Afrikaner nation-builders fight the tide of history In a remote South African town the battle for white statehood goes on

• Published in: The Observer (London)
• Main Author: DAVID BERESFORD IN ORANIA
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Guardian News & Media Limited 20.06.1999
• ISSN: 0029-7712

Eight years ago, a right-wing foundation bought the decaying town of Orania from the water board and declared it an Afrikaner Volkstaat from which, they hoped, would grow a self-governing state stretching all the way to the Atlantic. The people of Orania are no strangers to humiliation. In 1995, Nelson Mandela flew in with the world's press. His tea party with Hendrick Verwoerd's widow, Betsy, provided probably the most memorable propaganda coup of the Mandela administration. He solemnly inspected the midget-sized bronze statue of the 'architect of apartheid' which broods on a hilltop overlooking the town, and quietly prompted Mrs Verwoerd in Afrikaans as she struggled to read a speech to him without the glasses she had lost. The President's visit reduced Orania to a subject for ridicule and its people to the status of 'bitter-enders' in a third Boer war they had omitted to fight. It does not look much different nowadays. The little statue is still there. So too is Betsy, now 98, perched sparrow-like on her wheelchair in her bungalow.