I'm in love with Orania. Can I stay in here? You're not [Music].
African Afrikaners are descendants of Dutch settlers who arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on a boat in the year [Music] 1652. Would you say that Orania is a controversial town in South Africa? It definitely is; I don't have to doubt it.
I know that Orania is controversial. Can somebody answer? Section 235 of the South African Constitution acknowledges the right of cultural groups to self-determination, but what about the Afrikaner enclave of Orania, which also uses race to determine who can be allowed to live in that community?
The main reason why it's controversial is misperception. I think it's my personal opinion that misperception about Orania comes from people who have the most to say about it but have never visited. Say, for instance, what are your favorite things about Orania?
Have you ever seen a 16 or 17-year-old girl walk around at 9:00 at night anywhere in South Africa? It’s not common. Okay, yeah, we don't have burglar guards, and if they leave a bike somewhere, tomorrow morning it’s still there.
Would you agree with me if I say that this man performed a lot of atrocities in the past? It’s our history. But I know it's your history, and at the end of the day, a lot of people were harmed in the process.
You don’t think that if you're embracing this you're definitely embracing apartheid? Is it okay to celebrate Shaka Zulu, the Zulu leader? You know who that is?
I know who Shaka Zulu is; he killed a lot of people. Is it fine to celebrate him? That’s a question for South Africans; that is a question for Afrikaners.
Yep, that’s me. You're probably wondering how I ended up in this [Music] situation. I don't even know how to feel right now.
Should I tell you guys that I'm super scared because I'm about to do one of the craziest videos that I've never dreamt of? This particular video will definitely go down as one of my most sensitive vlogs ever. I mean, I'm currently in Cape Town, driving to a town that so many South Africans don't want to hear about.
I mean, when I talk about South Africans, I'm talking about Black South Africans, indigenous South Africans—people that were here before the settlers came. I believe that most of you have heard of the town. In my whole lifetime, I never thought I would come across a town within the land of Black people where Blacks are not allowed to live.
People out there believe that Orania is a racist model. Do you believe that whatever you guys are practicing here is racism? No?
So what is it then? It’s a culture town. It’s a culture town; it's an Afrikaner town.
The narrative is out there that if you preserve your culture, you're racist, and that's not true. But I don’t think an African can leave Africa, go to Europe, and say, "We just bought this land, and no one is allowed to come in. " In this town, it’s whites only, if I have to deod the “wh” only.
I'm talking about Africans only. So if you're a Black man like me, you cannot stay there. We say it's a community for Afrikaners.
It’s not an issue of just white in, Black out; it’s a matter of culture. But someone might ask, "If you want to preserve your culture, you’re preserving your culture on land that belongs to South Africans. " Well, that is a whole other debate.
If that is the case, then let’s bring up the other debate. Terrible things are happening in South Africa. White South Africans make up about 8% of the population but hold about 34% of privately owned land in the country.
In contrast, only 4% of privately held land is owned by Black South Africans, who make up nearly 80% of the country's 60 million residents. I’m sure you guys know that white people were not originally from South Africa; they migrated in the late 17th century from the Netherlands, France, England, Germany—in short, from Europe. I mean, they were immigrants in South Africa, but they forcefully colonized the people—actually, no, no, no, no; they enslaved the owners of the land, the Black South Africans.
This is something that Donald Trump doesn’t know about. So you're aware of the decision? Last month, President Ramaphosa signed into law a bill that allows the government to expropriate property for public purposes or in the public interest, in some cases without compensation.
Well, I don't think land expropriation without compensation is a good idea. I think if you realistically look at the amount of land that the South African government has—which big communities like the Kyalami Trust have and so on—I think land is not the problem. The problem in South Africa is an economic problem, and it’s actually been researched, proving that people don’t necessarily want land; they want a better economic future.
Most people don’t want to be farmers; farming is a tough job. It’s not a very rewarding job in terms of money and so on. I also think that the South African economy will collapse if there is land expropriation without compensation.
Interesting, and I want to include you in this conversation, so let me know what you think in the comment section. But don't forget to like this video because it’s very important to me. Welcome back.
