From a distance, Orania looks like another small city in the countryside of South Africa.
But once inside, visitors are beaten by clear differences.
Everyone here is white.
And in a country where crude work in a rich area is usually done by black people, white people here supermarket floors, using leaf blowers and harvesting nuts on the pecan farm.
Orania is a special city of white people in a country that has declared the end of racial separation.
The history of this discrepancy originated in 1991, when Apartheid was in his death.
AFRIKIER White-Dutch colonial descendants of the 17th-century-buying 8,000 hectares (19,000 hectares) of land on the edge of the Orange River, in the Karoo region which is rare.
Using autonomous status under the post-apartheid constitution, they created a private city that so far only recognized white people.
At present, the population of Orania has jumped almost 10 times, reaching around 2,500, and the economy is booming.
Old Dutch Hobnob-style houses with modern townhouses, separated by low or absent walls, but gardens. Children ride bicycles and adults jogging freely on clean streets.
The Orange-White-White-White-White-White-White-White-White Flag under Apartheid-Berkibaran in the afternoon wind at the construction site.
‘Not racist’
Sensitive to the accusation of racism, residents insist that they are not the nostalgia of the Apartheid era but a community that pursues “freedom with responsibility”.
This means, in their view, a community that manages its own affairs, far from crime, deduction of power, dysfunctional local government and other problems that are disturbing South Africa today.
“People -people see Orania and may see no black workers … and their first idea is ‘Wow, these people must be racist’, that does not happen,” said Wynand Boshoff, 52, a pioneer.
In the rich suburbs in other places in South Africa, manual work is done almost exclusively by black people.
But Orania said it had broken up with the practice of colonial and apartheid era workers.
“We do our own work, from gardening to cleaning our house, our own toilet to construction, all of them,” said spokesman Joost Strydom.
Orania, he said, is the only community that avoids the “cheap black labor system.”
Autonomy
Under the South African Constitution, Orania has the right to self -determination and operate independently from the central government.
It has its own currency, ora, pegged one-to-one for Rand.
The city is also looking for energy independence through the sun, in a country that is mostly supported by coal and far into the energy crisis.
Prospective residents are examined and may not have criminal records.
“This is like going to marriage,” said Strydom, 28 years old who was born in the southeastern province of Kwazulu-Natal.
Prospective residents must “share values and subscribe” to the destination of the city, he said, insisting Orania is not “racist” or “grip despair returning to Apartheid”.
Boshoff said no one stopped the non-white Afrikrika to apply for it, no one had ever done it.
“We haven’t found anyone,” he said.
Boom
Orania’s population has grown up to 17 percent per year in recent years, and in 2021 new business creations have risen by a quarter, said Strydom.
“Suddenly other communities say ‘how can we learn from you?’,” He said.
When the AFP journalist was in the new Orania, several traditional kingdoms from the Xhosa and Tswana ethnic groups were in the city during “diplomatic” visits.
“It is important for me to go … is it true or wrong, there is a success story there somewhere,” said Gaboilelwe Moroka, Head of Boo Boo Seleka who is 40 years old, part of the ethnic group of Tswana in a neighboring neighbor who is close to neighboring neighbors Neighbor’s neighbor neighboring neighbor neighboring neighboring neighbor neighboring neighboring neighbor’s neighbor neighboring neighbor neighboring neighbor neighbor neighboring neighbor neighbor neighboring neighbor of the State Province.
“It is unfortunate that these things are too politicized,” he said.
Boshoff, grandson of Apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd, argued that Afrikher created Orania because they needed a place to call home.
“Every African tribe or clan has their own place they use as a reference point,” said Boshoff, who is also a member of the right wing parliament in the national parliament.
Orania has “become part of the South African landscape”, he said, after delivering a sermon on Sunday morning at the Dutch Reformed Church.
Afrikaner world
Private cities like Orania are not unusual, said Sandile Municipal Governance expert Swana.
“You will see more than this,” Swana said.
“The only difference with Orania is that they have chosen their own ethnic and cultural background” as a prerequisite.
Another Afrikaner city that is only Afrikaner, Kleinfontein, is located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) outside the capital of the “Pelangi Nation”, Pretoria.
The first black president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, tried endlessly to reconcile a very divided country.
He visited Orania in 1995 and drank tea with Verwoerd widow. The white tea they drink is one of the memorabilia which is neatly arranged in a simple White House where Betsie Verwoerd has spent her last years.
Outside the church, Ranci Pizer, a former 58 -year -old government worker who moved to Orania from Pretoria in December, said he enjoyed more social interaction with neighbors on the streets.
“This is a community where I can express myself in my own culture,” he said.
The short journey to the hill is a collection of statues donated by people who no longer want to have something to do with the history of Africaner after the fall of Apartheid.
“The history of Afrikaner is almost criminalized,” Joost said.