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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
MisinfoNation: White Genocide. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired November 16, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
DEAN: Donie's all new episode on "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER," "MisinfoNation: White Genocide" is next. It's right here on CNN. You can watch tomorrow on the CNN app as well.
Before we go, some breaking news into CNN as the FAA does say it is returning to normal operations starting tomorrow. This will end the flight cuts that were put into place during the government shutdown, as airports coped with staffing shortages that led to hundreds of delays and cancellations across the country. But for now, good news for air passengers and those who work in the industry, the FAA returning to normal flight operations.
Thanks so much for joining me tonight. I'm Jessica Dean. We'll see you again next weekend.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper.
Later this week, world leaders will gather for the G20 Summit in South Africa. It's the first time the meeting is being hosted by an African country. It's also the first time the U.S. will skip the summit entirely. That's because President Trump says white Afrikaner farmers in South Africa are targets of what he calls a genocide.
The South African government has rejected these accusations. But where did this narrative begin, and how did it make its way to the White House?
In this next hour, CNN's Donie O'Sullivan investigates what is actually happening in the country and speaks with both white and black South Africans about these claims, including the father of Elon Musk.
He begins in the U.S., though, inside a community being built for whites only.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ERIC ORWOLL, CO-FOUNDER, RETURN TO THE LAND: You want a white nation build a white town, and that is white.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And then organize. Some organized with like-minded people.
ORWOLL: Yes. We're part of a living tradition that we can't lose. DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: We're up early this
morning to go to a whites only town in rural Arkansas. Eric, who runs the town, is all over social media. He's going on every YouTube and podcast, very prominent Neo-Nazis and white supremacists and antisemites in the U.S. And they're letting CNN come visit them.
There he is. Donie O'Sullivan. Nice to meet you.
ORWOLL: Eric.
O'SULLIVAN: And how many acres have you got here?
ORWOLL: 160.
O'SULLIVAN: OK.
ORWOLL: Ish.
O'SULLIVAN: It's pretty sizable.
ORWOLL: Yes. That is a pavilion or will be a pavilion. Just a place to meet up.
O'SULLIVAN: What does somebody have to do or what does somebody have to be to come live here?
ORWOLL: You have to be someone who identifies with your European heritage and ancestry.
O'SULLIVAN: So European whites.
ORWOLL: Those are synonyms to me.
O'SULLIVAN: Right now there's about 40 or so people living here, give or take. But you tell me there's hundreds of people want to move here. Hundreds of people have applied.
ORWOLL: Yes, there are quite a few people waiting to be interviewed.
O'SULLIVAN: Wow. Are they all racists?
ORWOLL: Well, it depends on what you mean by racist. Are they racist in the sense that they hate other groups of people and want to deprive other groups of people of resources or opportunities? No.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): People like Eric are afraid that white Americans are being replaced, and a projection from the U.S. Census has them worried.
I think America is due to become a minority white country for the first time in the 2040s. Are you concerned about that?
ORWOLL: Of course I'm concerned about that. And look at what's happened in South Africa, right? White people used to run that country when the tides turned and political control was given to nonwhite people there. People have to live behind bars and be very cautious. There's private security everywhere.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But these fears aren't confined to rural Arkansas.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The greatest invasion in history is taking place right here in our country.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): They're everywhere.
TUCKER CARLSON, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: In political terms, this policy is called the great replacement.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And the name of one white minority country keeps coming up.
TRUMP: Terrible things are happening in South Africa. The leadership is doing some terrible things. It's horrible things.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Indeed Eric took inspiration from a whites only town in South Africa for what he's building here in Arkansas.
ORWOLL: Many of us imagine what is this going to look like when we are actually a minority. And so we see what's happening in South Africa and we say, is that going to be us?
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Trump has even claimed a so-called white genocide is happening in South Africa.
TRUMP: But it's a genocide that's taking place that you people don't want to write about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to the United States of America.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): He's used this as a reason to open up the U.S. Refugee Program to white South Africans, something that in the U.S. has become the butt of late-night jokes.
MICHAEL CHE, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE": President Trump has signed an executive order giving refugee status to white people from South Africa.
[20:05:04]
Huh. You know, I could have sworn that white people had it good in South Africa. Must be the Mandela effect.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Specifically Trump is giving refugee status to Afrikaners.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the descendants of the people who created the most diabolical system of white supremacy in human history, Apartheid.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): I traveled to Alabama to meet one of the new Afrikaner refugees.