Orania, the Afrikaner town in South Africa, has weighed in on U. S. President Donald Trump's order halting financial aid to South Africa and offering refugee status to Afrikaners.
But this is what the Afrikaners think about Trump’s offer. are not necessarily interested in tax dollars and handouts and help. What we want, we already got to an extent.
We want recognition. We want recognition from abroad, we want recognition locally, and we want recognition from our peers. That is to say, firstly, those people are a people unto themselves, and this, they have the right to make certain decisions for themselves.
That is what we want. We don't want people's money; we don't want people's handouts. We, as Urania, want larger recognition, greater recognition.
And I think, um, that that is not too much to ask, actually. I think that's very reasonable. And probably, you might be wondering, what do black South Africans feel about this?
I can't be a folks; it is actually what I consider to be a micro nation. It's just like a small country; it has certain, um, independencies. They have their own currency.
Yeah, you know, when I picked up on that, I realized that there's a measure, yeah, of sovereignty, yeah, that is not complete. Yes, you guys might be wondering how I got to know about this town within South Africa. So recently, I found myself in South America on a project of connecting Africans in the diaspora with Africans living in Africa.
So I found myself in Surinam, and I came across this village called Dome. And within Dome, no white person is allowed in this village. So out of curiosity, I was like, you know what, I need to go find out why no white person is allowed.
I was told that no white people are allowed in this village. Is that true? Why?
Um, the spirit that they have here is a warrior spirit who fought against the Europeans in the slavery times, and every time that the warrior spirit sees white people, he gets aggressive. So they want to fight; that's why they don't allow white people to come here. What will happen if a white person comes here?
And when I released the video, the next video that came into my feed was a video of a friend of mine, by the way, his name is Joshua. He's a YouTuber based in Cape Town, talking about this town within Africa that no black person is allowed in. And I'm like, you know what, they say curiosity kills a cat, right?
So I guess with the African audience that I have, I personally want to go there as an African, as a black man, just to understand what is the motive behind [Music] [Music]. It, bro, like literally, they have everything in here. Wow!
I made it to Orania, and believe me or not, this is not the Orania that I was expecting because when I got here, I found a country within South [Music] Africa. Are we looking at the Republic of Orania? I think there are different levels to freedom.
I think our dream, we as Afrikaners, we love republics. We've created maybe about 20 in South Africa; only two of them survived long term. It was the Republic of the Transvaal and the Free State.
So we are a people who love republics; our ideal form of government is The Republic. Um, and I hope that one day, maybe my children will see it. Good morning, or should I say sunrise from Orania!
Today is actually my first day waking up from Orania, and it was such a peaceful night. But it's kind of crazy to know that I'm the only black man in here. I mean, it's so crazy knowing that you just woke up in a white-only town.
We feel so patriotic about our community, so proud. It's still small, you know, but we're so proud of the things that we have achieved. Today, Orania operates like its own micronation.
The town of about 3,000 people runs its own economy, and one of the backbones of their economy is [Music] agriculture. Do you guys export this? Yes, yes, we sell it outside; it brings money into our economy.
Another interesting thing is that here we can do something that a lot of farmers can't do, and that is, we can plant two harvests in one year. So we plant the wheat in the summer, just before Christmas. This is harvested; it's plowed very quickly, and the farmers work 20 hours a day to get it done.
They harvest, they plow, they plant, and then it's maize. So your next harvest is maize, and you harvest that in the winter, in June or July. And when that goes out, you've got a short time to put in the wheat again.
So you farmers live in Orania; obviously, there are farms surrounding Orania as well. This is an Orania farmer, this one. So who owns this farm?
An individual farmer owns it. It is part of Orania, but an individual farmer owns this land, and the farmer works it for their own benefit and revenue and takes the risks for [Music] themselves. It's really mind-blowing to see a town with just 3,000 people owning their own solar farm.
Does it mean that you guys don't depend on the national grid? We're still connected to the national grid, so at the moment, we are approximately 45% independent from the utility, and the dream is to, um, to go, um, uh, the old way. What is the idea behind this whole solar farm, and which year did it begin?
