How do Orania Afrikaners live, this white community that relies on autarky and withdrawal identity?

Do not enter Orania who wants. Isolated in the vast semi-arid expanses of Karoo, in central South Africa, this small town is surprised. Clean streets, neat gardens, almost zero crime: the village of barely 3,000 inhabitants, exclusively white, seems spared from the ailments of the country. Here, neither electrical merchants, nor insecurity, nor unemployment. A success that its founders attribute to a vision: to preserve Afrikaner culture, its language – Afrikaans – its religion and, above all, its autonomy. “In Orania, we make a cake with chosen ingredients: our Christianity, our language, our history and our culture. If we change the recipe, will our cake have the same flavor? Summarizes Joost Strydom, city spokesperson.

Founded in 1991, Orania aims to be an alternative company project, based on self -management and autarky. Officially open to all, it actually only welcomes whites, selected on cultural criteria. A prosperous enclave, which aims to remain closed. This model fascinates as much as it disturbs. While the African National Congress – Mandela’s party – in power since 1994, is struggling to respond to the promises of the rainbow nation, Orania attracts those who want to reinvent themselves in community.

Abroad, the city benefits from ideologically marked support. In January, Donald Trump proposed American citizenship to Afrikaners, describing them as victims of an alleged genocide. A program, called Mission South Africa, supported by Elon Musk, born in Pretoria, provides for the opening of refugee centers. Based on the assumed exclusion of the majority of the population, can Orania really last?