STUCK IN THE PAST
Inside creepy ‘Whites Only’ village Orania with own currency and bizarre rules… including asking permission for visitors
The 'peaceful' community has a violent past but big plans for the future
A PRETTY oasis in the sun-baked South African desert, Orania has neat white homes, manicured lawns, two modern schools and multiple churches.
But this quiet, remote village on the banks of the Orange River is different to other affluent areas of the country - because only white Afrikaners are allowed to live there.
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Potential residents are vetted and must be well-versed in the Afrikaans language and culture, and commit to employing only white Afrikaners.
They must adhere to strict Christian values, and unmarried couples are banned from living together.
The village has its own national holidays, its own currency - the Ora - and day-to-day life is governed by a bizarre set of rules including having to seek permission from the town council before receiving visitors.
While there is a low crime rate, the majority of men there carry guns in their belts as a matter of routine.
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Despite its archaic 'whites only' policy, families are reportedly flocking to move to the growing settlement - which has boomed in size from the 40 founding families of its 1991 inception to a population of over 3,000 today.
British journalist Ade Adepitan has become the first black man to live in the all-white community for a week while making new Channel 4 documentary Whites Only: Ade’s Extremist Adventure, which airs tonight.
Staying at a local hotel with stunning views over lush grounds and the beautiful river, he mingles with the residents of the village who believe they are “building a dream” in a South Africa rife with chaos and crime.
“At first glance this place is quite cool,” he says. “It’s leafy and it’s got a laid back feel to it, but then I notice all the men seem to be carrying guns, even when they are mowing the lawn.”
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Violent past
The original settlement was founded as a direct response to the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the overturning of South Africa’s racial segregation, or apartheid laws, a year later.
Carel Boshoff - son-in-law of the former prime minister and “architect of apartheid” Hendrik Verwoerd - led a small group of Afrikaners in purchasing a strip of land with the dream of setting up an independent state.
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Despite their claim to be a peaceful community, the 8,000 hectare site has a violent history.
Over 500 black squatters, who lived in the derelict buildings left behind by an earlier failed industrial project abandoned in the 1960s, were driven off the land using dogs, beatings and pistol whipping, according to research by Cambridge historian Edward Cavanagh.
Today the statues of five “architects and brutal enforcers” of the apartheid era, including Verwoerd, look over the town from Monument Hill, and apartheid flags fly in the streets.
Taken to view the statues by Orania’s marketing man Joost Strydom, Ade challenges the celebration of men who devised a system of power that benefitted the white minority on the back of the manual labour of the black majority.
At first glance this place is quite cool... it’s leafy and it’s got a laid back feel to it, but then I notice all the men seem to be carrying guns, even when they are mowing the lawn
British journalist Ade Adepitan
But Joost insists that, in banning black labour, Orania is the “antidote” to apartheid.
“I think the solution to that is Orania by not contracting out the tough manual labour but doing it all ourselves,” he says.
“Apartheid started because one group of people tried to rule over another group of people. Orania is the antidote to that.”
He also claims Orania is “diverse” because “Afrikaners are a diverse group of people".
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'Building the dream'
Local estate agent Marli says business is booming as more Afrikans - who make up just four per cent of the population - seek a safe haven from South Africa's crime-ridden townships.
The country has one of the highest crime rates in the world, with a murder rate of 45 per 100,000, compared to 6.3 in the US and under one per cent in the UK.
While the community has often claimed to be "crime-free", this has been widely disputed by others who claim statistics are not gathered there as they would be in the rest of the country.
Marli says customers want to move to Orania for "hope" and "safety".
South Africa is riddled with corruption and crime. A lot of my customers don’t have running water, it’s horrible
Marli, Orania estate agent
"People want services that work," she adds. "South Africa is riddled with corruption and crime. A lot of my customers don’t have running water, it’s horrible."
Much of the area is a building site as construction firms race to build houses to satisfy demand.
The eventual plan is to accommodate 30,000 people and expand into an area the size of England to become a fully-fledged Afrikaner nation state.
Marli spent ten years in the UK and said she felt safer there, but “decided to come to Orania to live the dream and build the dream”.
At the local school, kids learn the Afrikaans version of history and all lessons are taught in the Afrikaans language.
Willem - the 18-year-old grandson of Carel Boshoff - tells Ade he has not learned anything about former president Nelson Mandela in his school career.
His own father, Carel Jr, is the municipal leader of Orania and he expects he too will one day run the settlement.
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“I would stay true to the ideals instilled in Orania and keep the Afrikaans culture alive," he says.
“I have nothing against other cultures but I think we have to look after ourselves before we start helping other people.”