It began in 2021. What is the main reason why you established your own solar farm, knowing that you live within South Africa? The main reasons for Urania are that we want to be, um, from the start of Urania, we wanted to be, um, independent on many levels, and one level is energy.
Energy, if you're not in energy, uh, independent, you're not free. What makes you feel so proud as an Iranian? Should I say "Orian" or "South African"?
You're Iranian; we're Iranians. Um, we're in South Africa. We, um, uh, not, um, uh, loose from South Africa.
They are neighbors. We pay taxes in South Africa, um, but we're proud. [Music] Orans schools in Orania do not teach in English, as the rest of South Africa does, but rather Afrikaans.
Do you have a school here? We have two high schools, uh, you know, primary and secondary, and then we also have a college for tertiary training. We are dreaming of building our own Afrikaans university.
And you teach in Afrikaans? Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Everything we do is in Afrikaans, and studies show that children who are taught in their mother tongue perform better than children who are taught in another language.
Are you against the educational system in South Africa? Well, I'm definitely against the Bal law that's currently being implemented. What is that?
Um, that is a law that gives the state control of the schools rather than the parents of the schools. U, so we're very much against that. Um, um, I think it's the state grabbing the power of schools, taking away people's rights.
There's a lot of religious issues with that; there are lots of cultural issues with that. So South Africans are actually very angry about that. That's why the schools that we built here get zero state funding.
We don't get a cent from the government, and we also, it's also not expensive. So all the extra money that we need for our schools we have to raise with projects. So does it mean that all the people that study in this school are from Orania?
You get people out of Orania, just you know, surrounding farms and so on also come here. And then the college for tertiary training, people from around the country also come to study here. You can study here, but you can't live here?
Well, they can. All of them can apply for the right to citizenship in Orania, definitely citizenship. The college in Orania doesn't believe in theory only, but rather practicals, because they believe that the children are the ones that will be able to build the future of Orania.
You have a college in Orania? We identified the need to train our people in physical skills: plumbing, electrical work, and masonry—to build houses and those skills. And that's why we started the college.
In 2019, we had only five students; in 2020, 50; and now there's about 124. We're expecting more than 200 next year. So this is more like a plumbing practical class?
Yes, wow. So the first groups of students made everything, and now the second, third, and fourth generations get to use everything that the first guys built; their lives become easier. Yeah, these tables I voted with the lecturers.
[Music] Wow, I'm really impressed with the infrastructure development in Orania, because a town of about 3,000 people got their own infrastructure, and every single road that you see in this town was actually built and financed by the [Music]. What do you do in Orania? My responsibility is um, the growth of Orania.
In other words, we don't get any money from the government; we are responsible for creating our own economy and our own wealth. So my responsibility is to make sure we identify the certain areas that need to be addressed and then we address those areas. What we are doing: we have various projects; this is just an example of a few projects that we are currently busy with.
Um, if you just go outside, you'll see we're currently busy building this place, um, this building. So it's going to be a three-story building—that's the building that's being built here just next to us. Okay, the question is, how will you fund a project like this?
Okay, what we do is we say there's two various companies. The one company is one that's funding but it must make commercial sense, and then the other company rents it from that company. But it's two separate entities, so you must focus on your own business.
We must make sure that the area is growing. We are not in the position of, okay, so we rent this building from another company, and that company just makes economic sense, in other words. Yeah, they've built their own health facilities, and each facility is equipped with an ambulance.
But if the case is beyond them, they will airlift you to the General Hospital in South Africa. The Alpad—we have a helipad here, um, that can be used during emergencies. We have situations where we've needed Alpad to do recon around the area, but also if there are medical emergencies where people need to be moved to a hospital, uh, we can air-drop them.
We can bring in the Alpad; we also have the ambulance services that help us, um, so we can move people to hospitals if they need to. Orania has its own bank, and what really shocks me is to see that they trade in their own currency, popularly known as the aura. The aura, their local currency, is used within the community to keep the money circulating among residents.
Which one is the highest denomination? So, um, it's easy to distinguish from the Rand. Um, the 200 is the highest in value, okay?
