There’s a girl in the tourist office dressed in a tight pink frilly uniform. She’s 21 years old and having a busy day in Orania. Her father John is one of the town’s official tour guides and he’s set to show us the pecan-shelling factory, the bottle store, The Koeksister Monument, Orania’s private radio station and the flag that graced Hendrik Verwoerd’s coffin. But primarily he’s going to reveal the 700 Afrikaners — no fences, no security — who are here to be racist in peace. They want to be left alone, unless there’s a chance of you buying a koeksister.
To generate revenue the folk here are willing to endure a few hours of interrogation. The privately owned patch of irrigated desert turned Afrikaans volkstaat — the sprinkler systems cluck with pride — has grown by only 100 people since its inception 19 years ago and as a last suffocating attempt for survival is morphing into a zoo. Would you like wors with that pap? Another Klippies? Perhaps an Orania-branded hat from the gift shop? A night in a guest house? Founder Carel Boshoff anticipated a huge investment from the staunch Afrikaner rich for his bio-dome of apartheid, but this never transpired. So, like the kid who’s relentlessly teased, the people of Orania believe if they let you come and play with their toys then you’ll grow to like them. These tours are ostensibly borne from Afrikaner pride — to boast a shoddy town built entirely by white hands — but it’s a chance to gawk or experiment around open racists. A sort of ideological fetish club. And they are fully aware of the mocking, but when you’re a town the size of a high school and the residents live in prefabs, like the ones that cooked you during maths, what choice do you have? Orania, that last blemish of the old South Africa, is on its arse and we’re the only ones who can save it.
Better than working
The insignia of Orania is a boy getting down to work by rolling up his sleeves. He’s on T-shirts, mosaics and buildings, always looking suspiciously like he’s tugging on a belt with his teeth to shoot up crack. He embodies White Pride and White Trash like the old/young woman perceptual illusion. Geoff, a retired riot policeman, is eager to speak. “Everyone in this town is a racist. If they don’t admit it they’re stupid,” he says refreshingly, but then hamstrings himself with “But there’s nothing wrong with racism” and proceeds to sketch out the evils of Nelson Mandela. No one here lowers their voices during racial slurs, like they do in neighbouring towns. Geoff tells a curious story of how black cops accept bribes and whites don’t — he knows this because last time he “was in a hurry” he slipped the cop R100 in the folds of his ID. After much badgering he said he’d never tried it on a white cop.
Geoff is only subdued by the barman cranking up the Kylie Minogue — he’s embarrassed by this “old timer”. The barman indignantly claims that none of them are racists. He scorns the reputation and how he has to use a different email address so people “out there” will do business with him. But surely he’s oozing racial epithets out of his pores by living here, no matter what he says? Though most of what he says is friendly. He says you’ll only miss a job as a white person if you’re incompetent, not because of affirmative action. I spill a rum and coke and he pours me another free of charge.
I get a tinge of the Oranian work ethic when sticky Coca-Cola streaks down the bar. I thought of how they are going to make a big deal of the mess because there is no staff. I’m used to spilling drinks and dead-eyed poor workers coming out and mopping it up. But here the man’s wife says “it is okay, no really it’s okay”. Marvel at how these Afrikaners clean their own toilets! This, incidentally, is a conversation we have repeatedly: housework and its new-found burden since relocating here. My friend is writing an article on Orania for an English website. He can’t harp on about how there are white people here cutting grass. It’s not a photo opportunity in Britain to snap a white person holding a spade. For Afrikaners — hell, most of white South Africa — it’s a shock. You can eat pap and wors for breakfast here, but because there’s no cheap labour it’s almost lunchtime before the food arrives. The town is resolving this by recruiting their own exploited — exclusively white — work force. On the outskirts is an outreach-turned-recruitment centre. This is where they scoop up the drifters and gibbering whites of the Northern Cape. They charge a hefty R450 a month to stay in a reformed barracks — a room twice the size of a single bed. There’s a zero tolerance on alcohol, but you can settle your outstanding payments with services to the town. A frazzled old woman runs the car wash — her record for a day is nine cars, spraying manually — and she seems very content.
Tell us another one
If the apartheid museum is to damn the old ideology, Orania is a karmic companion to how pathetic life can be if it continues. In the bar a cute blonde five-year-old, who can barely see over the table, is hustling a young teen girl who doesn’t resist a feel up from the man who looks like he’s an artistic impression of a great trek soldier without his musket. The women are out-numbered here: they’re no good at manual labour. Geoff and the soldier — blonde, deeply tanned, almond face — ask us to guess their ages. It’s as if to say life is easy here: they don’t age. Geoff is seventy — which we guess correctly. The almond-faced man is 23 but looks closer to thirty.
We drive around the town and scrounge for racist jokes to tell each other. Kick back and get all that racism off your bare chest. I’m going to get a seatbelt tan. We didn’t act racist with the residents. We tersely disapproved of their stories and slurs, but now we attempt to mock their racism cowardly by telling ironic jokes to each other in the privacy of the car.
