Is SA ‘inclusive era’ supporting whites-only Orania?

By Kenni Gambo

THE existence of Orania in a free and democratic South Africa is strange not necessarily because it’s a contradiction to the policies of the ruling party, which describes itself as a progressive movement dedicated to fighting racism, but because it does not allow people who are not white to stay in this town.

It is one thing to have an area that houses a particular demographic but to find one that does not allow others to stay in it, is causing serious discomfort to those who feel that it goes against the kind of country the ruling party insists it is building.

In an era of inclusiveness and coalition politics where there seems to be a spirit of collaboration between different political parties with contrasting ideological outlooks, it could very much appear like this goes against the grain of government policy.

But this may not necessarily be the case….South Africa is an enigma when it comes to its population which is almost entirely mixed in many ways. Unlike many other Sub Saharan countries, it has a 4 million-strong white community, descendants of the colonials and those who joined the gold rush when the precious metal was discovered in Johannesburg.

It also has a 4,5 million-strong mixed race community called Coloureds who mainly descend from the Khoi-San people, the country’s first and original peoples. Add a spattering of Malaysian descendents who are known as Cape Malays and the biggest Indian grouping outside of India who live in Kwa-Zulu Natal and you will see that the country has a more varied demographic than any other nation on the motherland. This is something many people don’t understand because lots of them see Africa as the homeland of Black people, which is not entirely correct. If you look at present day Africa, the entire Maghreb area of North Africa it is not ruled by black Africans nor is Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Seychelles, Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar.

Mozambique and Angola have big multi-racial groups known as Mulattos and they form an economically active group in those lands so people of varying skin colours inhabit different parts of Africa. But because many Black Africans seem to believe that blacks should rule even those areas where they are not in the majority may be clouding their perceptions and therefore the Orania issue looks peculiar to them. Africa is not the home of only Black Africans; that is a simplistic and incorrect view.

Those who are lighter skinned and not colonial in origin like the Ethiopians and Khoisan are not less African than others because the sun is not as hot in their regions as it is along the equator. The migration of Black Africans from their Equatorial origins gave them the impression that all of Africa was once filled and ruled ONLY by people like them.

This may be the reason many blacks to the north find the Orania issue troubling.

They fail to see that Africa never was a homogeneous black-ruled continent from Egypt to the Cape and that not all brown skinned people look that way because of white-black liaisons. This will take time to understand and we must be patient as we build not only the Black nation but the entire African nation. It is because South Africa has a more holistic view of what being black is as it includes Coloureds and Indians whilst these countries have a more narrow definition of what being African is.

With Orania, the most troubling thing about this community is NOT the fact that it is white but that it is allowed to bar people of other races from settling there. But because it is built on privately owned land that was purchased from the ANC government, it is not a country but more a cultural enclave for those who feel swamped or do not want to mix or live with black people or be ruled by a black government.

Take your pick and you may be right. However not allowing others to live there if they so wish may not be a breaking of the law given the fact that private land has a different set of rules to public spaces which belong to government.

There the right of admission is often used to bar those one does not want there. I do not lose sleep over Orania because it has a right to exist in the form it has chosen BUT I am totally opposed to racism against any African, black or otherwise.

The writer Kenni Gambo is also the CEO of Listing 24 Seven