Errol, how are you? Nice to meet you.
(Voice-over): Errol Langton, who had just moved to the U.S. with his family.
Can we get two of the breakfast sandwiches, please? You seem happy.
ERROL LANGTON, AFRIKANER REFUGEE: I'm very happy. Happier than I've been in a long time.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
LANGTON: Less stressed as well. You know, anybody who knows me? The first thing that they do is if they haven't seen me in a few months since, you know, since leaving South Africa is the first thing that's going, you're looking good. You're looking healthy. You look -- you're looking like you're getting on top of things.
O'SULLIVAN: Where are you lived in South Africa, you and your family felt unsafe?
LANGTON: We are very nomadic. So we've lived in multiple locations of the family and in multiple locations I've had the same kind of sense of I'm just waiting for something bad to happen. And I've had bad things happen.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In 2003, Errol says he was stabbed 15 times in his home. He says the intruder was black, but he doesn't know if the attack was racially motivated.
Is there a white genocide in South Africa?
LANGTON: I feel that's a little bit of a loaded question because --
O'SULLIVAN: It is.
LANGTON: Genocide, the definition of genocide is such that you could -- you can interpret it any way you want. Do I believe there's a white genocide? Yes, I do. They want it to be a black country. And if that's not the definition of genocide, I don't know what is. Again, it's not always just about money. The term is eradication by whatever means.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): So how has the idea of white persecution in South Africa taken such a stronghold in the U.S.?
ERNST ROETS, SOUTH AFRICAN CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: I think one could say that a lot of the problems that we experience in South Africa today might be experienced by countries like America in the future.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): A lot of it is down to this man, Ernst Roets, an Afrikaner who's made multiple trips to Washington, D.C. and has appeared all across conservative media.
ROETS: Especially farmers in South Africa, white farmers in particular. They would be tortured to death and it would receive very little news coverage. And that's unfortunate. One of the lessons from South Africa is when white people or
Westerners become a minority, the threats and the targeting doesn't stop. It becomes worse.
O'SULLIVAN: So you view this as a fight bigger than just for South Africa. It is for Western civilization.
ROETS: We do believe that Western civilization is under threat. I think America should look to South Africa and be concerned.
O'SULLIVAN: How important is Donald Trump been for putting the Afrikaner issue on the world stage?
ROETS: Well, he's been fundamental and he's played a very important role.
TRUMP: Death. Death. Death. Horrible death.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Roets' message has made it to the White House.
TRUMP: Excuse me. Turn the lights down and just put this on. It's right behind you.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): When President Trump showed videos of what he said was evidence of white persecution in South Africa.
TRUMP: This is a very bad. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites. Over a thousand of white farmers.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): So what is the truth?
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: These Afrikaners are among the most privileged people on the entire continent.
LANGTON: Everybody got all hot and bothered about, you know, the program being stopped. And, you know, South Africans are now coming in and how unfair that is. And all these whiteys getting an opportunity when there's people somewhere else that should be getting an opportunity. I think it's utter (EXPLETIVE DELETED) bullshit.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Do Americans need to be worried? What really is going on in south Africa? We went there to find out.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:11:18]
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This is a neighborhood watch on steroids.
What's going on? Where are we going?
(Voice-over): Crime is a major problem in South Africa. The country has one of the highest murder rates in the world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's an armed suspect that apparently robbed someone. And he's walking around with a firearm. So these guys are looking at him. They've got eyes on him.
O'SULLIVAN: You're outnumbering police here.
JACQUES BROODRYK, AFRIFORUM: Usually, when it comes to responding to scenes where we have active structures, we will outnumber them because they're under-resourced and they're understaffed.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In South Africa, private security outnumbers the police more than 15 to one. AfriForum, an organization that advocates for Afrikaners, has groups like this all over the country that patrol neighborhoods from the streets and from the sky.
NEELS VAN RENSBERG, AFRIFORUM: You can see the remoteness of some of the places.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes. Which I guess makes it easier for the criminals.
VAN RENSBERG: Yes, 100 percent. Yes. They know they're going to be there. We don't. Always have the element of surprise.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In rural parts of South Africa like this farm attacks are a major problem.
Have you responded to a farm attack in the past year?
VAN RENSBERG: Yes, we have.
O'SULLIVAN: And what's the scene been like when you get there?