It’s a nervous experience having your level of racism tested. If you fall in love with the frilly girl in the Orania tourism office what then? People like to be binary: “You’re a racist and I’m not a racist”. It’s an appeal for visiting Orania that after a visit you’re going to come out squeaky clean by comparison. We can all name a family member or friend who could live here, though wouldn’t admit it. A fight breaks out between the three of us in the car over whom we know that’s reprehensible. Varsity friends, girlfriends: didn’t she say something one time? It’s not a desirable reputation to have and that’s what’s perplexing about Orania is they have publicly declared their prejudice, but they aren’t happy or whooping. A valve hasn’t relaxed from finally admitting their scorn and prejudice. Mostly they are exhausting and sad. It’s not the manual labour which is tiring them, but having to keep their defences up.
It’s not a zoo of fascist harmony, but glum, castrated folk accustomed to city, or at least suburban, life. Mostly from Pretoria, they’ve had the agency to pack up, move and are now forced to pretend like they were raised in a dorpie. Stuffed bigotry exhibits with fake smiles and there is no turning back. Look at all the “Te Koop” signs. There are no clothes shops, nurseries or electronic stores; only shops selling car spares, bars and a ridiculous number of churches. To be accepted here you need to be white, Afrikaans and Christian, but what type of Christian is debatable. For 700 people there are seven churches. That’s what becomes apparent: these people are fragmented.
One family we visit has been in The Netherlands for nine years. They’ve recently returned and cheerfully hand out roosterbrood for us to cook over the fire. The father is here to build eco-houses. This is in the same town where there’s a Verwoerd museum and folk pop in for a casual read of old Huisgenoot magazines from the sixties. One man tells us beside a gigantic bust of the leader that he never liked him. He was too soft on the blacks, he says. John, our guide, tries to soften the outburst with: “Everyone here has a story.” And then he chuckles.
The older woman in the tourist office, the one with candy-floss grey hair, tells us how she was attacked at gun point in her Pretoria home so packed up and moved to Orania. In Orania it takes time to distinguish the traumatised racists from the stupid ones. I found myself splitting people into two categories: true racist and racist from horrific crime incident. This concession, I realise, is pretty racist.
We’ll save them
The presentation video depicts gaggles of little kids on tricycles, but on the roads we see none. Instead we’re told men visit the town so they can ride their quad bikes recklessly because there’s no acting police force. Enforcement is run like a neighbourhood watch, with the worse crime apparently being a stolen bicycle (they are boastfully unlocked). But a black guy I meet says that if he went close to the river then he’d get punched in the face. There’s an uneasy trepidation as I approach him — I think it’s the first time I’ve ever been feared. “It’s weird here isn’t it,” I say and he immediately relaxes and agrees. They have an unofficial system of signing the black visitors in, giving them a pass. He visits in his red bakkie to sell watermelons. There’s an embarrassment around the town for having to rely on outsiders. The truth is they import practically everything.
After the video the pretty girl at the tourism office hefts down the media file. “That’s not even half of it,” she says. She’s a subservient encyclopaedia of facts — a great help to the four sets of journalists who are in the town, and that’s just today. She went to school here. Orania gives parents the choice of a sci-fi, home-grown curriculum: plugged in to computers with CD-ROMS like Master Maths, allowing you to develop at “your own pace”. The second is the standard theological backwater: The Christelike Volks-Onderwys. This is more conventional with special emphasis on Afrikaner history. I think of the blonde five-year-old pool player and pity who she’ll become in ten years. Two separate schools, each covering all 12 grades: you can’t help but think they were expecting more people.
Carel Boshoff the 4th, grandson of the town’s founder, is an intellectual racist. He’s a man with perfectly circular spectacles who’s chosen to put himself in a certain box and he isn’t coming out. His grandma is a Verwoerd and he’s cherishing the time when it’ll be his generation’s turn to fight for Hendrik’s remains (they’re stoically rotting in Pretoria). While standing over the grave of his son — he was a baby of one year when he died — John said, “His other two sons are retarded”. and then added: “It’s very sad.” This is the end of the Verwoerd and Boshoff line — the future of Orania — a tiny grave and two mentally handicapped children.
By spending money here you’re helping old Boshoff survey his kingdom for a little longer so take a packed lunch and sleep in the car. Don’t give them more than you have to, just enough to keep them afloat: it only works as a tourist destination if they’re miserable.
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68 Responses to “Orania tourism: Come gawk at the racists”
wow…this was really interesting and hectic to read.
I’m afraid you’re the big racist here. Racist against Afrikaners. You have come to Orania to seek out the bad, and ignore the good. Ofcause, there’s a double standard for racism, it all depends on whom you dislike. If it’s jews, you’re anti-semitic and it’s a big scandal. If it’s Afrikaners, that’s ok, because who likes them anyway?
Afrikaners get pushed out of society with BEE, we are the victims of horrendous and racist crimes, our history and values are demonised. And when we go out to carve out a new future in peace, WE are the ones who are called racist!! Well, guess what. SO BE IT!!
Your problem is that you do not distinguish between racists, ie people who hate others based simply on race, and white people who have and cherish their ethnic identity. To you, they are all racists. Which is exactly why YOU are the racist.
