After I graduated from high school in 2004, I was fortunate enough to visit South Africa for 2 weeks. Being so young and not knowing much about current world events and history, I was surprised to learn of apartheid and its relative upheaval. In order to comprehend the magnitude of apartheid, I had to compare it to my history of slavery (de jure discrimination) and Jim Crow laws (de facto discrimination).

At the time, I was shocked that the world allowed this regime for so long (later, I learned a bit about politics surrounding it, at least where the US was involved, so I get it, but I feel it was wrong). During those 2 weeks, the message I recieved from the black South Africans were that they were better off, yet that there was still a ways to go for equality.

I learned about the “Rainbow Nation” et cetera. I remember thinking that I hope that they look at history particularly US history and learn how to do this thing right. Looking at this again years later, I believe that it wasn’t done right. Firstly, affirmative action in practice does not work. In theory, it would give candidates who are qualified, but without experience, opportunities (somewhat akin to awarding a position to a recent college/university graduate over someone who was working in the industry for a few years).

In practice, its about quotas, nepotism, and usually ends in revengeful attitudes. Personally, I believe that education is the best way to achieve equality rather than affirmative action. It takes much more time and resources to structure a good education system and even more to wait to see any benefits when the youth graduate and begin working. Affirmative action is at best a Band-Aid covering a hemorrage. I believe that education could close the wound.
And as for Orania, I can see why people would want to isolate themselves from the problem. Truly, I can’t condemn them for wanting safety and self preservation. Historically, isolation and avoiding the problem rarely works over time. Also, I don’t think a government will allow anyone to secede from the country, at least without a civil war. I can see some arguing that this is secession or perhaps the first step to secession.

On the other hand, Orania seems very similar to the Jim Crow laws that ruled the US after the emancipation of the slaves and before the civil rights era of the 60s. These weren’t actual laws, but more of unwritten rules. It was just the way things were. There are no written rules in Orania. It just the way things are, no blacks. In the Yahoo article, someone stated that in order to live in Orania, one must be approved by an administration board. Also that no blacks would want to live there. Although that may be true, would a black person ever be approved to live in Orania? If one could match a white to a black and they nearly identical in many demographical area including age, income, etc.
If the only difference were that one was black and the other was white, and if the white person was approved to live in Orania, would the black person?
All in all, it saddens me to hear that the majority is essentially seeking revenge for all the years that they have been discriminated against. It is human nature, but it still is sad.

There are a lot of people who, when the apartheid era fell, were all willing and open to a country of equality – but over the years that willingness was dashed and abused until it no longer took any form. “Kill the boer”, no? I’ve done quite a lot of research on the issue of racism in SA – to be honest I know a lot of really AWESOME black people, but there is this shadow hanging over everything in this country.

People always need someone to blame when things in their lives go wrong…

I’ve heard people use the excuse used above “I was born into a poor household” and so I must be handed everything on a platter… riiiiight. I was born into a poor household too, but that doesn’t mean I expect everything to be handed to me on a silver platter. I guess that’s part of what makes us different, whereas I take responsibility for my actions, and WORK to succeed in this life most people find it easier to just b*tch and moan about everything that goes wrong and not actually contribute to making things right.

The majority of discussions I’ve read through always ended in a black person saying the whites MUST leave their country and that Africa belongs to the blacks. I’ve even read through a couple of discussions where black people encourage others to kill and torture white people. In all this (and I would like someone to prove me wrong) I have not once found a discussion where white people encourage others to kill and torture black people.

Please prove me wrong on that…

As for the original story, I think the idea behind Orania is a good one. Though it means isolation, the state of things in this country means there is no other way for white people to live. It would be better to live in Orania than to live in a state of constant fear in your own home.

With all the proclamations of “kill the boer” and all the rest of it, all the promises to make white people suffer… I think the idea of a white only town is valid.

‘things like BEE come in handy’ lol

As the son of an Afrikaans mother and English father who was brought up in the English culture, I can only admire a people who are prepared to stand up for their culture and language as those in Orania do. And to think that I am part of that culure.There is nothing wrong with it.

Why is it that the present government (or am I allowed to say the present regime) will support a Palestinian state separate from or incorporating parts of Israel, but when it comes to our people people taking the high road and yelling treason.

As a young Afrikaner, who had nothing to do with apartheid, I really tried to integrate into the New South Africa. I even learned “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika” off by heart! At the same time I maintained my pride as an Afrikaner and tried to live my life as best I could as a member of an ethnic minority ruled by a black majority in South Africa.

After a while I realised that the only way I could fully integrate into the new South African society was if I turned my back on my Afrikaner heritage, culture, language and traditions as there REALLY is no place for these in the new South African society – especially not in business.

As an entrepreneur I found the government’s enforced racial quotas and obession with black empowerment simply unacceptable. There were many other issues also troubling me at that time – such as openly advocated racism against Afrikaners, corruption on all levels (including the police), seriously high levels of violent crime on Afrikaners (especially those living on farms), a system undermining merit etc. but I’m not going to go into all that now as I would like to keep this as short as possible.

Instead of emigrating, as many Afrikaners do, I decided to visited Orania first as I really didn’t want to leave my fatherland. What a revelation it turned out to be! I immediately felt at home and was really impressed with the positive attitude of Oraniërs. I visited Orania a few times during the past year and have now bought land and started my own Orania-based travel company. I want to allow other Afrikaners the opportunity to have the same experience I had when I first discovered Orania. It gives my people sincere hope for the future of the Afrikaners, which is more than I can say about any other inisiative launched by the liberals in this country.

Orania will grow from strength to strength and the Afrikaner will have their own independent state again in the near future. We’ve learned from our forefathers’ mistakes and are now moving on by doing everything ourself.

We’ll do our part for Africa as we are an indigenous volk (people) of Africa. We share in this continent’s pain and pleasure… but we aren’t willing to continue to suffer under a hostile regime that isn’t showing any sign of protecting our best interests.

After all, we have the right to rule ourselves – same as the French, Germans, Japanese, Swazi’s etc. especially seeing that it is in our best interests to do so. By denying us this right, as most liberals seem to do, our human rights are grotesquely undermined and we simply won’t stand for it.

We want peace, which is why we want freedom in our own independent state. Orania is the first step towards obtaining our objective.