Orania was premiered at Raindance Film Festival in London in September 2012. They reviewed the film thus: “It is easy to come to Orania with a whole heap of preconceptions. A documentary about the anonymous town founded in 1991 only for Afrikaaners – white South African descendents from the original Dutch settlers – it is unsurprising that the place has garnered such a negative image within the post-Apartheid nation. It would be easy to play on the town’s obvious eccentricities and portray it as a kind of South African Royston Vasey*, but rather than ridicule his subjects Tobias Lindner’s frankly stunning documentary sets out to get to know them better …” (Dean Bowman). In fact the laurels like that of Dean Bowman are gaining in prestige.
I have seen the film and do have my reservation about Orania. Firstly, there is a limited view of the place. Very few of the population or their activities were caught by the camera. Male interviewees dominated the screen depicting a classical male chauvinistic congregation.
I am not minimising the efforts of Tobias Lindner. On the contrary I view his production as a very courageous and welcome effort. But I cannot escape the fact that he, like some of the other reviewers, are seeing this from a very innocent academic angle. Menschen von außen(People from the outside). You are trying to give these monsters a human face which does not exist.
I, like thousands of my fellow freedom fighters, view these neo-Fascists with a jaundice eye. After all we were on the spot and at the receiving end of the apartheid stick. That was not academic. It was damn painful. We know what these people are capable of. There is no doubt in my mind that they are biding their time. Waiting for the great Boere National Vrystaat (Afrikaner National Free State) to be declared.
Nor must one overlook the fact that these founders of Orania still live in the right-wing conservatism of the Voortrekkers and their ideological hero, Hitler’s Nazi Germany. There were a number of South African fascist groups, like the grey-and-black shirt movements, who were fanatical supporters of Hitler’s attempt to bring the world under the diktat of his jackboots. Without doubt they were a “fifth column” for the Dritte Reich in South Africa. One thing must be said of this group, they are patient.
At that time some of these Nazis were arrested and imprisoned for various periods, which was always short. BUT, when the Nationalist Party of D. F. Malan (a die-hard Nazi) surprisingly won the all-white General Elections in 1948, this fifth column not only took over the national cabinet, they simply grabbed the entire civil service. And the country, which they ruled with an iron hand for 58 years and protected by the Western “Democracies”.
The militant ultra-rightwing Boere groups of today make no bones about their admiration for the Dritte Reich. A twisted version of the swastika is the symbol of these neo-Nazi thugs. I do not trust the Orania gang. Unfortunately, there are many such communities existing in the country, although they are not so brazen, as the lot in the Karoo.
What is Orania?
In December 1990, about 40 Afrikaner families, headed by Carel Boshofff, bought the dilapidated town. It was a construction camp of builders of the Vanderkloof Dam on Orange River for around US$ 200,000. It was purchased from the Department of Water Affairs, which built the town for the workers building a canal utilising the water in the Orange River, when that project was completed. Carel Boshoff was the son-in-law of H. F. Verwoerd, the main architect of modern day apartheid.
Orania was founded in 1991 by a group of die-hard racist Afrikaaners wanting to establish their own independent “Boerestan”. A state within a state, with their own language and culture. Normally no one will have any problem with the preservation of cultural values. When that culture is steaming with hatred and racism, then it has to be seen for what it is. The only language allowed is Afrikaans. Blacks are not allowed entry to the place except in some circumstances like carrying out municipal services. (Wikipedia).
This deal was confirmed by Mohamed Valli Moosa then Minister of Constitutional Development. Speaking in Parliament on 5 June 1998, he made the following statement. “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 deal”.
This type of Boers from Orania, do not view the Black community as human beings. They misuse the Bible for their own bigotry. This point is amply dealt with by the former Anglican Dean of Johannesburg, the Very Rev Gonville Aubie ffrench-Beytagh (1913 – 1991) in his book Encountering Darkness (Collins St James’s Place, London, 1973). The Dean, an anti-racist man of the cloth, was arrested in early 1971. He went on trail in August of that year and in November 1971 he was convicted on ten points of subversive activities against the state and sentenced to five (5) years imprisonment. His conviction was later set aside on appeal.