See, if you had written about some traditional Zulu town somewhere in Natal, you wouldn’t have been so negative. You would use flowery language to describe how they maintain their way of life. Zulus may do that, because they’re black. Afrikaners are not allowed to do that, because we’re white. We are supposed to have “evolved” beyond having an ethnic identity. And so, you have a stricter set of rules for whites than for blacks. “The white man’s burden” they used to say in the 19th century.
You make it sound as if there is no racism anywhere else in SA. Heck, most whites are still racist, it just went underground. Spend a little time behind closed doors of the average middle class white home, or google a few key words and marvel at the proliferation of blogs with the theme of “racism.” At least the Oranians are not hypocrites…My hat off to them…
You have no idea what Orania is really about! what concrete evidence do you have that Orania is racist?! You are quick to judge us while there are multiple racist ANC institutions, racist business approaches, “comrades” wanting a revolution against Afrikaans..
While standing over the grave of his son — he was a baby of one year when he died — John said, “His other two sons are retarded”. and then added: “It’s very sad.”
That left me speechless. We’re all thinking it. I want to say it… but I’m afraid it will show the racism lurking beneath my rainbow face.
I truly hope they at least meet, date and marry people from outside Orania… once every other generation… at least!?!!
[…] Die onderstaande skrywe is deur ene Thinus Nel aan Sênet gestuur, na aanleiding van ‘n gesprek op die Praagwerf oor Orania. My repliek op sy skrywe volg heel onder. Lees terloops ook een van die Mail & Guardian se bloggers se perspektief oor Orania. […]
Do you remember the evening when you gatecrashed the kids private party, I told you that we can not trust journalists. You came to Orania to tell your story. I am sure if you were open minded you will have told the story differently. Yes, what you say might be true, but it is the way that you colour it in with your words, that makes it not a objective representation, but rather a subjective peace of “work”.
Anyway thanks for the advert of me going to build earthships. The Project Aardskip is an opportunity give the less fortunate Afrikaners a way to live and not just survive. As I told you once this is a success in Orania we want to extend it to group who also see the fruit of it.
By the way you must know as journalist that the more negative the media is about a person or group the more popular the group become. So a honest thank you, please come again when we start building the earthship.
I hope this is one in a series of all SA’s diverse communities, from black diamonds to the recent immigrant Chinese; from the different castes of Indians to the gangs of the Cape Flats; from the ultra conservative Orthodox Jews to the inner city arty-farties. I am sure they’ll all lots in common as each live in their own little worlds with their own ways, habits, securities and insecurities.
Congratulations Paul McNally, this is possibly one of the most one-sided articles that I have ever read (including Julius Malema’s rantings). What a prime example of “boer-bashing” - your utter hatred of the Afrikaner people is only too apparent. The next time I read an article from the illustrious ANCYL, I will be comforted to know that there are people with even less respect, and more hatred than them. Maybe Orania does not amount to much, but the “legacy” of technology mastered by Afrikaners range from the Rooivalk attach helicopter, to six nuclear weapons. So do not underestimate what determined intellectual people can achieve even with few resources. How many Brittish soldiers and horses did it take to defeat the Boers? You only harp on people living in Orania because they are racist, but did you consider the history of self determination drive of the Afrikaner people? Maybe your next article could be about harmony and love between the Irish and the English.
The Irish have their homeland.
The Scotts have their homeland.
The Basotho have their homeland as do the Swazis.
What is wrong if the Afrikaners also want a homeland? More than 70% of Afrikaners is favorably disposed towards to it according to a recent poll in Beeld.
Why this Boerehaat?
Is this what is called objective journalism by an “acclaimed” journalist?
Ok Paul McNally, you write about racist Afrikaners from Orania but you go on about what a shock it is to have white people do their own manual labour? What?! Who exactly did you think MUST clean white people’s toilets???
Err…”Orania is a karmic companion to how pathetic life can be if it continues.” Because white people would have to do the hard labour themselves, right?! lol
America has their Amish people,why not can SA have its Orania people? Has freedom of association suddenly become a crime? This article is a display of very poor journalism and lacks objectivity.
Gerhart Mischinger on February 4th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Not a particularly balanced article and I would hesitantly suggest that has a distinct feel of a bully picking on the poor weird kid.
I think where you may have missed the boat is to separate the Afrikaner and his Apartheid and the Afrikaner as a minority in South Africa today. When viewed with the past as a reference, nobody gives a flying fack about these people and the feeling is of justice for all the evil they did.
There is, however, some kind of juvenile but unavoidably logical justification behind this madness when you consider that, statistically, a white South African is a member of a largely disenfranchised minority that is very likely to become a victim of crime or lose a job to a black South African. There is, of course, a bigger picture but for a few frightened, indoctrinated people this is a bold attempt at mitigating this numbers game.
While I agree with you about the lunacy of the place, I expected more of an attempt to understand what drives people to a hardship like this. It can’t be easy to live there as outcasts.