VAN RENSBERG: Well, this was a -- this was an older couple. And the dog was killed and they were beaten extremely, extremely badly. And then their stuff taken, but they were beaten extremely badly.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): It's attacks like these that have got Trump's attention.
TRUMP: Each one of those white things you see is a cross. These are burial sites right here. Burial sites.
O'SULLIVAN: This is the road in South Africa where those white crosses were placed. It's not a burial ground, but what it was was a memorial that was temporarily set up to signify the many farmers that have been violently murdered here in South Africa.
(Voice-over): The white crosses were set up after the murder of a local couple, Glenn and Vida Rafferty.
SANDY HILL, FRIEND OF MURDERED COUPLE: Yes, this was, I think, my birthday. Vida came here for supper.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Sandy Hill and her husband were the Rafferty's best friends.
HILL: My poor friend spent her last seconds on earth screaming in terror, watching her husband being murdered. It gave me nightmares for a long time. They would come every Sunday and we would have a brunch. And in fact, the night they were murdered, Vida and Glenn came here for tea. And we visited a while, and then they left from there, back to the farm. And they were murdered on the farm. She'd just been shot. It was almost like a relief. I thought at least she wasn't tortured or raped.
DARYL BROWN, LOCAL FARMER: Security doesn't always stop them. Where there's a will, there's a way. They somehow find them their way through it. But it is a deterrent.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The white crosses in the memorial were erected by local farmer Daryl Brown.
BROWN: OK, so this is where a lot of the crosses are stored, and we store them here because we don't know when we'll need to use them again. It just gives me the chills when I see it because it brings back all these vivid memories of what farm attacks are really about, and how they impact people.
[20:15:02]
O'SULLIVAN: Because they've impacted you.
BROWN: Oh, I'm a victim indirectly. And I mean, my best friend was taken out on the 13th of June last year, and it was very traumatic.
O'SULLIVAN: Do you live in fear?
BROWN: Well, we can't afford to live in fear. But, you know, we're obviously cautious. We're careful. We have security, we have alarms, we have dogs, and we pay a lot of money to private security.
O'SULLIVAN: What I've learned from being here in South Africa is just how you're living behind barbed wire. People have private security. That's the reality of life in South Africa, is it?
HILL: At one stage, there was a lot of break-ins in this area. And every night you go to bed and you think, am I going to wake up tomorrow morning? Or if I wake up, am I going to wake up with people in the room demanding my jewelry or whatever?
O'SULLIVAN: People who killed the Raffertys were black.
HILL: The killers?
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
HILL: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: Especially in the U.S., there's a lot of rhetoric about really placing this as blacks versus whites and talks of a white genocide and things like that. Do you find it difficult to not resent the black community?
HILL: Not be called total racist.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes. HILL: I work in the courts as a magistrate, which is like a lower
court judge. And the sad reality of it is there are a few million white people, but there's at least 10 times that many black people. So most of the criminals are black, not because black people are evil, but just because that's the compilation of the population. Their murderers happen to be black and they happen to be really evil people.
And I hope they rot in jail where they are at the moment. But I don't look at every black man and think, you're a potential murderer.
O'SULLIVAN: Is there a white genocide happening here?
HILL: I don't think it is. I think it's just unfortunate that a lot of white people are still better off financially, and so they become easier victims or -- but I've never felt that I'm in danger because of my race or my color.
O'SULLIVAN: When did you first hear the term white genocide? And do people around here use that term?
BROWN: No. I heard it for the first time when I watched the clip that was taken in the White House.
O'SULLIVAN: So from Trump?
BROWN: Yes. And I don't think there's white genocide per se, but it is unacceptable to be losing so many commercial farmers.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990 made headlines around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A great moment in the history of mankind. Those words express how many feel about what has happened in South Africa.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: A man who has long symbolized the hopes of millions around the world is free at last.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But just how people remember that unfair system varies dramatically here. I traveled to the picturesque Western Cape to meet Errol Musk, Elon Musk's dad.
ERROL MUSK, ELON MUSK'S FATHER: You know, those two boys throwing stones on the water while we're waiting for a ship on one of the Greek islands.
O'SULLIVAN: That's Elon and Kimball?
MUSK: Yes, Elon and Kimball.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): He showed us photos of Elon's childhood.
MUSK: This is the car that Elon and Kimball went to school in just about every day. It's a Rolls Royce.
O'SULLIVAN: I don't see a Tesla in here.
(Voice-over): Errol's relationship with Elon is turbulent. Once reportedly estranged, Errol says they now talk regularly.