An interesting revelation is made by the Dean when describing his interrogation by the South African Security police. On page 7 of his book, the Dean writes:
“‘You don’t preach Christianity, you preach shit!’
For eight days, I had this kind of abusive violence screamed at me, alternating with endless questions and long hours alone in my cell. Some of it I found very hard to stand. But through all my arrest, interrogation and trial, nothing gave me such appalling shock as a casual remark during a ‘soft-sell’ period when my three interrogators were chatting to me over a cup of tea – a remark which had nothing to do with me personally at all.
They were asking me about the Church’s attitude to the Immorality Act**, which forbids sexual intercourse between Europeans (whites – es) and people of other races. Sometimes before, one of the bishops had condemned this Act and said that men and women should be able to marry each other if they wished, regardless of their colour. My interrogators were completely unable to understand this.
‘Surely you know’, they said, ‘that, sexual relationships between black and white are forbidden in the Bible?’
This I flatly denied.
They reiterated that I would find it in the Old Testament. I asked them what they meant. ‘Well’, they replied, ‘don’t you remember that it says in the Old Testament – A man may not mix his seed with that of an animal’”.
In other words black people are animals and have no right to be members of the white ‘holy’ society. Is this a thinking of the past? Most certainly not. At the same time it must be pointed out that enlightened Boers, young and old, will have nothing to do with this lot. They have found a place in the non-racial society and are making useful contributions for the benefit of South Africa as a whole.
The preservation of culture is a laudable undertaking. South Africa is full of various cultures and the constitution encourages their preservation in a non-racial, non-sexist environment. What is wrong with the Orania gang and their hangers-on is that they are full of hatred and racism.
Maybe, a book review I read a few days ago by a colleague of mine – Detlev Reichel*** – would be of considerable help in assisting the new generation (and the old hardliners) to honour and preserve Boere identity and culture.
Detlev reviewed Francois Loots’ Rooi Jan Alleman which deals with the life of a great South African patriot Bram Fischer. At the end of his review, Detlev Reich offers this advice to the young Afrikaaner Youth.
“Many young (white) Afrikaners, especially after the fall of Apartheid, are on the search for a new identity. History offers them personalities like Rev. Christian Beyers-Naude (Oom Bey) and Bram Fisher to emulate”.
Bram Fisher and Oom Bey were two giants in the fight for freedom and justice for all. Both suffered the wrath of the mighty apartheid juggernaut. Bram was sentenced to life imprisonment although he was allowed “leave” to die in his brother’s house. Oom Bey was constantly harassed by the apartheid security forces. Surprisingly though, in their youth, both were fanatically and enthusiastically immersed in the pukka ultra-conservatism of their families who occupied a very high pedestal in Afrikaner society.
This changed when both of them grew older and realised that the path they were following was wrong. Bram Fisher later joined the Communist Party and Oom Bey threw himself fully into working with the people at grassroots level in the poor communities. Today, one of the most important thoroughfares in Johannesburg bears the name Beyers Naude. In December 2012, to mark the 100th Anniversary of the African National Congress, President Jacob Zuma renamed the Bloemfontein Airport to Bram Fisher International Airport. Fisher’s two daughters were present at the ceremony.
The perpetrators of the Orania mentality would be well advised to put aside the hatred of their former Generals and leaders. They should stop surrounding themselves with busts of an imbecile like Hendrick Verwoerd. Verwoerd only knew hatred and preached it. He had a “good” teacher – Adolf Hitler.
The contributions of Bram Fisher and Oom Bey for the Boere Community and South Africa are enormous, waiting to be researched, and put into action for the benefit of the people of South Africa in the years to come. That is a challenge which should be taken seriously.
PHAMBILI ! (forward).
Footnotes:
* Royston Vasey is a fictional settling of the BBC TV comedy series The League of Gentlemen. It is an imaginary town supposedly located somewhere in the north of London.
** The people most arrested and jailed under this stupid Act were Boere men especially from the police force.
*** Detlev Reichel is a German Journalist working in South Africa at the moment. He spent many years in the Western Cape Province as a young boy where his father was in charge of a church in one of the rural areas. This is how he learnt his Afrikaans.