People writing comments here need to get lives…(me too I suppose). How do you equate Orania and a Zulu village. As far as I know no one is excluded from building and living in a Zulu village on the basis of colour. but let me see them allow an afrikaans speaking darkie to build in this community. Orania is built on the cult of the volkstaat that only someone who believes they are too weak to self-determine within a diverse population would support. granted the ANC and some people in government are racist and have racially based policies. You don’t see English speaking white folk demanding Natal or the former cape colony do you? If you had broken complete ties with darkies instead of imposing separate development from the beginning of the republic. if you had created a border and kicked every melanin enriched individual, we would be in a different country. but you had to have it all. and now that we are countrymen you complain that you are under attack. explain this… why has afrikaans music and literature grown more in the last decade than in during the “good old days”. you don’t want a “volkstaat”, you just want to be in charge. Get over yourselves, join the rest of your country men and women. let’s build this thing we call Suid Afrika. First we take out the so called liberators, then we teach our children then SA belongs to us all.
Paul suggest you stay in C Town and do articles of the many racists (black and white) there before venturing out into the wide real world beyond the Hex River Mountains. Cut your teeth on the worlds experts before judging others.
Your next article ? The traditional Zulu ritual of slaughtering a cow barehanded ? Would love to read the responses you receive if you adopt a similar line and mock their culture .
Well done man. This is great. Forget the bozos - write what you like. You’ve earned your place on Thought Leader not through defensive commentary, but through critical analysis.
I bet while you were there it was all “Dankie Oem, dankie tannie”, “Mmmmm, die cooksisters is very lekka, Tannie” and “Totsiens, Oem, dit was interessant”
Then upon your return to Houghton, or wherever, you write this. I guess you showed them…you should be proud of yourself, boet!
ps - has it ever occured to you that these people are not harming anyone? Or that they are only breaking your own backs for a dream that is different to your own. Once again, boet, well done!!!
All the best to the folk of Oriana. Perhaps one day the ever righteous urbanites will understand that you too have a desire to protect your traditions.
The innate desire for different peoples (whether on an ethnic, cultural or lifestyle basis) to live with their own can be seen all over the world, but I’m afraid only the Afrikaaners will have this basic fact used to discredit them (and their disabled children…)
Ah the Afrikaans… how far they have fallen, eh? Once they were an endless tower of strength who would think nothing of trekking out into the Great Wilderness of South Africa in their thousands so they wouldn’t have to obey the old Imperial British mandate about no slaves. Once the government that claimed to preach pure Afrikaanerdom (and the government a vast majority of Afrikaners loved and admired) would happily and forcibly relocate vast numbers of people to satisfy an Afrikaner vision of nationhood. Once the Afrikaner Nationalist Party were so imbued with their sheer Afrikanerness that they could sanction detention without trail, mass censorship, state-run-torture, and wars of ‘destabilization’ in Angola and Mozambique. Ah the Good Old Days of Afrikaner Power…
But it seems the Old Days are over and now Grand Old Afrikanerdom is reduced to a sad attachment to a rather small Afrikaner commune in the middle of nowhere. Now of course, the question our friends like Johann Eksteen would ask is: ‘How do we bring the Old Days back?’ But this question (I feel) misses the point. Afrikaner culture (like any other culture) changes over time, the question is: will the ‘Afrikaner’ be defined by the Orianians and their dead-end-ideology or will the ‘Afrikaner’ embrace cosmopolitanism and strive for a place in the global village? Anyone want to guess on which side the ‘Afrikaner’ will land on?
Thank goodness we live in the age of the internet. The time when all powerful newspaper editors get to dictate public opinion is long gone. Now we can hear directly from the people how they feel, how they think.
And while the liberalist minority still believe they can brainwash the people by controling the newspapers, the volk has found each other on the internet and discovered that they are not backward and retarded for seeing the world as it really is.
Do you know what liberalism is? It is stubburn ignorance. The refusal to accept basic realities. To repeat past mistakes and to be surprised when it fails … AGAIN. This is beautifully illustrated by those lefties who visited the ANC in East Germany, of all places, and then expected all South Africa’s problems would disappear when the ANC took over. I suppose it is the same stubborn ignorance that makes them ignore the hundreds of people crying “FOUL” at the dribble they call “Articles”. But no one really cares, as it is quite clear that they are now the lone voices in the wilderness, the people living in lalaland, having fantacies about how everything will come right in the end, if only the whites get their act together. The perceptions on Orania has clearly changed, but the liberals prefer their fools paradise over real practical solutions.
It is indeed a pity that you reduced Afrikanerdom only to a failed political system. My beloved culture is rooted in much more than just politics.
Anyhow, your schadenfreude is noted.
But why do you claim that I and my fellow Volkstaters would like to return to the “Old days”? Do you actually understand what Orania is about, my dear sir? There is no “tuinboys” or “ousies” there. Oraniërs don’t exploit desperate poor black people for cheap labour like you and your ilk still do in your fabulous cosmopolitan cities. Yes, you might have new PC terms (like a “domestic help”) for them, but this does not hide the fact that they are doing the work that you regard as below your stature as a wealthy white person. The Oraniërs have moved on and they certainly don’t need your permission or approval for this.
