In Orania, South Africa, white separatism is upheld as a right. Residents will argue that South Africa has turned its back on the white population, a practice they refer to as “reverse racism.” One resident adamantly says, “I see nothing wrong with apartheid.” The chairperson of Orania will tell anyone listening, “Our [white] culture is being oppressed and our children are being brainwashed to speak English.” White Afrikaners from all over South Africa come together to live here, in what outsiders call Apartheid Town.
In the dead center of South Africa, there lies the last vestiges of apartheid in a small town on the edge of the South African desert. Afrikaners, the descendants of the original European colonizers, are the only people allowed to live here, despite the fact that apartheid officially ended 34 years ago. However, residents bristle at the mere thought of being labeled as racists.
The History
Orania was founded by Carel Boshoff, son-in-law of Hendrik Verwoerd, the man commonly referred to as the ‘architect of apartheid.’ He founded the town in response to the slow collapse of the apartheid government in the late 1980s. As the founder of the Orania Movement, he reportedly began this outpost of civilization as a form of “self-determination for the Afrikaner people” in order to “facilitate peaceful and orderly transformation after apartheid.”
There are strict guidelines as to who can live here. The town’s laws enumerate an application and interview process before one can move in. In order to apply, one theoretically needs to be a direct descendant of the original colonizers who immigrated to South Africa from Europe in the 17th century. However, that criterion is illegal under South African law. They are legally allowed to check for fidelity to Afrikaner culture, language, and history through an interview process, but they cannot ask for ancestral documentation. Non-white people are technically allowed to apply, but coincidentally none have ever passed the vetting process.
Afrikaans, the native language derived from the Dutch spoken by their ancestors, is the language of instruction and the primary public language.
Orania’s Ideological Debate
It’s a town mired in controversy. Town leadership maintains the position that their exclusionary practices are a matter of preserving their Afrikaner heritage and culture. Technically, people of mixed descent can apply for residency, and so these practices cannot possibly be racist. Town leadership maintains that the lack of mixed people in Orania is a matter of a lack of applications, not a matter of deliberate exclusion. Application lists are not publicly available, even to the residents.
South Africa, contrarily, is a country that has done its best to promote multiculturalism since the fall of the apartheid government in 1990. Economic and social measures passed by the South African government have lifted the previously segregated black population out of perpetual poverty. Whether a rejection of that multiculturalism and multiracialism is a representation of their ancestral pride or of prejudice towards other races has sparked heated debate.
The town itself has further delved into controversial territory by anointing themselves the saviors of apartheid-era relics and artwork thrown out by other South African towns. High on a hill just outside town, one can view the busts of prominent Afrikaner leaders of the apartheid era such as Paul Kruger, J.B.M. Hertzog, D.F. Malan, J.G. Strijdom, and of course Hendrik Verwoerd—the “architect of apartheid.” Residents of the town have been on the lookout since the 1990s for municipalities looking to destroy or sell off their monuments to apartheid. They claim these statues are part of their heritage. A resident of the town defended the practice by stating “You can’t destroy history by destroying a monument … Afrikaner history is almost criminalized.”
Some older members of the town are very upfront about why they moved to Orania. “The real apartheid as Dr. Verwoerd saw it — there was nothing wrong with it,” says Martin Kemp. However, even these people bristle at the notion that the town is a representation of an inherently racist ideal: “I’m offended by that … It minimizes everything we stand for,” said Sarel Roets, resident of Orania. He believes that Orania is not an all-white town, it is an all-Afrikaner town. “We don’t perceive ourselves as white. We perceive ourselves as Afrikaner people and that is a cultural thing, it’s not a race thing.” Nevertheless, Afrikaner is a race, and no matter the significance of cultural preservation, the township refuses residence to all other races.
What’s the Appeal of Orania?
People move to this town for a myriad of reasons. The ones most residents are most upfront about are safety and economy. South Africa has the fourth largest homicide rate in the world and the fifth largest homicide count, only trumped by Brazil, Nigeria, India, and Mexico. Orania, on the other hand, boasts no need for a police force at all. They’ve displayed a shocking lack of crime in comparison to South Africa as a whole. Many residents report moving there in an attempt to secure “a healthy environment to raise children” amongst the dangerous backdrop of their country.
The people of Orania will rail against the “reverse racism” of post-apartheid economic policies, and report moving to Orania after several failed attempts to survive in the South African job market. One resident said, “The new apartheid is economic.” Measures to lift black people from the systemic poverty of the apartheid are rebuked here as handouts and anti-Afrikaner. The Black Economic Empowerment program of the 1990s and Affirmative Action policies are designed to keep the Afrikaner people down. “It’s like we’re being punished for the past,” one resident says. The isolation of Orania from the greater world seems to have created an echo chamber wherein no one realizes that whites (a majority of whom are Afrikaners) remain the wealthiest demographic of South Africans. While whites make up only 30% of the population, they own 72% of total farm and agriculture holdings. The average black household owns only 5% of the wealth the average white household does.
Orania’s Political Defense
Despite segregation remaining illegal in South Africa, the town survives under a constitutional clause that defends citizens’ right to self-determination. They argue that in making it their goal to preserve Afrikaner history and culture, they’re exercising their constitutionally protected rights. Since Orania is technically not a town, the South African government has limited jurisdiction over the town’s internal structure. Legally, the town functions as a company that bought the town’s land, wherein the mayor is the CEO who owns the company and all residents own stock. Authorities say that private towns of this nature are not uncommon at all, they are simply unusual in that they’ve chosen their own ethnicity and cultural heritage as a precondition for residency.
Despite the pride Oranians hold in their ancestry, they also pride themselves on breaking from colonial labor practices. All structures built in the town are built by white hands, something residents say diverges from the colonial reliance on cheap black labor for hard and menial work. They’re also on their way to breaking from South Africa’s unreliable power grid. A sprawling garden of solar power generators is the saving grace of a town that hopes to become energy independent and further its autonomy from the South African government.
Technically, Orania is an autarky. The town prides itself on being economically and culturally independent from South Africa. The Oranian bank issues its own currency, the Ora, to stimulate the town’s economy. Since Orania isn’t its own country, the Ora isn’t actually a currency, but rather a system of coupons that expire every three years. No establishments in Orania will take outside currencies, although the Ora is tied 1:1 with the Rand, the currency of South Africa.
Moving Forward
Many sources take many stances on the morality of the township, and international media has, for the most part, been sympathetic to Orania. Their experiment in exclusion merits questioning, especially when considering what culture the town as an institution actually preserves. The main defense most residents take is one of cultural preservation, honoring their heritage as Afrikaners. The town is hidden behind a fuzzy controversy of whether rejecting multiculturalism and multiracialism in favor of a monoethnic and monocultural city represents discrimination towards other groups or the preservation of culture. Residents aren’t in perfect unison when it comes to whether the culture they’re preserving is the one of their colonial Dutch ancestors or the one of those ancestors’ apartheid. When peering out over the sprawling hills of a segregated municipality and the simultaneously conspicuous lack of Dutch memorabilia, it’s difficult to imagine the former.
High on a hill overlooking the town rests a shrine to the busts of old Afrikaner apartheid leaders. They seem to peer down on the last vestige of their brainchild as they protect and sanction Orania’s monolithic monument to their memory.
Featured Image Source: BBC
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