Pastor Shane Vaughn last week accused investor and philanthropist George Soros of creating a division in South Africa during the country’s apartheid era.
During an April 1 live event on YouTube that has already been removed from the platform but is still available for viewing on Rumble, the right-wing pastor presented his arguments against Soros under the title, “Soros Sorcaria”. The video includes at the beginning a note about his exclusion from YouTube and relocation to Rumble “in order to avoid censorship of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION”.
Vaughn first described what he said South Africa was during his time as a colony under the control of the British monarchy.
“South Africa was a wonderful nation,” said Vaughn. “But it was a closed society. It had a queen. It had an identity with the community, with Britain. It was identified there, it had traditions, it had its own history.”
Soros’ philanthropic efforts began in South Africa in 1979. According to the Open Society Foundations, the organization Soros founded to support his philanthropy worldwide, his first philanthropic contributions came through scholarships for black students in Cape Town University.
FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP via Getty Images
In his video, Vaughn cited a quote that is still present on the Open Society Foundations website. Speaking specifically about South Africa, Soros described it as “a closed society with all the institutions of a first world country, but they were banned for the majority of the population for racial reasons”.
Soros added: “Where can I find a better opportunity to open a closed society?”
It was that second sentence that Vaughn quoted in his video.
“He brings his money to South Africa and finances the university with scholarships for young blacks in apartheid South Africa. When he opens this school, he changes South Africa and see what he did there,” said Vaughn.
Vaughn went on to say that Soros’s actions led to division and violence in South Africa.
“He divided South Africa with this open society, removed the culture, removed the law, removed the foundations of society, set the races against each other, and then you take the nation and create an open society now.”
South Africa’s apartheid era began in the mid-1900s and lasted until the early 1990s. South Africa held its first fully democratic election in 1994, some 15 years after Soros started his philanthropic work there.
Although Soros began his work as a philanthropist in South Africa, his efforts have expanded around the world in the decades since then to more than 120 countries, according to the Open Society Foundations.
Newsweek has contacted Open Society Foundations for comment and will update this article with any response.