Inside South Africa’s Whites-Only Enclave Where Young People Are Flocking After Deciding ‘It’s Not So Wonderful Elsewhere’ and It’s Nicer to Be ‘The Majority’

A generation has grown up in the closed world of Orania, South Africa’s whites-only Afrikaner enclave on the margins of the rainbow nation that this year celebrates its 35th anniversary.

And more young people from the white minority are moving to the small town, drawn by a new college and a sense of home carved out of the country’s melting pot of cultures.

{snip}

Orania’s inhabitants make up only a fraction of South Africa’s Afrikaner population, estimated at around 2.6 million of 62 million people in 2022.

But its reinforcement of identity appeals to young Afrikaners in much the same way as MAGA conservatives in the United States and European far-right parties, both attracting a younger demographic.

The Afrikaner minority led South Africa through much of the stark apartheid-era oppression of the black majority, who were only given the vote in 1994.

The establishment of the new ‘rainbow nation’ led some Afrikaners to fear for the future of their culture and language.

{snip}

Twenty minutes east of South Africa’s capital Pretoria, past a high fence, is another secluded community where every one of its 1,500 residents is white.

Founded in 1990, the secretive enclave of Kleinfontein is manned by white security guards and presents itself as a counter-model to the challenges facing the democratic South Africa.

Residents of Kleinfontein are strictly Afrikaner, and claim they are an oppressed and endangered minority in a country where the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party gives preferential treatment to the black population.

Three decades after apartheid, the average white household in South Africa still holds 20 times more wealth than the average black household, and white people, who make up less than 10 per cent of the population, own nearly three-quarters of the country’s private land.

But Dannie de Beer, the vice chairman of Kleinfontein’s board of directors, insists white farmers are ‘unwanted’ in the country and are facing a ‘travesty that is just as bad as apartheid’.

Echoing the recent sentiments of Trump, who made the contested claim that there was a ‘genocide’ against white South Africans, De Beer said that white farmers are ‘persecuted’.

The US president’s claim has been widely discredited, with a South African court dismissing the idea of a ‘white genocide’ in the country as ‘clearly imagined and not real’.

Nevertheless, De Beer believes he and other Afrikaners are in a ‘battle for survival’.

‘They are being murdered on the farms. I have personal experience of being held at gunpoint. Violence in South Africa is completely out of control.’

In contrast, in the 30 years of life at Kleinfontein, he says there’s never been an example of a violent crime.

For De Beer, a positive of Kleinfontein is its cultural monotony and homogeneity.

‘Only Afrikaans is spoken in the community and as a Christian community Sunday is respected as a day of worship.

‘This means that all the complexities of different languages and religions are automatically absent,’ he says.

He’s neighbours with people like Dries Oncke and his wife, Annatjie, who arrived after burglars broke into their home in a nearby town. ‘It was black persons,’ Annatjie, 49, who works as a maid and nanny, told the Guardian.

{snip}

At Kleinfontein’s entrance stands a great grey bust dedicated to Hendrik Verwoerd, the Dutch-born sixth prime minister of South Africa nicknamed the ‘father of apartheid’ for his entrenchment of draconian anti-black racial policies into law.

There are strict entrance criteria determining who can join Kleinfontein, with rigorous screenings and interviews being a prerequisite for residency.

Two questions – among many others testing an applicants’ linguistic, cultural, and religious fit – will always be asked: ‘Are you ready for Kleinfontein? And is Kleinfontein ready for you?’

When screening prospective applicants, De Beer says he looks for Christians whose families speak fluent Afrikaans, and who are willing to ‘conform’ to the community.

{snip}