his workers a bit more, he mounted a social media campaign to discredit the demonstrators, spreading lies such as claiming they were burning down children’s playgrounds, and even that they supported LGBT people, something calculated not to go down well in that deeply conservative, Islamic country.

As we now know, these tactics didn’t work and Bashir was forced to resign. But the whole thing was highly instructive of the way the world works these days. Tactics not unlike these did work in the US in 2016, enabling Trump to win the presidential election. And similar disinformation campaigns here in the UK helped the leave campaign win the day in the same year.

Thanks to CNN, we now know of these disgraceful attempts to interfere with politics in another country. Trump calls CNN and other ‘liberal’ news outlets “fake news”. Well, he would, wouldn’t he. They’ve been showing him up for the bigoted, compulsive liar he is at every opportunity. And no one’s going to like that.