And it goes all the way to 10—10 AA. So you get the 200, 100, 50, 20, and 10, just like the Rand currency. Um, so the exchange rate?
The exchange rate is one to one, so one Rand is equal to one aura. Um, it's just to make administration quite easy, but… Um, the benefit of the order brings a few benefits to Oria, so the people of Orania trade with Ora. That's correct.
Would this be relevant when I step out of Aen? Um, no, because you can only spend it in Ora. Wow, that keeps the economy growing.
Um, it also makes it less. . .
uh, more. . .
well, more safe to use because there's not going to be robberies or theft of the Aura, because you can only use it in Aria. And also, it's a cultural emblem for our community. So, I just want to know: is it the same price like they sell it everywhere in the country?
Yes, that's how it is. Yes, and what, how am I supposed to pay, Rands or Aura? You can pay in Rand or in Aura.
Oh, you accept both currencies? Yes, that's impressive. Right, it's surprising to see that a town of about 3,000 people has their own manufacturing plan to the extent that they manufacture things within this town and then sell them to the people out and within South Africa.
We produce here. We design and manufacture here, and then everything goes out. Within a day or two, it's delivered to the customers.
And by doing that, we get customers that live elsewhere in South Africa to support an Ranian business. So, in order to build the economy of Orania, you have to export products that are made here, and the money comes back here. Absolutely, yes.
That's impressive, man. Oria has its own local governance. I think what is important about it is the fact that it's totally unique.
What makes it unique? Well, there's no other such Town Council in South Africa. First, it's free of political parties.
There are no political parties in Oria at all. All the people here representing the community are personally nominated and voted for. Secondly, we had a settlement with the South African government in the year 2000 about our status as a municipality, giving us the option to, first, make our own municipal bylaws as a local government, and secondly, to have our own local taxes and levies, which we can use for the development of Gan.
So, no party politics, no salaries for the elected officials. Obviously, the officials, such as the head engineer and the head of roads, those people get paid, but the elected officials do not get paid for their service to the community. And that is what makes it unique.
Is that the Ranian flag? This is our flag, yes indeed. Who's that young man in there?
This young man is called The Little Giant. The Little Giant? Yeah, it symbolizes rolling up your sleeves to work.
So, firstly, because of the fact that we are saying we, as a culture, no one is coming to save us. No one is going to build a future for us. What we want to build, we'll have to roll up our sleeves and build ourselves.
And secondly, the fact that we do our own work is also represented in that our goal, our mission here, is to preserve our culture, to build something for our culture, to preserve our religion. The question, "Oh, why can't a Black person come here? " is not the right question.
It's more a question like a marriage between two people. It's an exclusive affair. It doesn't mean you're against anyone else; you just take your wife.
She's important to you, or, you know, in your wedding, in your marriage, you're exclusive. It doesn't mean it's built on hate; it's built on love for our culture. We want to preserve our culture, our traditions, our faith, our language.
These are the things that we want to preserve. But someone might ask: if you want to preserve your culture, you're preserving your culture on land that belongs to South Africans. Well, that is a whole other debate.
The land here we bought. We paid for it. From whom?
Well, at that stage, we bought it from the previous owner, which was the government. Right, but I don't think an African can leave Africa, go to Europe, and say that we just bought this land and no one is allowed to come in. My family came here in 1683.
Right? My people, my family arrived here. That is longer than American government officials visited.
A while back, when I told him that fact, he said, "Well, that's way longer than my white family has been in America. " I said, "You guys are here in Africa longer than my people were in America. " So our name is Afrikaners; our language is Afrikaans.
Right? So we feel part of this continent. And maybe people don't agree, but I don't have another home.
I'm not. . .
I'm not. . .
I obviously know that I have European roots. For 400 years, my people have been here. Yeah, I love Africa.
I don't want to live anywhere else. I feel a part of this continent. My language grew, obviously from Dutch, but it grew on this continent.
This is the place where I feel at home, and I've been overseas. This is the only place that I feel at home: Africa. So there's a bit of symbolism here.
All of these busts have been either thrown away elsewhere or they've been donated or thrown away. We put them in a half-circle back here to represent that these men are part of our history. No nation's history is only good, but also no nation's history.
