Orania

Orania is a small town of South Africa located in the province of the Cape-of-North, in the area of the Désert of Karoo.

Orania is a South-African exception because it is an only white enclave and afrikaner. It constitutes the embryo of Volkstaat.

Orania is the heiress of movements separatists boers as Oranjewerkers which had planned to create in the Eighties an autonomous community with Morgenzon in the Transvaal.

Geography

Orania is located in Large Karoo at the extreme East of the province of Cape-North, along left bank of the river Orange, which form at this place the administrative border with the province of the State-Free . It is located close to battle fields of the Guerre of Boers, in particular Orange To rivet it Station, one of the first Concentration camps set up by the Britannique S, in 1901, where died of hunger, disease and sorrow of the women and the children boers.

History

Carel Boshoff, Theology N and son-in-law of the former Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd (one of the architects of apartheid), is the founder of this white enclave. In December 1990, it is under its direction that 40 afrikaners families settle in this small concession abandoned of ten houses and repurchased by Boshoff with the South-African government at the price of 200.000 USD. A few months before, the South-African government had released Nelson Mandela of prison, had legalized ANC and had started negotiations aiming putting an end to the mode Apartheid and at proceeding to the first multiracial elections.

The city is henceforth the possession of " Vluytjeskraal Aandeleblok company" whose president, Handles Opperman, became the Maire of the town of Orania. The name " Vluytjeskraal" comes from the name of the farm on which Orania was built.

The objective of Orania is to preserve the culture afrikaner by creating a city reserved to the practitioners of the language Afrikaans and who recognize themselves in the cultural heritage of the Boer S. It is the Embryon of Volkstaat intended to ensure the cohesion of the people afrikaner under a direction afrikaner.

In 1995, the South African president Nelson Mandela went to Orania to take there the with Betsie Verwoerd, the widow of Hendrik Verwoerd, person in charge of her setting in detention in 1963. This gesture legitimated Orania and the project of Volkstaat defended at the Parliament by Constand Viljoen and the Front of freedom. Thus, the municipal officials of the city refused to integrate Orania with Hopetown and Strydenburg within the same municipality.

In 2000, a judgment of the High court of Kimberley refused to slice and enjoignit the government and the residents of Orania to take again negotiations to compromise on the statute of the city.

In April 2004, Orania launched its own currency the Ora .

In November 2005, Orania is the center of a conference on the right of Afrikaners to self-determination in South Africa in which takes part several South-African intellectuals like Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, former chief of the parliamentary opposition progressist anti-apartheid to beginning of the year 80, the former vice-chancellor of the Université of South Africa, Marinus Wiechers or the business man (resulting from communautée from the coulored , mongrels of the Cape), Jakes Gerwel. If the majority of the assistance declares itself hostile with the principle of territorial separation with South Africa, the participants propose alternative solutions in Volkstaat and réaaffirment their support for the principle of autonomy and free self-determination of the people composing South Africa.

At the time of the municipal elections of 2006, the rate of participation of the inhabitants reached 80% (against 49% nationally). To the 484 direct votes of the residents of Orania 700 votes by Internet sympathizers established out of the city were added.

The voters proceeded only to the elections of the city council men, always refusing to recognize the integration of Orania in a municipal district more widened.

In June 2007, the representatives of the mongrel locality of Eersterus, located close to Pretoria, came in Orania to study the model of self-determination of the city in order to try to apply it on their premises.

In July 2007, the negotiations on the municipal statute of Orania begin again between the representatives of the locality afrikaner, the provincial government, the municipalities of Thembelihle and of Pixley ka Seme in co-operation with the executive direction of the ANC. At the national level, the face of freedom starts new discussions on self-determination with the government. While waiting to slice definitively on the administrative statute of Orania and its possible transformation into municipality independent of category C (local municipality) or its inclusion in that of Thembelihle, the city collaborates with the latter in the economic development of the area.

Organization

For Carel Boshoff, the development of Orania rests only on two principles that of the self-determination and the question of work it is necessary to be self-sufficing and not to depend on external workers. As soon as you accept external workers, it is necessary to give them political rights and a place where to live. And there, it is a scenario which resembles a return to old South Africa. To obtain self-determination, you must be ready to work (...). What we built, our language, our traditions, our identity, all that must be preserved. If not, all will disappear. We are anxious. As others worry about the disappearance of the white rhinoceros or the leopard .

Orania falls under the concept of Volkstaat whose principles are envisaged by section 235 of the South-African Constitution of 1996 and who guarantees the right to self-determination within the Republic of any cultural community and language, established on the South-African ground. To in no case, it is not a question of preserving a lifestyle set up under apartheid but rather of making it possible at a community of language, culture and identity common, nonfounded on racial principles or sexes, and established on a territory geographically limited, the right to be able to assert a political autonomy.

For its detractors, Orania and those the such Inkatha Freedom Party which defend the concepts separatists or separatists are rémanations of the indigenous reserves of old the Colonie of the Cape or Bantoustan S set up under the Apartheid.

For the writer and Journaliste of the Mail and Guardian , Christopher Hope, Orania practice the Autogestion more the Ségrégation. Using renewable energy and the organic farming, the citizens of Orania state to have two models that are the Israelis and the Amish.

Population and language

Orania counts 600 afrikaners families. Thus, it there not of established blacks with Anglophone Orania neither of white S or Portuguese-speaking S nor of Mongrel although sharing the same common language with Afrikaners. The language Afrikaans is the only official language of the city. It is the language of the Boer S and the Métis of the Cape. It is the native tongue of the majority of the inhabitants of the province in which Orania is located.

It is in the context of the animated debate on the defense of the culture Afrikaans and the recombining of the identity afrikaner, that in February 2007, Orania accommodated a concert of the singer Bok van Blerk, author of the tube Afrikaans Of Rey, devoted to a former general Boer.

Economy and agriculture

The economic model of Orania takes as a starting point the colony S Juive S of the West Bank. The board of directors of the city maintains thus close contacts with Israel, " example of construction of a nation" and the young farmers leave regularly in training course to work in the Kibboutzim and to study the novel methods of plantation

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