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For many people it may come as a surprise to learn that Orania is in fact older than the New South Africa. On 6 April 2011 the residents of this Afrikaner town celebrated their community’s twentieth anniversary. A lot has taken place during the past two decades, perhaps most notably the proverbial winds of change that have indeed swept across South Africa.

Change was necessary. The founders of Orania realised this fact during the early 1980s and argued that the apartheid system was not in the best interest of the Afrikaner or any other culture living in South Africa. This point of view was based on the principle that a minority cannot rule over a majority indefinitely, as was mistakenly believed by most white South Africans for far too long. A new solution had to be found in order to ensure peace and prosperity for all the people of South Africa.

This point of view made the founders of Orania unpopular in the eyes of many who tried to conserve white minority rule over South Africa. The apartheid regime considered Afrikaner protagonists for change in the same light as traitors and abstained from answering the serious questions that conservative anti-apartheid Afrikaners started to raise. While the National Party government left these questions unanswered, political unrest threatened to boil over and it seemed inevitable that either civil war or black majority rule would bring an end to white political dominance in South Africa.

What will happen to the Afrikaner should the ANC come to power? Could the Afrikaner people’s safety be guaranteed under black majority rule? Will the Afrikaners’ schools and universities remain Afrikaans? How will transformation affect unemployment under Afrikaners? What will become of land owned by Afrikaners?

These questions have to a great extent been answered since 1994 and the result is that the Afrikaner people, as a collective, are currently in a detrimental position. Individualism, emigration, poverty and a degree of disillusionment with traditions, culture and identity are only some of the negative factors that have become part of contemporary Afrikaner society.

Nevertheless, the Afrikaners who were to become the founding fathers of Orania did indeed advocate the answers to their own questions as early as the mid 1980s. Their solution to ensure the Afrikaners’ physical and cultural survival in Africa entailed that the Afrikaner people must have their own territory where they can exclusively rely on their own labour in order to build and manage their own institutions. The territory in question must be large enough to ensure that a significant number of Afrikaners can survive in a self sufficient state in order to create a sustainable future for generations to come.

South Africa as a whole was indeed too large a territory as the Afrikaner population accounts for only approximately 2.5 million people. Due to the demographic dispensation of South Africa, the North Western Cape was identified as the only region in the country where Afrikaner self determination could be peacefully implemented.

Subsequently, the first of many envisaged Afrikaner settlements in this region was founded on the banks of the Orange River in the Upper Karoo on 1 April 1991. Orania became the first community in Africa where white Africans willingly broke the chains of what was essentially colonialism in order to have a society where self determination can be attained by relying solely on their own labour.

In 1996 Article 235, i.e. the right to territorial self determination for communities sharing a common culture and language, was included in the Constitution of South Africa. Orania is therefore a territory within which Afrikaners are legally exercising their right to self determination.

Orania is governed by a democratically elected town council, which is responsible for supplying municipal services to the community. The town has grown significantly during the past five years and is currently home to nearly 1 000 permanent residents. There are more than 10 000 people who are subscribed members of Orania, that is, people who do not currently live in the town but are actively part of the community and contribute to the economy.

The town has its own monetary system and cooperative bank. Orania’s main economic sectors are agriculture, tourism and construction. Unemployment is very low at 2% and crime is uncommon. In addition to the two schools in Orania, a technical training centre is currently being built in order to supply the town’s high demand for technically skilled workers.

On Thursday 5 June 1998, Mohammed Valli Moosa (then minister of constitutional development in the ANC government) stated during a parliamentary budget debate that "the ideal of some Afrikaners to develop the North Western Cape as a home for the Afrikaner culture and language within the framework of the Constitution and the charter of human rights is viewed by the government as a legitimate ideal".

In December 2000, the Northern Cape High Court in Kimberley ruled that Orania’s existing transitional representative council will remain in place following an effort by the Northern Cape provincial government to abolish the council in a bid to include Orania in the Thembelihle (Hopetown) Municipality.

A compromise was reached between Orania’s town council and the government that the town will fall inside the borders of the Thembelihle Municipality but it was accepted that the Thembelihle Municipality will neither provide services in Orania nor receive taxes from Orania.

During the 2011 municipal elections, Orania once again held its independent representative council elections. Orania’s own elections was a success with a voter turnout of 70%. Having such a large voter turnout to elect an independent representative council proves that the community is adhering to the High Court ruling that the town’s independent council must remain in place.

In addition to over 400 residents of Orania who are registered to vote at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) station in Orania, some farmers and their workers who live outside the borders of Orania are also registered to vote in Orania. The town council had no objection to allow the IEC to set up a voting station in Orania. However, only 13% of the 465 people registered to vote at this IEC station cast their votes.

Taking into consideration the Afrikaners’ future in Africa, Article 235 of the Constitution, the 2000 High Court ruling and the fact that this thriving Afrikaner community is successfully governed by its own democratically elected Afrikaner leaders, one can understand why it is only in this community’s best interest that Orania remains firmly in Afrikaner hands.

Orania’s walk to freedom may still be long but it is a journey that this community is happy to be embarked on as the Afrikaner people are as much a part of Africa as Africa is a part of them.

Quintin Diederichs

Head of Orania Tourism