How does it feel for you? Because clearly you're talking to Elon. Elon is talking to Trump, and Trump is speaking to the world and is affecting policies.
MUSK: Well, I think we much -- very much on the same page. I mean, it's not like we need to teach people like Trump. There are very smart people in the U.S. They know.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Errol has had a fair share of controversies of his own. In September, "The New York Times" reported Errol was accused of sexually abusing five of his children and stepchildren. He strongly denies all the allegations.
What Americans are hearing about South Africa at the moment, at least from Trump and from your son, is that there's a white genocide happening here.
MUSK: The word genocide is generally, you know, one associates it with Second World War, you know, with the Jewish genocide. What we have here is a very high murder rate in this country because among black people, life is cheap. You know, they don't value life in the same way as maybe other groups of people do.
O'SULLIVAN: The big concern at the moment and why I think South Africa is a big talking point in the U.S. right now is America in the next 20 years will become for the first time in its history a minority white country.
[20:20:02]
MUSK: Well, that will be very, very bad thing to happen. You want to see the U.S. go down? Why? You don't like cars and electric cars, and you don't like technology or what is it? You want to go back to the jungle or?
O'SULLIVAN: If the U.S. becomes a minority white country?
MUSK: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: So there's Latinos, there's blacks, there's people from all different races make up the majority. And then, you know, it could be 48 percent white people. Do you really think the U.S. is doomed if it goes under half?
MUSK: Yes. Goes under.
O'SULLIVAN: Seriously?
MUSK: Yes, of course. You see, if you take South Africa, we have a small white population that projects European culture or what we learned from Europe.
O'SULLIVAN: And oppressed millions of black people.
MUSK: No. O'SULLIVAN: For decades.
MUSK: How do you oppress? You know, we gave them work, we fed them. They grew from a tiny little group into a massive group. That's not oppression, that's feeding them. Do you understand? You only grow big if you get fed. You only start at 800 and become 50 million if you get fed. We fed them, for crying out loud. You know enough with this nonsense.
O'SULLIVAN: But -- so you understand, because the black population was here, was so oppressed under Apartheid.
MUSK: Well, we never saw this oppression you're talking about.
O'SULLIVAN: You never saw it?
MUSK: No, I never saw it.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes, because you were -- because you were white.
MUSK: Everybody had a job. There was no unemployment.
O'SULLIVAN: But it was not the case under Apartheid. You didn't see it because that's how the system was designed. And there was crime and suffering and everything else happening in the black community. But you were basically in a bubble. You were protected from all of that.
MUSK: I stood against Apartheid.
O'SULLIVAN: Sure.
MUSK: In the parliament, for parliamentary election.
O'SULLIVAN: But let's --
MUSK: No, no.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes. No.
MUSK: I never saw the suppression you're talking about. I never saw any, you know, overt oppression. I never saw anything like that.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
(Voice-over): Throughout our conversation, Errol made sweeping statements about race. But the reality is clear. Apartheid cast a long shadow here, and you don't have to look very hard to see just how gross the inequality is between blacks and whites even today.
TREVOR NOAH, SOUTH AFRICAN COMEDIAN AND WRITER: I have never in my life seen refugees with Samsonite luggage. I have never in my life seen refugees fleeing a five-bedroom house.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:27:17] O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): A new law that allows the government to take and redistribute land has fueled the fears of some white South Africans. The law is intended to try to right some of the wrongs of Apartheid when land was forcefully taken primarily from black people.
We're on our way into what is known as an informal settlement. It's where land has been taken over, abandoned land, and millions of black South Africans live in places like this.
(Voice-over): This was once white owned land that was taken over by black squatters.
So the name of this place is -- how do I pronounce it?
PETER SOLOLA, MEMBER, ECONOMIC FREEDOM FIGHTERS PARTY: Siyakhathele (PH).
O'SULLIVAN: Siyakhathele (PH). OK.
SOLOLA: It means we are tired.
O'SULLIVAN: We are tired.
SOLOLA: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: Are you tired?
SOLOLA: Yes. We're tired. We are tired of promises and waiting. There's a lot of corruption. There's a lot of hatred. So people must start actually standing up and doing for themselves.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Peter Solola is a member of the Economic Freedom Fighters Party. He's helping people here turn their shacks into houses.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Welcome to my humble abode.
O'SULLIVAN: Nice to meet you. My name is Donie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm (INAUDIBLE).
O'SULLIVAN: How do you say?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE).
