Rozanne Meyer
Orania in a nutshell
The definitive guide to Orania, its people and reasons for existence.
Background
Afrikaners are the only indigenous white people of Africa, descending mainly from Dutch, French and German origins. They account for just under two thirds of white South Africans, i.e. 2,5 million people. Afrikaners speak Afrikaans and are predominantly Christian. Their strong Calvinistic roots play an important role in their culture and history.
In December 1990, the town Orania was bought for around US$ 200,000 by 40 Afrikaner families headed by Prof. Carel Boshoff, the son-in-law of former prime minister Dr. H.F. Verwoerd.
The farm on which Orania was founded, is called Vluytjekraal. Along the Orange River grows a fine reed, called vluitjiesriet, or in old Dutch spelling "Vluytjesriet," meaning whistle reed.
The town is privately owned by the Vluytjeskraal Aandeleblok company. All land owners are shareholders of the company and democratic elections are held annually in order to elect the town’s leadership.
Orania is located in the upper Karoo region of the sparsely populated Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Situated on the banks of one of southern Africa’s biggest rivers, the town is characterised by its vast plantations of pecan nut, olive and fruit trees in addition to extensive farmland.
Contributing factors
South Africa has been subject to revolutionary change since 1994, caused by what the African National Congress (ANC) refer to as the ‘national democratic revolution’. This revolution’s purpose in theory is to create a non-racial and non-sexist society while in practice it has caused a developed country’s decay into a corrupt Africanised state.
Today the ANC government is blaming the white minority for all the black majority’s hardships even though apartheid formally ended back in 1991. In the 16 years of ANC rule, South Africans have experienced unprecedented levels of corruption, rape and murder in addition to crippled municipalities and decaying infrastructure. Yet the ANC have enjoyed the support of nearly two thirds of the predominantly black electorate in each election since 1994.
It is important to note that the ANC is member of a tri-party alliance. Its two allies are the Cosatu trade union and the South African Communist Party.
All ethnic groups are being touched by crime. For one group in particular violent crime has taken on the proportions of a genocide. The murder rate under Afrikaners is 0.64 per 1 000 people while South Africa’s national murder rate is 0.49 per 1 000, which is one of the highest murder rates in the world - second only to Columbia (0.61 per 1 000).
The onslaught on the Afrikaner people is visible in every sfere of society. Escalating land grabs, farm killings, racially motivated retrenchment, high murder and rape statistics, marginalisation of the Afrikaans language in the education system and unequalled levels of unemployment all contribute to the crippling of the Afrikaner people.
Although many Afrikaners are confused as to how and why they have to partake in the “national democratic revolution”, there are many new generation Afrikaners who are being born into the contemporary era of ‘transformation’ and assumes it to be the norm.
The popular alternative to transformation is to leave the country for a better and safer life in countries that hold merit and human rights in high regard. This was dubbed as the ‘white flight’ by the Economist or more generally known in South Africa as the ‘brain drain’.
More than 500 000 Afrikaners have emigrated to Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States. Most of these emigrants are highly skilled Afrikaners, who once contributed to South Africa’s status as an emerging first world country.
Not only have we lost thousands of citizens who are now expats, we are also loosing thousands of lives due to the growing genocide launched against the Afrikaner people, not to mention the barbaric farm killings that are now a daily occurrence in the New South Africa.
We have seen what has happened in Zimbabwe and we are being told by ANC government officials such as Gugile Nkwinti, former minister of Rural Development and Land Reform, that it will happen to South Africa as well. The ANC Youth leader, Julius Malema, has gone as far as publicly stating that the government must use Robert Mugabe’s model of ethnic cleansing and land grabs as a blue print in order to take land from whites in South Africa and hand it over to blacks.
Why then would we not want to distance ourselves from these threats and a country that has grown foreign to most Afrikaners?
Strife
The answer is not unknown to the world. Countries like the Republic of Ireland, Israel, Eritrea, Czech Republic and Slovakia all stood for the same thing: to be independent of alien rule and to develop their own identity, in their own country among their own people.
We as a people are entitled to be free of a neo-communist system and we have a right to govern ourselves under our own laws defined by our value system and culture. Furthermore, we have a right to speak our own language and empower our people in order to succeed on merit.
We support the notion of relying entirely on our own labour in order to inhabit and cultivate our own country. Besides self determination being our constitutional right, it is also a basic human right that no one can take away from us.
In the past, we have had monumental leaders such as Dr. D.F. Malan, Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, Adv. J.G. Strydom and President M.T. Steyn who inspired us to stand up against colonialism and lead us to freedom. We subsequently attained freedom 59 years after 27 000 Afrikaners died in British concentration camps during the Anglo Boer War (1899 – 1902).
We owe it to our children and our children’s children to keep on building and marching forward in this noble strife for freedom and independence. If we do nothing, the Afrikaner people will die a slow and painful death, similar to all the ethnic cleansing wars synonymous with conflict in Africa.
20 years on
Sustainable development, good governance, growing support base both under Afrikaners and the international community, environmentally friendly, self reliance, zero crime, skills development and own labour – these are all terms that can be attributed to Orania.
One cannot live in Orania simply to escape crime. Orania is a growth point charged with the responsibility of creating a sustainable model on which more Afrikaner towns will be built. These towns will stretch along the Orange River, with Orania in the east and the Atlantic Ocean in the west.
The goal is to create an independent republic for the Afrikaner people. In order to live in Orania one must obviously be an Afrikaner. Furthermore, one must support the concept of Afrikaner independence and understand that the foundation of freedom is self reliance, i.e. Afrikaner labour.
Orania’s constitution leaves no misinterpretation with regards to religion. Christianity is the cornerstone of the community:
“The Orania Movement is an Afrikaans cultural movement with the aim to restore Afrikaner freedom in an independent democratic republic based on Christian values and a healthy balance between independence and cooperation with surrounding areas.”
With thousands of Afrikaners from all around the world taking up membership of the Orania Movement in addition to a population of nearly 1 000 permanent inhabitants, Orania has come a far way during the past 20 years.
Orania has faced many challenges and will face many still but history has proven that Afrikaners will stand up from the ashes and accomplish greatness.
So when people ask: why Orania? I say, why not!
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