Willem’s father, the grandson of Verwoerd, insists there was no need to apologise for apartheid, telling Ade: “I did not learn to hate or that any of these policies were built on hate.”
He adds: “We are not excluding anybody by definition because they are of this or that racial category. Afrikaans needs a home as well.”
He dismisses calls for national unity as “modernist thinking” and “social engineering”.
We are not excluding anybody by definition because they are of this or that racial category. Afrikaans needs a home as well
Carel Jr
But black families living outside Orania have experienced horrific harassment at the hands of some of the residents.
One 55-year-old claimed he was chased by a truck with Orania stickers while walking home after an evening with friends and pushed his wife through a fence, telling her: “Now you must run.”
He said the guns carried by the residents scared him away from going near because “they will hurt you. There is nothing we can do”.
On the documentary Ade watches pupils perform a play about child-eating monsters who “look like monkeys and are uncouth and stupid” and are constantly outwitted by their "fair-skinned Afrikaans neighbours".
“I’m no English scholar but even I can see the symbolism,” Ade observes.
What is Apartheid?
Apartheid, translating to "apartness" in Afrikaans, was a legislative system that enforced segregation against South Africa's non-white residents.
It was the law of the land in South Africa for more than 40 years.
The controversial 1913 Land Act, enacted three years after South Africa gained its independence, initiated territorial segregation by forcing Black Africans to reside in reserves and outlawing their employment as sharecroppers.
Critics of the Land Act established the South African National Native Congress, which later became the African National Congress (ANC).
Following World War II and the National Party's rise to power in 1948, its exclusively white government swiftly implemented the pre-existing racial segregation policies.
The apartheid regime mandated that non-white South Africans, who constituted the majority, reside in separate areas from whites and use separate public amenities, severely restricting interactions between the two populations.
The Population Registration Act of 1950 paved the structure for apartheid, categorising all South Africans by race, including Bantu (Black Africans), Coloured (mixed race), and white groups.
Assuming office as prime minister in 1958, Hendrik Verwoerd fine-tuned the apartheid policy into what he termed “separate development.”
The 1959 Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act established ten Bantu homelands or Bantustans, which not only allowed the government to deny the existence of a Black majority but also diminished the likelihood of Black individuals uniting into a single nationalist movement.
The government then forced the relocation of Black South Africans from rural zones earmarked as “white” to the homelands, subsequently selling their lands to white farmers at reduced rates.
Between 1961 and 1994, over 3.5 million individuals were compelled to leave their homes and were relocated to the Bantustans, a shift that pushed them into deep poverty and despair.
Over the years, resistance to apartheid took many forms, from non-violent demonstrations, and strikes to political action and eventually to armed resistance.
In 1960, Sharpeville police shot unarmed Blacks protesting laws about passes with the Pan-African Congress (PAC), killing 67 and wounding over 180.
Nelson Mandela, co-founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"), the armed branch of the ANC, was imprisoned from 1963 to 1990.
His imprisonment garnered international attention and condemnation.
In 1976, Soweto's Black student protest against Afrikaans in schools met with police gunfire, escalating into a movement that, amid economic woes, spotlighted South Africa's apartheid globally.
By 1985, following UN condemnations and an arms embargo, the UK and US imposed economic sanctions on apartheid South Africa.
In 1989, under significant pressure, Pieter Botha made way for F.W. de Klerk, a fellow conservative who had consistently backed apartheid during his political tenure.
Adopting pragmatism, De Klerk dismantled apartheid laws, released Mandela in 1990, and by 1994, a new constitution and elections ended apartheid, establishing a majority non white government.
Since then, the ANC has been the dominant party in South African politics, leading the national legislature and governing eight of nine provinces, with the Western Cape under the Democratic Alliance.
The village is owned by the Vluytjeskraal Aandeleblok (Vluytjeskraal Share Block) company which, together with internally elected bodies, is responsible for the town’s municipal decision making.
Anyone who wants to move into the gated community buys shares in the company rather than the freehold of a house, and is carefully vetted.
No government funding goes into the settlement, but private investment, including rumoured donations from Donald Trump’s administration and Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, enable the vast construction projects.
During his visit, Ade was thrown out of the church when he tried to talk to the local pastor at a post service social, and says he felt “scared” being the only black man in the village.
“It’s too simplistic to brand everybody in Orania a racist, but if you live in the desert for 30 years not mixing with anyone, that’s going to lead to prejudice even if it wasn’t there to being with,” he says.
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“I think people in Orania are traumatised by their fall from power and are trying to recreate the past. It’s an extreme form of racial separatism.”
Watch Whites Only: Ade's Extremist Adventure on Monday, March 18 on Channel 4 at 10pm, or on Channel 4's On Demand streaming service.
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