By the way, my dear sir, you might want to brush up on your history a little bit. I personally feel it is a little embarrassing when you publicly flaunt your ignorance in such a vulgar fashion. Who knows, after a healthy session of British history you might even come to the realization that it is unwise of you, as an English speaking South African, to judge other cultures by mistakes made by them in the past.
“Die kwaad sal verander in goed: Die môrelig kom uit die duister” - C. Louis Leipoldt
You ask the following “You don’t see English speaking white folk demanding Natal or the former cape colony do you?” No, you don’t. But they don’t have to, you see.
English speaking South Africans never developed a “culture” of their own. They speak English (with an awkward accent) watch FA cup, and thouroghly enjoy a nice cup of tea…just like their cousins back on Blighty. So when things go sour in SA they can simply take their burgundy passports and leave the country without losing out on much. Mere tourists they are, guvna!
Afrikaans (the only European language to develop outside of Europe) and the Afrikaners, on the other hand, are irrevocably bound to SA’s shores. Once Afrikaans lose its status as an academic language and become a “kombuistaal” again, the end of the Afrikaner nation will follow suit. Of course, we’ll never let this happen! Not ever! Not without a fight.
And yes, we want to be in charge…of our own affairs. Is that really so much to ask?
Shoddy journalism. Anyone that wants to insult the ‘koeksister’ monument is a closet racist as you can be bloody sure the prejudice runs deeper than the poor koeksister….read Afrikaners, Afrikaans. etc. etc
Read my wall on facebook if you dare. Im sick of racist liberals. Eet n koeksister boet and climb off your judgemental little thrown.
I´m not the least bit impressed with this writers awards. In fact one should be suspicious of such awards as they are usually only given to those who dutifully toe the PC agenda. And having read such sneeringly superior self-righteous slander, one should also question the alternative agenda of such a writer.
Methinks he is trying to say - “hey, folks, look at me, I´m not a racist like these apartheid-nostalgic Afrikaners. I´m an intellectual and a card-carrying anti-racist. Oh how pathetically un-original you sound Paul! Methinks he doth protest too much in trying to ingratiate himself with the ANC-cowed media in the hope they will throw him a tasty bone occasionally.
Mr McNally, your article was the first article I’ve read on thoughleader.co.za and due to it’s nature leave me with a very negative view of what is seen as thoughleader material. Although it does contain truths (I lived in Orania for 14 years, I now live in exile in Auckland, NZ), it leaves me with the feeling that this article is an exercise in descriptive cynical preconception. And as such seem to give us more of an insight into the writer than into the subject.
This then is my problem with such material on a website named thoughtleader.co.za. I sincerely hope that this is not what is seen as thoughtful commentary. We have a huge road ahead of us if we are going make South Africa a peaceful place to live, for all of its people. I hope that thoughtleader.co.za will publish thought provoking material that will help us on this way.
To any person who reads this because Orania is in the subject. I will suggest you visit Orania and spend time talking to the people. And hopefully find that the Orania Movement tries to be part of the search for a peaceful and prosperous future for our region. One where all ethnicities, cultures and individuals can find a place and way to attain the highest goals and ideals we can set for ourselves. One where even Afrikaners can have a place under the African sun.
As a student from the Western Cape please get a copy of the studies that was done by the Department of Psychology about racism at UCT. My friend get your own house in order before you come lashing Orania about things that you truly do not understand.
Hi Lunte,
Sure you will be welcome to take a tour of Orania! Talk to the people of the Orania Movement office at 0532070062. Please don’t let people like Paul scaremonger anyone about the nature of Orania. Over the years Orania hosted tourists of numerous countries, ethnicities and races. Recently I visited home and met journalists there from Argentina, (I think) Brazil and Germany. Bishop Desmond Tutu officially visited Orania, while I was there, as part of a tour making a promotional video for the World Cup 2010.
So I think you will find that being a black female taking a tour of Orania is nothing out of the ordinary. Hope all this put your mind at rest and that you will go visit Orania. And if you want you can even give some feedback about your visit here.
David Howard: The British had a mandate of no slaves? From under which rock did you escape?
The Afrikaner never held people in slavery. The racists that you find among the Afrikaner are found everywhere, all over the world in all strata of society. The British are the people who imported a class system to South Africa; the Afrikaner traded with and respected the indigenous people with whom they shared this country.
Slavery has been ingrained in the British DNA for centuries causing regular folk to rise up and behead their kings to escape the tyranny of slavery. So did the French, and many others. The elitists ventured on foreign excursions as a sign of prowess and power and brought with them slavery and oppression. When they couldn’t subdue the Afrikaner, they herded their women and children into camps and starved them to death.
In case you wondered, apartheid wasn’t slavery although it brought with it the breeding ground for racism; the same thing that happened to (British) elitism. If you know your history, you will see exactly what the Afrikaner feared most, and fought against, happened when the ANC were handed the keys of the kingdom.
Mourning Democracy on February 8th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
Dear Ms Lunte,
One of your glorious leaders and future president of South Africa, Julius Malema, visited Orania as a tourist just a couple of months ago. I hope this answers your question.