O'SULLIVAN: (INAUDIBLE). Nice to meet you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. I was living in a shack, and then I decided to build a home for my kids.
O'SULLIVAN: When was this built? This home?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Last month.
O'SULLIVAN: Oh, you started building this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. And then it was completed in like two weeks.
O'SULLIVAN: Oh, so you just moved in?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we just moved in.
O'SULLIVAN: Oh, my god.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In our home. Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: How does it feel?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It feels good. And I'm blessed to be living in this place.
O'SULLIVAN: How happy were your kids when they first moved in here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure. At first they were flabbergasted. Like they were, they were astonished, like, oh, mom, how did we do this? I said, it's through God.
SOLOLA: The house will bring dignity.
O'SULLIVAN: Dignity?
SOLOLA: Yes. Dignity to our people so that they can be proud. You know, there are kids that come out of the house even when you go to school got energy and pride. You know who he is.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But even with improved housing, the difficulty of life here is never far below the surface.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's hard for me to raise five kids alone. If it wasn't for Peter for taking me in and work for him, I don't know where would I'd be now.
O'SULLIVAN: Camera crews from the U.S. and Europe and everywhere else have been coming to places like this in Africa for decades.
[20:30:03]
We're not showing you anything you haven't seen before. In fact, it's a bit cliche that we're here, but the reason we are here is because people have either forgotten or they're choosing to ignore that this is still the reality for millions of black South Africans because if you're watching segments of right-wing media in the U.S., all you're hearing is that it's the whites, that it's the white South Africans that are being disproportionately targeted and who are suffering in this country.
(Voice-over): Thirty years since the end of Apartheid, statistically whites are still doing much better than blacks in South Africa. And for some, Trump's cuts to USAID have made life even more difficult.
Nearby Adwa Mbane showed us what was a USAID funded clinic.
We'll follow you. You lead the way. (Voice-over): It was helping more than 1,000 trans people in downtown
Johannesburg. It's now shut down.
ADWA MBANE, TRANS ACTIVIST: This is our waiting area and the reception. As you walk in, some greetings that are written in different languages so that we can accommodate everybody because our trans community, they come from different parts of the world.
O'SULLIVAN: You were smiling. This place means a lot to you.
MBANE: Yes, it meant a lot, even with my community as well, because that's where they would feel like they are in a safe space.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Adwa says the trans community now has few places to turn.
What's your biggest worry now?
MBANE: My biggest worry, I would say my community is going to die. They were so comfortable with having their own space because they would come where they know that they are understood and they are safe.
O'SULLIVAN: So we're about to go and meet South Africa's foreign minister, who was sitting in the Oval Office for that infamous meeting with Trump.
RONALD LAMOLA, MINISTER OF INTERNAL RELATIONS AND COOPERATION, SOUTH AFRICA: It was excruciating difficult. That is a fear-mongering to pursue the agenda of white supremacy.
O'SULLIVAN: You think Trump is pursuing a white supremacist agenda?
LAMOLA: Yes, I think so. With the program to take the white Afrikaners from South Africa, it's a clear program to back up the issue of white supremacy. And when you look at the Geneva Convention, they don't fit the definition of a refugee.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): A White House spokesperson said President Trump has a humanitarian heart and suggested Minister Lamola should listen to white people in South Africa who say they are persecuted.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: It took black South Africans 342 years, but they finally done it. They voted for the very first time.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The ANC, Nelson Mandela's party, has been in power here since the country's first democratic elections in 1994.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: This is a real feeling of renewal here in South Africa, of real history being made.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Back then, there was a lot of hope.
NELSON MANDELA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA: A rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But much of that optimism has since faded. And today the ANC government is losing support here among some black voters because they feel left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are living in a place whereby kids are not safe anymore. Yes, women are being killed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shoot to kill.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And parties like the Economic Freedom Fighters are gaining support.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kill the Boer. The farmer.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Their leader sings the "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" song that Trump played in the Oval Office.
TRUMP: Why wouldn't you arrest that man? That man said, kill the white farmers.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Many white people here view that song as a threat.
SOLOLA: So they think that actually when you say kill the Boer and the farmer, you are referring to the white. It's not.
O'SULLIVAN: What are you referring to?
SOLOLA: It's like a boss. The song is a liberation song.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes. But you see what's happening now with this chant, with the "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer" chant is that it's being used to say, look, black South Africans want to kill us. There is going to be a white genocide.
