Regardless of whether you tastefully call it an “Afrikaner community” or more realistically describe it as a racist enclave, Orania’s radio station has been silenced.   

Lydia de Souza, senior manager of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), described the unlicensed broadcasters as bandits, and while she stated that “Our monitors were of the view that it was a racist-based station and very right-wing,” Icasa insists that they shut down the station because Orania lacked a broadcasting license.    

While the ostensible reason that the 600 or so residents of Orania flocked to the small town was to escape the violence and crime that plague South Africa, it is doubtful that security was the motivating factor for their migration to Orania, and the legacy of apartheid is alive and well in the town; the grandson of Henrik Vorwoerd, who designed the program of apartheid, currently lives in Orania.  

In one of the most insultingly timed events in recent memory, Orania leased its own whites-only currency last year, two days after the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid.

In a baffling defense of the notion of white supremacy, Eleanor Lombard, a town spokesman, declared: “South African society is like a fruit salad — if I am allowed to be whatever I am — a banana, an apple or whatever — I can add to the flavour…If I am all squashed up, I cannot contribute.”

Mimi Hanaoka