Posted on 11/29/2002 8:38:04 AM PST by yankeedame
Whites flock to isolated desert enclave
November 30 2002
An Afrikaner enclave on the edge of a desert is being flooded with applications from whites disillusioned with the country's black government.
Founded in the early 1990s as white rule ended, Orania was an attempt by Afrikaner purists to preserve their culture around an independent Boer republic.
The founding fathers expected thousands to join them but only 600 moved to the dusty, windswept town on the edge of the Karoo desert.
Now, with a widespread fear that South Africa will follow Zimbabwe into political and racial turmoil, Orania is beginning to fill up.
"We are overwhelmed by calls from people inquiring about moving here," said John Strydom, a doctor who moved to Orania five years ago. "We have had 200 calls and emails in the last month alone."
The residents decry violence and choose their words carefully to emphasise the incompatibilities between the Afrikaner and African cultures. "These people are professionals who don't mind taking money from blacks, having them as customers or employing them cheaply. But they can't tolerate the idea of them having any power," said Wynand Boshoff, a grandson of Hendrik Verwoerd, the former prime minister and architect of apartheid.
Whereas the old nationalist rulers advocated racial separation yet relied on cheap black labour, the Oranians are prepared to get their hands dirty. Riekie de Jager, 62, admitted that she missed the services of the black staff she left behind to move to Orania two years ago. "But I am happier here with people like myself," she said.
The Telegraph, London
It wasn't slavery. This lady employed blacks. These people have nothing to be apologizing for. Let's hope these folks have enough defensive capability and financial resources to survive. Black rule in SA may just collapse and provide an opportunity for whites to participate as equals (which isn't the case now, in reality.)
That was not my interpretation from this very short and slanted article. The white professionals did not begrudge power to the blacks, after all they lived under it for years, they just don't like the way they wield it. Now that the situation is deteriorating, as it has all over black-ruled Africa, they want to leave it. At least they are not committing acts of terror and trying to overthow the government.
The sooner all recognize and admit that the turmoil in all of Africa was fomented by the Communist, sometimes using the Muslims, and that has led to the horrible deterioration of life for all on that continent, the sooner we can try to straighten it out.
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