SOLOLA: They've been bullying black people for far too long, and when they start realizing that. when they see it on the table, they start losing the debate, they start actually screaming and creating things that are not actually there.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): The ANC government has a raft of affirmative action type policies to try to tackle inequality in the country.
LAMOLA: There is a reality of our history of inequality that was entrenched by Apartheid, which government has to respond to, to make an equitable society. As we speak, up until to date, white South Africans still owns the majority of the land in our country.
[20:35:03]
More than 60 percent of the land is still in the hands of white South Africans. Blacks who are a majority still owning less.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But many white South Africans, even those that say there isn't a white genocide, say that affirmative action has gone too far.
BROWN: What happened in Apartheid was wrong. I never ever supported it. But we need to move on now. O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Errol Langton, who took asylum in Alabama,
said these laws affected him.
LANGTON: I owned my own company. I was at a position that I was not getting any new jobs in, so I started looking for a job. I spent over a year looking for a job.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Only a few dozen Afrikaners have taken asylum in the United States, and most white South Africans are getting on with their lives in the post-Apartheid country. But some are taking a different tack.
You understand so many people watching this will find that appalling, right?
JOOST STRYDOM, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ORANIA MOVEMENT: Sure, sure, sure, sure.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:40:59]
STRYDOM: Welcome. Welcome to Orania firstly, and secondly welcome on the tour.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This is Joost Strydom.
STRYDOM: Right. Here we go.
O'SULLIVAN: Right.
(Voice-over): He's giving us a tour of Orania.
STRYDOM: One of our main agricultural exports is indeed pecan nuts.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Orania has its own security force, its own college, even its own currency.
And I notice a good few solar panels. When you speak about being independent and self-sufficient, is that also a part of it?
STRYDOM: Absolutely. There is no self-sufficiency or independence without electrical energy independence.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): About 3,000 people live here, and the town wants to be entirely self-sufficient.
How big do you want this place to get?
STRYDOM: Big enough to house Afrikaners so that we have a stable point in Africa.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But Orania is only for Afrikaners. White South Africans.
STRYDOM: We need a homeland for Afrikaners where they can decide their own fate, where they can build their future. So we used to be a minority that dictated the terms. Now we're a minority who does not dictate the terms, and that's not a very favorable position to be in.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Under Apartheid, white Afrikaners relied on cheap labor of black South Africans. Joost Strydom says what they want to build here is very different.
STRYDOM: I know of no other community in South Africa that embraced the idea of own labor. To say that never again will Afrikaners, as a people, use or misuse another people to do just our labor for us. If we want to have a future, we must build it. We must build it ourselves.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And build it they will. Strydom gave us a tour of a technical college where Afrikaners are taught to be tradesmen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very important. Everywhere you see they are busy building houses or local businesses, so it's very important work that they are doing.
STRYDOM: We are building a new economy here basically from scratch.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Orania is a source of inspiration for Eric Orwoll.
ORWOLL: People are living up there.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And his whites-only project in Arkansas.
MANDELA: I didn't have to ask for permission. I came in.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Orania is no doubt controversial, but even Nelson Mandela visited here in 1995.
MANDELA: They are entitled to run their own settlement the way they like, as long as it does not impose any restrictions on me. I'm not worried about that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello. I'll follow you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We support you.
STRYDOM: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're doing a good job.
STRYDOM: Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Proud of you.
STRYDOM: Thank you, thank you. Appreciate it. Have a good day.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, you too.
STRYDOM: All of the best. Travel safe. O'SULLIVAN: That must be nice to hear.
STRYDOM: Yes, sure. It's good to have friends.
O'SULLIVAN: Right?
(Voice-over): On a hill overlooking Orania sit monuments of men.
STRYDOM: They are refugees to an extent. They are. They are also Afrikaner refugees. Not as popular in the rest of the country.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Some of these men were involved in setting up or perpetuating Apartheid. These monuments had been removed from display in other parts of the country.
STRYDOM: Now many of that time, right and wrong. They are -- none of them are free of guilt. None of them are only guilty. And as in any nation, there's I think good and bad. But the symbolism here is to say this is part of our past. It's part of where we come from.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But it struck me that everything about Orania felt counter to Mandela's hope for a rainbow nation.
What you're building here is trying to be self-sustainable, but it only has Afrikaners in the picture, right? I mean, do you think it would be better to try and build a community that can have Afrikaners and non-Afrikaners side by side?
