2026-04-13
34 分钟This is The Guardian.
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How the US far right bought into the myth of white South Africa's persecution by Eve Fairbanks.
Read by Catherine Fenton.
There's a little town in the scrub in South Africa, a full day's drive from the country's big cities.
That has become perhaps the most scrutinized place on Earth, given its size.
It is nine square kilometers of suburban-style houses harboring about 3,000 people,
with a main drag, a municipal swimming pool, one gas station, and some pecan farms.
Nothing of consequence ever really happens there, a fact the townspeople take as a point of pride.
And yet, over the past three decades, dozens of English-language news outlets have made a pilgrimage to it,
often more than once.
The New York Times alone has run four dedicated profiles.
The essays have kept pace year after year, quoting the same people over and over, even as nothing of note occurred.
There's been no war, no disaster.
That changelessness is the point.
No people of color are allowed to live in the town, called Orania.
The name is a nod to the river that runs nearby.
Orania's founders established it in 1991, the year after South Africa's best-known black liberation leader
and future president, Nelson Mandela, was freed following 27 years in prison.