PHENYO MATABANE: Influence without footprints

There is a comforting myth that still circulates in South Africa’s political, academic and cultural circles: that power only announces itself loudly. That it comes with soldiers, sanctions or speeches that make it easy to identify and easier still to oppose.

That idea belongs to another era. Today, influence arrives dressed as partnership, as dialogue, as solidarity. It speaks the language of justice and reform, funds conferences and exhibitions, sponsors research chairs, underwrites “capacity building” and then quietly shapes what feels acceptable to say and what does not. Few countries have mastered this kind of influence better than Qatar.

Qatar’s strength has never been about size or military reach. It is about discipline and clarity of intent. It understands that the modern battle is not over territory but over meaning. Not over who controls borders, but over who defines narratives.

While South Africa still treats soft power as something abstract or benign, Qatar has turned it into a highly effective system of placement, visibility and moral framing. That is why it seems to be everywhere without ever quite being noticed.

We recently saw a glimpse of how far this influence now reaches when the United Arab Emirates took the extraordinary step of halting funding for Emirati students wishing to study in the UK. The reason given was not academic quality or visa policy, but fear of radicalisation on British campuses. In particular, concerns were raised about Islamist networks operating under the cover of activism and student organising.

While South Africa still treats soft power as something abstract or benign, Qatar has turned it into a highly effective system of placement, visibility and moral framing. That is why it seems to be everywhere without ever quite being noticed.

This was not a throwaway comment or a culture-war gesture. It was a calculated decision by a state with deep experience confronting political Islam from the inside. When Middle Eastern governments, intimately familiar with these movements, start warning their own citizens about Western universities, it should unsettle anyone still clinging to the idea that liberal institutions are immune to ideological capture.

Unfortunately, South Africa is even less equipped to recognise what is happening. Our universities are underfunded and desperate for donors. Our NGOs rely on external grants to survive. Our media ecosystem runs on sponsorship and patronage.

In this environment, money that arrives wrapped in the language of justice and decolonisation is rarely interrogated. It is welcomed, amplified and protected. The assumption is that if the cause sounds moral, the funding must be too.

Qatar’s model works precisely because it leaves no fingerprints. Influence flows through academic programmes, civil-society partnerships, cultural initiatives, humanitarian diplomacy, interfaith platforms and conflict-mediation roles that come preloaded with moral credibility.

Qatar’s model works precisely because it leaves no fingerprints.

The ideological content is rarely crude or openly extremist. That would defeat the purpose. Instead, it draws from strands of political Islam that reject secular liberal democracy slowly and politely, through language, lawfare and moral reframing rather than violence.

Over time, activism becomes indistinguishable from scholarship. Political objectives are presented as ethical imperatives. Certain questions become uncomfortable to ask and certain critiques are treated as moral failures rather than intellectual disagreements.

Shaping narratives

Long before this strategy was widely recognised, Al Jazeera played a central role. It did more than disrupt Western media dominance. It reshaped how political reality itself was framed, positioning Qatar as both challenger and conscience. By selectively amplifying certain voices and narratives, particularly during the Arab Spring, it helped legitimise Islamist movements not as political actors with agendas, but as authentic expressions of popular will. That framing was never neutral. It was aligned, deliberate and remarkably effective.

South Africa has proven to be a particularly receptive environment for this kind of influence. We perform morality loudly while neglecting strategy. We conflate openness with virtue and scrutiny with hostility. Anyone who raises concerns about funding sources, narrative alignment or ideological drift is quickly accused of bad faith or prejudice. This creates a perfect vacuum into which external power can flow, shaping discourse while remaining largely invisible.

The idea that money can ever be neutral is one of the most damaging fantasies we entertain. Funding shapes priorities. Grants shape research agendas. Sponsorship determines which voices are elevated and which are sidelined. Over time, entire intellectual ecosystems bend toward the expectations of their benefactors, not through coercion but through quiet alignment. This is how capture happens: gradually, politely and with the full participation of institutions that believe themselves to be acting ethically.

Recent events in South Africa’s cultural sphere should have sharpened our awareness. When sports, arts & culture minister Gayton McKenzie cancelled South Africa’s participation in the Venice Biennale after learning that Qatar had agreed to purchase a work depicting the alleged “Gaza genocide” it exposed how deeply global politics now permeate art spaces that insist they are merely expressive or neutral.

Evolving battlegrounds

This was not just a curatorial dispute. It was a reminder that cultural platforms are now active battlegrounds for narrative legitimacy and that state actors understand their value very well.

The UAE’s warning about British campuses fits into this same pattern. It recognises that liberal institutions are increasingly being used against themselves, hosting movements that openly reject liberal principles while exploiting their protections.

Activism wears the costume of justice. Dissenting voices are dismissed as immoral or reactionary. The result is not open debate but ideological narrowing. If this can happen in institutions with centuries of resilience, it is naïve to assume South Africa’s under-resourced universities are immune.

None of this is about religion. South Africa’s Muslim communities are diverse, deeply rooted and integral to the country’s social fabric. Faith itself is not the issue. The problem arises when states project ideology through funding, framing and institutional partnerships, and then shield that projection from scrutiny by collapsing any criticism into accusations of bigotry. That tactic works precisely because it shuts down debate before it begins.

Qatar’s influence is not dangerous because it is hidden. It is dangerous because it looks legitimate, benevolent and progressive.

South Africa’s greatest vulnerability is not external pressure but internal timidity. We are increasingly afraid of asking hard questions. We worry about being labelled, isolated or socially sanctioned. While others play a long, strategic game, we comfort ourselves with moral language and avoid uncomfortable conversations. The price of that avoidance is not immediate catastrophe but a slow erosion of sovereignty, played out in lecture halls, galleries, newsrooms and NGOs.

The real question is simple and overdue. Who is shaping our intellectual environment? Who decides which narratives are elevated and which are untouchable? Who funds the ideas that dominate our public discourse, and who benefits from our reluctance to interrogate power when it arrives wrapped in virtue?

Qatar’s influence is not dangerous because it is hidden. It is dangerous because it looks legitimate, benevolent and progressive. The UAE has recognised this and acted accordingly. Europe is beginning to wake up to it as well. Whether South Africa continues to sleepwalk through this moment, mistaking silence for wisdom and openness for strength, remains to be seen.

Power today does not announce itself. It settles in quietly, reshapes the furniture, and waits until resistance feels impolite. By the time it feels familiar it is already embedded.

• Matabane is a consultant and economics master’s candidate who has served in student governance at the University of Pretoria.