STRYDOM: I support those doing that. I have -- I have doubts about its success because there is such a community and that's South Africa. Our focus, our efforts will be to build something for Afrikaner people. We're not just white. You know, the people of Ukraine or the people of Russia or the British are also white.
[20:45:02]
But we are a distinct culture and we have a distinct identity. We have a distinct history. We have a distinct language, the language that went in world history, as far as I know, the quickest, from a kitchen language to an academically published language.
O'SULLIVAN: Is there a white genocide happening in South Africa?
STRYDOM: I think there are horrible atrocities happening in South Africa. I think Afrikaners are maybe culturally being genocided in the sense that we are pushed out of universities. Our language, our culture is being denied and that's being pushed out. And maybe the correct way to phrase it is, is there genocide happening yet? And I think that's an open question.
O'SULLIVAN: Say a kid that's growing up in Orania today, right, both Afrikaner parents, and, you know, say they go off and fall in love with an Indian or a black person, and they come back here and they want to live here and raise their children here. Would that be allowed? STRYDOM: Well, the first answer to that would be the community will
have to decide. Is that person truly going to celebrate our history, the Day of the Vow, which we celebrate as our holy days? Are they're going to sing our songs? Are they going to live our culture? Can they be truly integrated in Afrikaner?
So if I'm being honest, I must say that I doubt the community would necessarily like this.
O'SULLIVAN: You understand so many people watching this will find that appalling, right?
STRYDOM: Sure, sure, sure, sure. But we must get to the point where we accept that there is something like an Afrikaner.
SCHALK VAN HEERDEN, BETEREINDERS FOUNDER: We're not just fixing the road, we're fixing the country.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But not everyone here is ready to give up on Mandela's dream. And they're taking on South Africa's problems.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice and easy.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): One pothole at a time.
I'm going to try and help out. OK, so I knock it down like this. Squat. Is that good?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:51:17]
VAN HEERDEN: We have a very ambitious timeline today. There's a few people for the first time doing something with us. So we're not just fixing the road, we're fixing the country. So our mission is not to make the roads level. Our mission is to connect with one another.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This is Schalk van Heerden. He runs the group Betereinders.
VAN HEERDEN: You can sit here. The first thing you pray about is the safety of the bus and the driver. Because I'm a pastor, not a bus driver. But I have a license. Don't worry.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Betereinders is an Afrikaans word meaning better endings. And this group brings people together from across communities.
OK, so you're going to give me a name tag?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
O'SULLIVAN: OK. How do you think you spell my name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: D-O.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: N, and not N-U-T as in donut.
O'SULLIVAN: Not donuts. No. That's what the bullies used to call me.
(Voice-over): Today they've come together to fix potholes.
I'm going to try and help out. OK. So knock it down like this. Squat. Is that good? In the United States, we don't hear about this South Africa, we don't hear about the South Africa that's coming together. We hear about the South Africa that's being torn apart.
VAN HEERDEN: This is normal for us, but it's not on the news. Crime is very bad, but black and white together. Not those hills of the white crosses. There's 20 times more black lives being lost because of our crime in the country. So we're not saying the country is perfect and safe. It's broken, as you can see. We're fixing it. But we are suffering together. That's this -- we're suffering together.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's where the magic happens. The friendship, the hard work together.
O'SULLIVAN: The people who go to America and talk about this white genocide, I mean, they're giving people like you, they're giving Afrikaners a kind of a bad name. No?
VAN HEERDEN: Yes. So if you want to run and feel safe anywhere, by all means, I'm for that. But not in my name. Not under a ticket of white genocide. I've -- we've had about 600,000 white people moving out of South Africa. I've got no problem with that. But don't say my tribe, who's sitting on top of the pyramid, we victims of genocide. That's not truthful and honoring to real victims of crime, which includes all of us, black and white.
NOAH: Not just genocide, guys. But a white genocide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The white one.
NOAH: Which, as we know, is the worst genocide of all.
EUGENE KHOZA, SOUTH AFRICAN STAND-UP COMIC AND PODCASTER: How many have you committed this week? Me. Apparently there's a lot of them in this country.
NOAH: So personally, I always start my week with a genocide or two. All South Africans. This is what we do.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Eugene Khoza is a South African stand-up comic and podcaster.
KHOZA: Violence against anyone, whatever race they are, whatever job they do is never going to be justified at all by any South Africans. I've lived in South Africa all my life. I've been a victim of crime once and I'm 44 years old right now. So I do know that there are dangers depending on where you are. There's people who get violated all the time, who live in townships, who live in shacks, who live in farms, farm dwellers, farm workers.
