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I can’t help but laugh at myself to a pulp when hearing the star-shattering philosophies of journalists visiting this little town on the border of the Cape lands. The reason why is actually very simple, and I request you all to visit this little town with me to find out why.
So on route to this tried to be forgotten son of Africa, I notice something fairly interesting, there were no signs pointing to Orania. If not for my trusty Google map empowered GPS navigator I probably would have driven straight into the sea. Nonetheless, I managed to fumble my way into this heart of hell town where the remnants of apartheid “were busy building a new army of racist moppets” (actually quoted from a completely different section of comments about the town).
First and foremost I would like to present my downgrades. There were no shops open as late as the shops of Pretoria. Bastards. How could they not understand that as a foreigner I should be able to enjoy shopping for things till late at night?! How evilly racist. I Think.
For breakfast I decided to go to the delicately racist five star Oewer Hotel for breakfast. Despite their succulent advances I managed to wave off their evil racist hands asking me to join them in their five star Spa for a picante massage. Bastards.
Still, I enjoyed their lovely racist eggs and bacon and their evil “whites only” coffee. Oh wait, there were no signs indicating the aforementioned biases other than this posting. In fact, those “evil bastards” gave me half a cappuccino with extra milk to my liking. Good luck getting that at most other franchises.
I went on the “evil racist” tour through the “evil racist” town and saw many interesting monuments. Including the Irish monument which caused such an uproar. For those that do not know, the monument was placed at the Brixton unit, but was removed as a piece of rubble when the site was cleaned up, and after the VF+ decided to donate a large sum of money they moved and preserved the piece at Orania, only later to hear that it “was a piece of heritage that needed to be returned.” Just a shame that no one made such a ruckus until the piece was in Orania itself.
Still, it is pretty cool that people now want to fight for it, if only they did so while it was lying on the trash heap.
To cut a long story short though, I enjoyed many interesting curiosities while in the “he who shall not be named village.” I noticed many social engineering feats such as the bicycle harbours (bicycles kept under free-for-all roofed huts) which people can use to travel across town (only to leave the bicycles for the next needed party). What about the Earth Ship? The only known (by me to be fair) self-sustaining house built entirely out of recycled materials.
Or the solar-powered parking lots acting as a pilot project for introducing solar-powered energy into the city designed with the purpose of testing centres for whether certain towns at least could run without the help of Eskom (which they should be thankful for considering another tower “cracked”) or even with the intention of selling power to Eskom if needed (thank the lord!).
Or what about the two major (might be more, but I only noticed two) charity projects single handedly constructing and maintaining multiple houses for people in need, Including housing schemes for single women, single men and housing schemes for families. Those “evil mother” oh wait, did I mention that they host shopping malls, liquor stores and other various shops frequently visited by people of other colours (shhhhh, don’t tell the owners).
Oh snap, that is true, people that are not white are more than welcome to visit the shops, any colour. So where do the comments of Orania being a “whites” only town come from?
Oh, it must be for the persons owning property? Right? Wrong. Orania’s law specifies that no shop is allowed to chase away any races. In fact, every shop I went into were not only visited by, most of them were serving *whisper*black people*. Let me specify this loud and clear, since people seem to get stuck on this point, Orania is not about colour, it is about language and culture. Can you imagine living in a society where you can’t enjoy your own culture and language? I can (but that is a different story).
Let me tell you a short story. After enjoying a rock concert presented by some excellent bands, me and my girlfriend started walking to our cabin a few kilometres away. We saw a shadow behind us. “Ah damn” I thought while searching for my knife hidden in my socks. “It’s go time!” I peered behind me waiting for the perfect angle to stab my would-be assailant, only to realise it was a thirteen year old -ish girl.
Yeah . . . let me spell this out for you. The greatest danger I faced there was a young lady that was not scared to walk home on her lonesome. Try that it in Pretoria.
To some up: I went to the town considered to be the most racist in South Africa and heard not a single racist comment until I left the quaint little town. The same town that was visited and served by Julius Malema and Jacob Zoomer themselves and that they described as “working”. Interestsing
So when I returned and saw that a paper as awesome as the Mail & Guardian was posting was posting a few pages on the town I thought it would be interesting, until I heard the comments of people threatening to bomb the town, kill the inhabitants etc. etc.
Why is this town such a threat to the average reader of a newspaper? A small town consisting of the minimum of people, who not only bought the town once, but twice (since there was a land claim called on their land they decided to put in a cash offer accepted by the land claimers?!).
Why is this teeny tiny itsy bitsy little town such an insult to the rest of SA. Hell, tonight I read an article by a Mail&Guardian journalist with nothing but contempt for this town.
Well, I dare you, decide why this town shouldn’t exist, and interestingly enough I believe I can prove why you are wrong.
