Ora(nia)

Recently I visited a rather peculiar place, a self-declared independent community in South Africa. It is called Orania. What is peculiar about it? Well, they have their own unofficial currency — Ora (a great and catchy name) and its digital equivalent dOra. All the while being simply a town in South Africa with South African rand in circulation.

To be frank I knew nothing about this place before my friend brought it to my attention as the controversial whites-only community of Afrikaners in the middle of the black-majority country. Their history is not like any others, so by the time you get to hear it all, it starts to make sense.

Ora cannot be a currency, because Orania is not a state. So instead it is positioned as the coupon system, with an expiration period of 3 years, issued by the local Chamber of Commerce, and pegged to South African rand 1:1. As our local host explained, the main reason for Ora's existence is the prevention of theft and robberies. Most of the transactions in town are made by cards and digital means. However, when cash is concerned, the locals will trade with Ora and keep Ora in the cash registries in the local stores. Ora would be useless outside the town, so cash robbery crime is smartly excluded as a threat.

dOra, or digital Ora is an e-wallet built on the blockchain run by the Chamber of Commerce. It started with the crypto coin ambition, but since then it has become just a digital wallet, not listed on any crypto exchanges.

Ora is not only a theft prevention tool, it is used to boost the local economy and make money for the community. The OSK, a local bank, pays interest on Ora savings, stimulating its circulation and overall mass. Passing tourists are buying Oras as souvenirs, trading them for rands, strengthening the local economy.

Just as Ora is not positioned as a currency, but a coupon, the town of Orania is not a town, but a shareholding-based company. There is no mayor, there is a CEO who runs it all. The land of Orania belongs to the company, its residents are shareholders. The money local businesses make is the Orania company's diverse streams of revenue. Their rules of conduct are internal company policies. Such as ‘refuse of entry right’, or ‘refuse of property sale right’. Their Chamber of Commerce is a commercial department, and their OSK bank is the financial department. I might oversimplify this but this is how I would understand the corporation running a town.

Asfar as I understood Orania citizens are already an independent and self-sufficient agricultural community. Defined by their own Afrikaner identity, culture, Afrikaans language, and Dutch reformed religion. Self-reliant in most aspects like own water and solar electricity supply. Their strategy is to become fully self-sufficient and live off-grid in the failing state of South Africa. Orania consists of the surviving Boers, the legacy of the Dutch East India Company, and the self-identified Afrikaner people who populated South Africa for almost 400 years. Infamously, called the nationalists and apartheid designers.

From Bouers town to city — that is their official strategy. Let me assume: from city back to Boer republic, from republic back to an independent Boer state. Land-lock, enclave, just as Lesotho and Eswatini. Reclaiming the state that once was.

Who are the Boers? I invite you all to read about Afrikaners' history, Bouers' republics, and in general the history of South Africa. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world.