South Africa has a few embarrassing places within our borders.

Despite more than 25 years of democracy, some people have really struggled to let go of the Group Areas Act, which is how you end up with a place like Orania.

It’s also how the idea for Eureka, a new ‘whites-only’ town that Adriaan Nieuwoudt is trying to set up in the Northern Cape, happened.

People in Orania will often tell you that the town wasn’t formed on the basis of race. Instead, it’s supposedly an exercise in “cultural self-determination”.

Recent events, however, have made it a little harder to maintain that narrative.

Business Insider SA, with this:

A far-right group in Australia is looking to the Northern Cape town of Orania as inspiration for a plan to set up “Anglo-European” enclaves in Australian cities.

In videos intended for internal use leaders of the Lads Society group explicitly cite Orania as an example of how whites-only areas can be created in Australia, Guardian Australia reported on Tuesday.

The Guardian has more on the Lads Society:

Formed in 2017 by members of the now-defunct far-right group the United Patriots Front, the Lads Society has chapters in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Its members have been linked with plans to branch stack the NSW Young Nationals, and earlier this year Sewell also claimed he tried unsuccessfully to recruit the alleged Christchurch gunman.

For the most part, the group tries to play itself off as a community group and gym focused on individual improvement. It’s also a men’s only club. You should be getting a pretty good picture by now of the type of right-winger this sort of thing attracts.

The group’s founder, Tom Sewell, who is a big fan of Orania, appears in the videos to talk at length about the coming “race war” and the need to encourage “speed and ferocity of the decay” of society.

As Sewell explains in the videos, the Lads Society is merely a “place-holder” aimed at encouraging “normies” to join before it eventually transforms into an explicitly white nationalist organisation which “advocates for the interests of the Anglo-European Australian”.

“It doesn’t matter how extreme or how radical we are inside our own circles, we need to maintain this really good public presence,” he says in one video.

If a guy like Tom Sewell looks at the society you’ve created and thinks you’re doing a good job, you should probably sit down and rethink everything you thought you knew about your lifestyle.

I’m sorry, Orania, but I’m not buying your “cultural self-determination” argument.

[source:businesinsidersa&guardian]