This whites-only town in South Africa says it's 'not racist'

Orania is a white Afrikaner-only town in 'Rainbow Nation' South Africa. But then, residents here insist they are not racist.

Orania, in accordance with South Africa's constitution, has no formal law banning black residents, but in practice only Afrikaner residents have been permitted here so far.

So how does Orania remain that way when cheap black labour is the norm in every other town in South Africa? The answer is that whites here do all the menial work too, both in supermarkets and malls and in the fields.


"We do our own work, from gardening to cleaning our houses, our own toilets to construction, everything," town spokesman Joost Strydom tells AFP, adding that the community shuns "the system of cheap black labour.

How did a whites-only town come about? In 1991, when apartheid was about to end White Afrikaners - descendants of 17th-century Dutch colonisers -- bought up 8,000 hectares of land to establish a stronghold for Afrikaans language and culture.

They have succeeded so far - the town now has over 2,500 inhabitants, every one of them so far. Under South Africa's constitution, Orania operates autonomously from the central government. It has its own currency, the ora. It also has a booming economy.

Residents insist, according to the AFP report, that they are not apartheid-era nostalgics. But a community managing its own affairs away from the economic and social problems plaguing South Africa.