LOL @ the guy who says he’s in “exile” in NZ; that’s the funniest thing i’ve read all year
imagine comparing scurrying off to NZ to escape democracy, to the struggle our parents fought for all south africans’ (incl whites) freedom! “in exile in NZ”… *giggle*. there’s one to share with my friends at dinner tonight lol
The only sure-fire way to attract racists to Thought Leader is to blog about them… You seem to have effectively dangled the online carrot in front of their noses.
Rushdi,
Yeah, I can understand that you find that comment funny. During the years of the ’struggle’ we also found it funny that a few communists sitting overseas in Western countries claimed exile status. Learn from our experience and don’t just disregard this.
The Canadian government recently recognized the seriousness of the Afrikaner’s position in South Africa and gave this man refugee status: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=vn20090901040349609C242817. Unimaginable brutal murders are done on farms (and these are not normal criminality, see the comments from the Canadian authority). BEE means that many of my qualified engineering friends just can’t find a job in South Africa although their is a huge shortage of engineers.
I can see that you now live in a South Africa where you are the new privileged. Therefore you will find it funny when the new under-privileged flee from the new black racist South African ‘democracy’.
Johann Eksteen, thank you for your answer, but I’m offended that not knowing who I voted for, whether I’m a member of the ANCYL or NOT. You start your answer by saying “One of your glorious leaders…” on what exactly do you base this?
If he is MY ” glorious leader” than he is yours too!
Unless you are saying this because of my race…mmm which makes me a little weary of Orania…
Marius Redelinghuys,
The old Nats had the Swart/Rooi gevaar image on the brain and obsessed about it . In the same way you seem to obsess about your image of a racists behind every comment by a white .
Rushdi, be very afraid of your new-found privileged status. South Africa is not a democracy and in the true sense of the word, it hasn’t been one under the previous administration either. South Africa is a communist country. The only whiff of democracy is in the constitution.
The Afrikaner was shackled into bondage by the privileged status the government afforded him, which left him at a huge disadvantage to fend for himself as a ward of the state.
Remember, a government that fears the people is a government of free people. Any bribe from gov., regardless how good it sounds, is a sucker’s meal leading to bondage and tyranny, and communists know no other way of government but by dictatorial means. Government must always be regarded as the people’s enemy.
So, there is no real democracy to flee from. People who refuse to be slaves, will assess their circumstances and fend for themselves, wherever that leads them.
Mourning Democracy on February 9th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Dear Ms Lunte,
Thank you very much for the reply! Yes, I did made an assumption. You caught me out and I therefore apologize.
I assumed (correctly or incorrectly?) that you are a proud member of the Rainbow nation and that JM is (even if you don’t like the idea) a leader figure of your society…just as the jolly Zuma, Nzimande, Xingwana, van Schalkwyk and others.
I can or will not be associated with the above-mentioned characters. They are nothing to me, nevermind my leaders!
The fact is that a growing number of Afrikaners are no longer willing to accept the ANC’s hegemony over our affairs and are therefore seeking ways of disengaging from the Rainbow nation franchise in a peaceful manner.
Orania is not the Volkstaat that we seek, only a very important model experiment in the Afrikaner’s quest for self reliance. Hopenfully one day the Northern Cape will be dotted with “copies” of Orania!
We now longer trust the ANC with our Volk’s future and we planning to make some adjustments. We are not asking the Rainbow nation for any funds, special treatment, assistance (or approval, for that matter), but if you could have some understanding it would be greatly appreciated.
Mr McNally and the token (self-hating) Afrikaner, Mr Redelinghuys, have clearly shown that they have no understanding and of therefore no longer of any concern. I suspect that you, on the other hand, have a little bit more between the ears…
Marius
In your blurb you describe yourself as an “Alternative Afrikaner” and aspiring politician.
I have news for you, Boet. You won’t have many takers for your policies under Afrikaners or the rest of the electorate. Cope is not coping.
I am afraid that you have missed the boat. Under Zuma, there is a swing towards traditionalism.
Afrikaners are finding their voices – and it is not the “sorry that I live” bleating or berating their history. The majority of Afrikaners had enough of this handwringing.
They certainly have right to protect there language, culture, heritage and way of life. So the basis of your objection is they may not because they are white? I can defend there town entirely on race alone. White children under the age of 10 in South-Africa now make up less then 5% of that demographic group, most will however over the next 2/3 generation emigrate as has been the trend over the last decade or so with young whites. If there are no whites in South-Africa in what terms will you call it a multi racial South-Africa? To call a minority agitating for minority rights Nazi or racists (even if they are white) is as blatantly stupid as calling Hitler a cool hippie. You get black neighborhoods in Europe, Muslim communities in Europe, Black cities in America, gay communities, Rasta communities, Jewish communities, Chinatowns everywhere, and in the whole sub-Sahara Africa there is one white town, not 100 not a 1000, just one, and somehow this is suddenly an abomination to humanity, if you have a problem with it you are either extremely insecure or need a course in logic.
While I usually let this sort of thing go, your tragic miscategorization of history has moved me to retort.