So it happens all the time. We hear about it, it gets reported in the news. But as a South African, I can't say I walk out my door and I'm going -- it's not like that at all.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Khoza says the narrative pushed in the U.S. about South African farm attacks often ignores black victims.
KHOZA: A couple of times we have court cases right now where a farmer and his workers killed people that went into his farm and fed them to the pigs.
[20:55:04]
So we have all of those stories, but we -- we've never called it genocide before. They were just labeled as murder or farm killings. A farmer was attacked in their farm.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): As my time in South Africa was coming to an end, I met up again with Ernst Roets, the Afrikaner activist who has been all over U.S. media.
You don't have to spend long in South Africa to sort of quickly see the inequality. You're not denying black people, by and large, in this country still have it worse than white people, right?
ROETS: Well, it depends what you mean by have it worse, but to a large extent, yes. If we were to make a racial breakdown in terms of equality, it's certainly the case that black South Africans are worse off than white South Africans.
O'SULLIVAN: Yes. So seeing that with my own eyes, the level of disparity between blacks and whites, you know, it does sort of make this whole idea whites are getting refugee status in the U.S., while black and brown people, it's been made more difficult for them. Like it does seem to be making a joke of America's asylum process. And would you understand?
ROETS: No, I don't. I don't understand that. Somehow when we talk about South Africa, you can say, well, remember that those white people are richer than black people. It's exactly precisely for that reason that white people are being targeted in South Africa. So you cannot say why people are not being targeted because they are wealthier. They are being targeted because they are wealthier. That's the concern.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): As we were wrapping up our interview, our producer from South Africa, Hamilton Wende, spoke up.
HAMILTON WENDE, PRODUCER: Yes, look, I'm a South African. I'm a white South African. My wife was held up in our driveway.
ROETS: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
WENDE: By two armed black men. It could have been anybody. I would dispute that white farmers are being attacked because they are white farmers. I would say they're being attacked because it's a robbery.
ROETS: No, I vehemently disagree with that. We've had cases, not in some cases, criminals testifying about their political motives. In some cases just testifying about their racist motives, saying, I really hate white people. And that's why I went out to kill five farmers. So if one victim had a political motive, that doesn't mean that all of these cases were political. If in one case there's no evidence of a political motive, that doesn't mean politics is irrelevant. And I think what I would say --
O'SULLIVAN: But is that what you're doing? I mean, are you overplaying the political aspect of this by cherry-picking a few cases of farm murders?
ROETS: No, no, I think while we have these politicians chanting kill the Boer, kill the farmer, saying, we have to slit the throat of whiteness, the farmers are actually being murdered. So it's not a metaphor.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Many people here believe that activists like Ernst Roets are using South Africa's crime problem to stoke racial divisions.
KHOZA: For one Afrikaner who's disgruntled, who says that there's thousands and thousands of black South Africans who say the same, they can't get a job. They're stuck in a township. They're stuck in a squatter camp. They start working for a farmer for peanuts, you know, as salary. You know, they don't have an identity. They don't have pride. I mean, they don't have their own dignity to build their own family and decide on their future.
There are plenty of people who have a sob story to tell where they were violated by someone else. So his story is not unique.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): And while plenty of people here are ready to give up on Mandela's dream or no longer think it's realistic --
Do you think the ideal, Mandela's ideal of the rainbow nation, is that dead?
STRYDOM: Not for everyone. There are some people who like that idea. I happen to like another idea.
O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Others still want to make it work and claims of a white genocide are not going to distract them.
KHOZA: If you look at young people and how they live in South Africa, they're multiracial. They live amongst each other. They go to school with each other, they hang out with each other. In South Africa, race baiting is never -- it's never going to work. It's never going to work.
VAN HEERDEN: When you see a chair, you sit and talk nonsense. But with people you don't normally mix with. Everyone that's together now just look around you. These are our friends. We work together, we share. O'SULLIVAN: After traveling around South Africa for the past few
weeks, talking to so many people who are on the extremes, it's really quite refreshing to see groups like this coming together from across communities and across races. And I think it shows that this is what most people want, right? Most people want to get along, but oftentimes it is those extreme voices sometimes who are on the fringe that are often the loudest.
And as Schalk told me earlier, while politics and politicians may sometimes thrive on division, people thrive on community.
