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The irony — Trump’s refugees could have moved to Orania

Janet Heard
By Janet Heard
20 May 2025
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Have US President Donald Trump and a group of our compatriots who have been embraced by him as refugees not heard of a place called Orania? That may have been an alternative, closer-to-home option than fleeing to chase the American Dream.

When President Cyril Ramaphosa meets US President Donald Trump for vexed trade and bilateral talks at the White House on Wednesday, there will be no way to sidestep their disagreement over the controversial white Afrikaner repatriation programme.

Like so many South Africans, my jaw dropped incredulously when a group of at least 49 of my compatriots waved the Star-Spangled Banner at Dulles International Airport last Monday after fleeing South Africa. 

The arrival in the US of these funded, fast-tracked refugees, about whom we still know very little, comes from an executive order in February when Trump declared that Afrikaners, particularly farmers, were victims of unjust racial discrimination and deserved asylum status. 

Even minority interest groups like the Solidarity Movement and AfriForum, who have led the campaign against the South African government, cautioned against Trump’s invitation to the “persecuted” minority, saying they did not plan to go anywhere. White Afrikaners have been here for centuries – their roots dig deep into South African soil. 

Judging from the satirical memes and public outcry in South Africa over the past week, Trump’s embrace of a single group of this formally advantaged white group has had somewhat of a nation-building effect. 

The rebuttals to Trump have been well aired: South Africa has flaws, and the Rainbow Nation has frayed, but to commit white Afrikaner genocide is not among them. 

Persuasive arguments have been led from Afrikaans voices including Max du Preez, the founding editor of Vrye Weekblad, a weekly anti-apartheid newspaper. 

Columnist and editor Tim Cohen pointed out the irony that Trump’s refugees had left on the same day that South Africa’s athletics team, “which is thoroughly and fabulously multiracial”, triumphed at the World Athletics Relays championship in Guangzhou, China. 

Pointing out Trump’s exceptionalism for Afrikaners, specialist crime writer Caryn Dolley imagined what would happen if Trump extended his embrace to communities who had suffered under apartheid and continued to be endangered by daily realities of crime, poverty, inequity, violence and gangsterism.

Another option


The irony of Trump’s successful asylum seekers is that they had another option, closer to home. South Africa has its own in-house enclave for disaffected, fearful white Afrikaners who do not feel they belong in the new South Africa under black majority rule. 

It is in a place called Orania. It lies in the Northern Cape. This weird little privately owned town was established by Carel Boshoff, the son-in-law of the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd. It is home to whites only, a symbol of past racial segregation and exclusion. 

Orania came about as a separate volkstaat (homeland) during a tense transition period in 1991, three years before the country’s first democratic elections and a year after the release of ANC leader Nelson Mandela. 

There is no doubt that this self-governed community of Orania exists, thanks to the legacy of goodwill and big-heartedness of visionary leaders such as Mandela. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgcXWfRtIds

If there was ever an obvious target from so-called genocidal groupings, this would be it. And yet, to date, I know of no recorded incident, beyond recent campaigns by parties like the EFF, to have it disbanded. 

As a longtime reporter and editor, I witnessed the tumultuous transition from apartheid to the new South Africa. I saw the joy and relief of returning political refugees who had been forced into painful exile in real fear of their lives, real fear of persecution. 

I still believe in the nonracial democratic project, no matter how infuriatingly challenged we are when it comes to inequity, poverty, violent crime and corruption. 

A few days before Trump’s refugees landed in the US, I went to a jazz concert at the Baxter Theatre in Cape Town. Thirty-one years into the new South Africa, the crowd was still mostly white and privileged; white households still earn nearly five times more than black households on average. The band was led by a South African drummer of Indian descent, Kesivan Naidoo, currently based in Switzerland. He brought an international group of musicians with him – from France, Brazil, Spain and Botswana. He wanted to show off the spirit of his home country to his international artists. The band closed with a freedom composition, with interspersed recordings of Mandela’s rousing nonracial liberation speeches. The audience rose to their feet in collective memory, dancing and applauding at the reminder of our magical democratic achievement, which still flickers.  

Now we hold our breath in anticipation of how the interaction between Ramaphosa and Trump will unfold on Wednesday. The folly of America’s new refugees has exacerbated tensions, but is a sideshow to the serious matters of trade and tariffs. It is also a decoy for Trump’s anger at South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice, which many have interpreted as a key reason he has a beef with South Africa.

Ramaphosa is likely to hold his own, but display grace and forbearance. He first responded in typical diplomatic fashion, denying claims of genocide and saying he looked forward to engaging with Trump. Later, he commented that Trump had got the “wrong end of the stick”.

And on the sidelines, perhaps Ramaphosa will even venture a rendezvous with Trump’s refugees who are praying that the grass is greener on the other side in Idaho, Minnesota, Nevada, or wherever they may be right now. I suspect that is what Mandela – Ramaphosa’s mentor – would have done. He would wish them all the best.

Thirty-one years into democracy, South Africa is fumbling its way in new territory under a government of national unity, after the ANC lost its 50% majority in the 2024 elections. Yes, the future is uncertain, but that is the global norm right now. What is certain is that despite our challenges, we still live in a democracy that upholds the rule of law, and in which misguided policies are open to legal challenge. Our Constitution protects diversity, equity and inclusion. This covers human dignity and self-determination for all – even those who opt to live in the white enclave of Orania, or further afield.

We do not need Trump to tell us otherwise. DM

Janet Heard is a Cape Town-based journalist.

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