First the issue of slaves. The introduction of slavery into the Cape by the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) occurred in 1658 and rapidly became an essential part of its labour supply. Although the Cape slave economy never reach a scale remotely comparable with cotton and tobacco plantations in the southern United States or sugar plantations, they were still a vital part of the Cape Colony. Most households had at least one slave, mainly for house work, and there were larger numbers on arable farms in the vicinity of Cape Town, although they were less important on cattle and sheep farms. The slaves were imported to supplement the labour of the Khoikhoi who had been driven to “take work” on white farms when they lost access to the land on which their nomadic existence had depended. The British government abolished slavery in 1834 although not all slaves were emancipated until 1838. But hey don’t take my word for it, check out page 51 in “An economic history of South Africa: conquest, discrimination and development” by C. H. Feinstein (http://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uEDe6FwZhk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR12&dq=Britain+abolition+of+slavery+1834+South+Africa&ots=Osa1Kyo_KN&sig=N-cSaljyNWbr8JtbHgZpEQMzTNk#v=onepage&q=slavery&f=false). Although any history book written before 1956 will do.
Oh and regarding the link between the Great Trek and the “slavery issue”. Nicely historians don’t have to guess on what part the abolition of slavery played in causing the Boers to trek northwards. Contemporary accounts written by the Trekkers themselves (as well as local Afrikaner/Dutch notables listed) Britain’s “unnatural” interference in the “proper relations between master and servants” as one of their primary complaint against colonial rule. Again you can check out page 30 of An economic history of South Africa: conquest, discrimination and development” by C. H. Feinstein (http://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uEDe6FwZhk0C&oi=fnd&pg=PR12&dq=Britain+abolition+of+slavery+1834+South+Africa&ots=Osa1Kyo_KN&sig=N-cSaljyNWbr8JtbHgZpEQMzTNk#v=onepage&q=Great%20Trek&f=false) but again any decent history book on the subject will do.
Really some of you guys lack even a basic understanding of history. I mean next you will tell me the Afrikaner Nationalist Party didn’t torture people, didn’t assassinate people, didn’t fighting bloody wars in Mozambique and Angola that kill thousands of citizens, didn’t enact mass censureship and exploitation etc. I mean I am all for putting the past behind us but first let us accept that there was a past.
One final thing: “If you know your history, you will see exactly what the Afrikaner feared most, and fought against, happened when the ANC were handed the keys of the kingdom?” Really? I don’t know my history? Really??? The alternative to the 1994 election was civil war and economic collapse. The Afrikaner would rather have that but a multicultural South Africa? The Afrikaner would rather hold forty million people under the hammer of oppression then allow the majority to rule? Really? Is that what you are saying? The current state of affairs is what the worst possible outcome of the 1990 transfer of power? Really?
It would seem that the Afrikaners are in a no-win situation with McNally - if they hire black help then they are exploiting the blacks; if they do it all themselves they are racists. That would indicate that the problem is not one of theirs, but of the journalist. Personally, I’m all for the Afrikaners - more power to them
It looks like someone took my advice and made a purchase at CNA…good on you, mate! So when you reached p.51 (5 days later) you were ready for you glorious come back here on Thought Leader. LOL!
Anyways, nobody here denies that the Afrikaner has made some mistakes in the past. What nation hasn’t? The Dutch (VOC) practiced slavery, that is true, but in the Afrikaner republics (the ZAR and Oranje Vrystaat) slavery wasn’t legal either. Check it up when you get a chance. The main reason for the Groot Trek was mainly because of the English (yes, your forefathers) who wanted to enforce their will on the Afrikaners. My forefathers (the Voortrekkers) were not having any of it, and neither will the current generation. We don’t want to assimilate into the “Rainbow” nation, finish en klaar! Do you understand this, my dear sir?
But please finish you new book, we can wait another 2 weeks or so. I wonder of Prof Feinstein will mention the conquest and discrimination in SA during British rule? Or the thousands of women and children that perished in camps…not in the name of an ideology, but because of something much more primitive…good old fashioned GREED!
And by the way, Orania is about the future, not the past. You should try and absorb that thought during your little sabbatical…if at all possible. I know it is hard, but you should at least try. Groete.
My belated response was not due to, as you seem to suggest, a deficiency of knowledge on my part but rather the chaotic work-schedule that informs my work at an establishment of higher learning. Normally, I would refrain from even a nominal attempt to address some of the gross inaccuracies that I am confronted with when I read comments on this website. But a rather beleaguered sense of my own educational vocation tempted me into this verbal maelstrom of accusation followed by counter-accusation. But I will admit that the lack of intellectual content that I am confronted with is at times so extreme that I have on occasioned dumbed down my own response to avoid habitual misrepresentation. For this apologise.