. . is only bad; however, all of this is part of our history, and we put it in a semicircle with the symbolism.
They cannot look over the edge of the Hill; they are in the past, they are part of our history, but in the past. With all the monuments that I see in here, would you agree with me if I say that this man performed a lot of atrocities in the past? Well, I think obviously these are controversial figures, and I think the fact that we put them here in Orania with our own funding makes some people uncomfortable.
In the rest of South Africa, to care for them, to see them in public— and I think that's why Orania is also a solution to a lot of the international conversation about monuments, because this is on private land, private funds, and it’s our history. But I know, I know it's your history, but at the end of the day, a lot of people were harmed in the process. You don't think that if you're embracing this, you're definitely embracing apartheid?
Is it okay to celebrate Shaka Zulu, the Zulu leader? Do you know who that is? I know who Shaka Zulu is; he killed a lot of people.
Is it fine to celebrate him? That's a question for South Africans; that is a question for the audience. He was more like the architect for apartheid; do you agree with that?
I agree with the fact that he implemented a lot of policies in the apartheid era. I think the apartheid legacy comes from the South Africa that the British created in 1910—the legal framework that they created at that stage and the realities that followed after that. A lot of the South African Black people fought on the British side and did not get recognition or the ability to vote afterward.
Yes, he continued with some policies; he created new ones, but the reality of South Africa in that context was already set there in 1910. You don't think it's because of this that people have problems with it? Because of history like this, so many South Africans are not happy with this history even though it's part of them.
But I believe, like you just said, let the past be the past. I mean, we can never forget our history, but I feel like this has been here; it's more like a, what do you call it—a sword in the eyes of the people of South Africa? I don't think so.
We have had influential members from the Youth League here; we have had influential South African politicians. We have had two state presidents of South Africa; Nelson Mandela landed with his helicopter just there. We have had traditional Black communities, Xhosas, Zulus.
We have had the people of the Barong tribe— all of them have been there. I have seen in their eyes, no offense, they have expressed no offense; they have embraced Orania as a model that they can learn from, and they understand that we have the right to put our history in a context for our people here, in a way that we can explain it to our children, our grandchildren. My experience is twofold: I take from Orania, number one, that they are doing it for themselves, and that's the culture that we Black people need to learn fast.
And this, they’ve got White domestic work because they built that place. You look at Orania and jealous? What is wrong with Orania for me?
Is the racism thing. What is right is the fact that those people are building a city right in front of our eyes. The 10-year plan for Orania is to take this from town to city, and true to our culture, we don't want a big city full of skyscrapers; we're going to build no higher than three stories, and we will integrate our agriculture with our city.
What we want is a city that feels like a farm, because we are farm people; we are people who live in the open, like camping, hunting, and outdoor activities. So we want a city that feels like a farm, and we're going to build a rural city—that's our dream. Our businesses, our schools, our African university will be between this agricultural land here around us.
People out there believe that Orania is a racist model. Do you believe that whatever you guys are practicing here is racism? I do not believe that we are practicing racism.
To tell you the truth, I've said it many times: if the question is, are they racist in Orania? I can assure you they are. There are racists in every town in South Africa and in every country in the world.
You'll find racists; that is a fact. The Orania model is a model of cultural preservation, and that is not racist. So you might disagree with me, but my personal belief, my honest belief, is that the Orania model is not racist at all.
It is, however, a model to preserve something that we all hold dear and to create a future where we can live our values, our religion, our language, and share our culture. Who are the people that are not allowed in here? Well, Afrikaners live here—Afrikaners who embrace the idea of self-labor.
We embrace our freedom ideals; this is who lives here. Yet, if you check when South Africa gained independence, if you check the quote of [the leader of] South Africa, he said there is unity—unity in diversity. Orania is within South Africa but at the.
. . End of the day, I believe what you are practicing in here is not unity in diversity.
I beg to ask: can you explain how there can be any diversity in South Africa if cultures are not allowed to be themselves? How can there be any diversity at all if everyone is the same? There's no diversity if you have a cultural community with the KZA people or the BONG people, and they also embrace their identity.