So let us deal with your criticisms in turn. You are correct that the ‘Afrikaner republics’ did not habour large legally defined slave populations. But we must understand this as a shift in the social and political construction of labour subordination in the context of the trekkers adopted ‘republican’ argo-economy. Although this is nominally accepted as part of the piquant of early Afrikanerdom (as you seem to suggest), it is perhaps more juridicious to consider alternative explanations. The de-escalation in access to non-local markets in the immediate post-Trek period or even the stark spatial environmental and geopolitical realities confronted by the early trekkers could be considered more primary causes. Indeed, to suggest that the shift away from mass slavery was part of an ideological revisionism of previously acceptable cultural and political norms would be a gross misrepresentation of the ideological temperament of the time and would ignore new forms of labour ‘compulsion’ practices adopted by the trekkers. Indeed, the infamous ‘Master and Servants Acts’ adopted by the ‘republics’ in the 1850s (modeled on colonial juridical examples of the Cape Colony of course) could be considered a far more accurate representation of a general ideological paradigm shift towards new forms of labour coercion and discrimination that were to be later ‘perfected’ in the later part of the 19th century.
But of course I digress… no what worries me is the positivist revisionism of the Oranian paradigm and what it is postulates for Afrikanerdom as a cultural entity in the context of a post-modern cosmopolitan understanding of the retention of localized identity within the shadow of a political transition away from traditional forms of ethnic chauvinism. Indeed, the post-Hegalian move away from the identification of identity principles as part of a conceivable ethnology (or a ‘biocultural-nology’ if you will) seems conjoined to this reality. In light of this connection, what concerns me is the deep counter-alternative to contemporary norms of cosmopolitanism that Orania-ism seems to symbolize.
@David Howard, you being an Englishman in Africa, this is what bothers me: “what worries me is the positivist revisionism of the Oranian paradigm and what it is postulates for Afrikanerdom as a cultural entity” (Ah, there’s that colonial thinking!)
What right do you have to be concerned with the Afrikaner paradigm? You clearly are not one of us, nor are you concerned for our wellbeing as clearly displayed by your long winded, excessively verbose tirade. So what then is it about our changing paradigm that concerns you? From the sliver of sense I was able to scrape from your pathetic rant, your issue is with Afrikaners seeing our history and culture in a positive sense. In other words, we must forever remain meek, sackcloth wearing, jannie-jammer-gat, sorry-we’re-alive drones just so that we fit easily into your little liberal “cosmopolitan” box?? God help us if we dare stray over the thought boundaries you and your ilk have so generously carved out for us.
I’ll have you know there is more than one political paradigm in this world and your intolerance for an alternative view is, quite frankly, disgusting. Especially from a so-called educator. Go peddle your social-anthropological, free-thought suppressing tripe to another ethno-cultural population group. We will define our identity in any way we choose! And if the current political trend is anything to go by (amongst Afrikaners), then I can assure you I am not alone in my views.
This article is very informative, despite it also being a completely savage, dishonest and deceptive abomination, replete with dirty tricks and a level of “journalistic” fraud that goes way beyond simple bias against Afrikaners.
Despite that I myself would not be allowed to live in Orania, as a white english man, I feel they have a right to preserve their threatened culture. They are living on private land. You came to them - they didn’t come to you.
What I’m left wondering is what your true motive is for such an insulting hit piece. Do you really feel so much hatred in your heart towards them, or are you simply trying to “prove” that you aren’t a racist by bashing those you accuse of racism?
Regardless of your motive, this article is journalistic career suicide.
Thanks for allowing the comments to be published though, both positive and negative. I must admit that both Johann Eksteen and John seem more level headed than yourself.
If Orania wasn’t so far from Cape Town I would love to visit. And, unlike yourself, I would happily pay for my meals and stay at a guest house.
Paul I can see by your photo that you never a knew south africa in the days when it was a safe and orderly place.
I doubt if it ever entered your mind while buying food in a supermarket that it was likely produced by an afrikaans farmer. Farmers who have suffered some 1600 brutal killings since 1994.The best farmers in Africa and the reason our politicians are so fat and sleek.
It is very clear in your article that you despised the Orania folk well before your visit but you my friend, are the despicable one .A south african who talks about another S african group as you do is clearly racist.My hope is that as you mature you will learn a little more about your fellow citizens. leo
To be honest, I think the whole concept of Orania is silly and backward and I must say Paul that your article is somewhat one sided & focuses mainly on mocking the concept with no real attempt to try and understand it.
That being said however, I cherish the idea of an Afrikaans homeland, where all the racists can club together and stay away from the rest of us that would prefer to move on, I cherish the idea of watching rugby at Loftus in PEACE without hearing comments and mockery about how we stole everything and now we want to take their sport as well!
If people want to act silly and suffer alone in the desert then let them be,atleast the rest of us wont have to deal with them!
I don’t know what I detest the most about your article and comments: The pretentious pseudo intellectual tripe (which acts as a veneer for…) or the blatant hate-filled yet self-righteous message. I move in academic circles here in Canada, and no-one would get away with this kind of prejudiced writing. Plus, Mr. Howard seems bent on impressing us with his use of a thesaurus - while it is clear he does not have much to say except celebrate the inexcusable vitriol flowing form Mr. McNally’s pen. Please Mr. Howard, realize that most people on this forum can see through your “Queen’s English”. Your anger and hatred is as clear as day.
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Paul McNally is the winner of a CNN MultiChoice African Journalist Award and a MPSA Pica for Public Interest Writer of the Year. He is a freelance journalist living in Cape Town.
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wow…this was really interesting and hectic to read.
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