From a standpoint of knowing who you are, of being proud of your culture, of embracing who you are, you reach a point of self-confidence where you can then extend your hand and say, without anyone forcing us, "I can build a diplomatic relationship with this and this, and we can do it on our own terms, community to community. " That's unity in diversity. To just write it on a coat of arms doesn’t mean anything; live it by creating your own identity.
Identity is needed for diversity; without identity, there is no diversity. Based on the conversation we've had so far, I feel like the Afrikaners actually have a problem with the English. Well, we sure have our historical disagreements.
The reason I think there’s a reason for that is the English took us to the brink of extinction. They almost. .
. in the peace negotiations after the Second Boer War, one of the generals said, "If we continue this war, we will be genocided off the face of the Earth. We cannot continue this war.
" At that stage, 30,000 women and children were killed in concentration camps. They took us to the brink of total annihilation, so obviously Afrikaners have a historic feeling of being threatened by that. I think that we are aware of that, and so on.
But still, we have that colonial force of the national government in South Africa trying to make all the schools English, for example. It's not something we agree with. If you have that problem with English, I guess Black South Africans also need to have a problem with you because, at the end of the day, they were enslaved; they went through.
. . I mean, with Apartheid, that happened.
I mean, for me being here, I feel as though seeing what I'm seeing with what you're saying, I feel like Orania is glorifying Apartheid. Then, I don't think you understand. I know, no, I perfectly understand.
I understand whatever you're saying. You don’t think in the Great Trek and in the wars, many of our people were killed by leaders like Dingane and Shaka? And there's the issues with the previous regime as well.
So our question now is: are we going to hold this as a tit-for-tat game forever? Orania's way of thinking about that is a very niche model. I don’t think it’s a mainstream idea.
Thinking about it, we have our own way of thinking. We view freedom as not being oppressed by anyone and not oppressing anyone, and I think that's not the reality in South Africa anymore. I think you spoke about Apartheid now.
So the systems put in place, what is the difference between having a pass under an Apartheid regime to go into a certain place to go work, and now swiping an ID card to get into a labor estate to do people’s work? What’s the difference? Were you still living in the town?
What is the practical difference for those? So are you saying that Apartheid still exists in South Africa today? I think the economic inequalities based on race in South Africa still exist.
And I think the only place where that doesn’t exist because the people do their own work is. . .
yes. And I think there is no going forward unless Afrikaners embrace that model. Listen, what you’re not going to get in Orania is people falling on their knees continuously saying sorry for their history.
A lot of people have apologized on our behalf for everything, and there's a lot of internal Afrikaner friction about that. But in Orania, you will find solutions. Maybe it's not the nice cherry on top stuff; people feel warm in their hearts when Orania is so nice to us, but you will find long-term solutions in terms of labor policies, in terms of community-to-community relationships, and in terms of the way we think.
Listen, I might not agree with the ideologies of the people living in Orania in certain aspects, but I believe that what they’ve done here is super impressive, and I feel like other communities within the continent of Africa can embrace those ideas. You know, I've been talking about self-independence, self-sufficiency now. I mean, I believe that that’s what Kwame Nkrumah's ideology was, and basically everything is here.
These guys don’t need to step out of Orania; they can actually live here and survive. Let’s talk about the continent of Africa. When COVID happened, most of us could not even survive because we were just dependent on the West.
We’re dependent on China for survival. But I believe that if we start, you know, building our own communities our own way, knowing that, hey, we’re going to make money and use the money that we make within our community to build our community, I believe that the entire Africa will be super great. [Music] Man, what do you think the world can learn from Orania?
I think what the world needs to know about Orania is there’s nothing strange about it. Across the world, you get this whole thing that people come together, and we feel the same as hundreds and thousands of. .
. Other people, um, if you look at the, or country, like South T, um, they do exactly the same. I don't think there's anything sinister about it, and the world needs to know that what's going on in Irani is the same as what is going on in the Kingdom of Zululand, or the Kingdom of Lutu, or the Kingdom of whatever it might be, as people who feel they need to get together and, uh, who think together and maybe work out a better future for themselves.
