As a young Afrikaner, who had nothing to do with the injustice of the past, I really tried to integrate into the New South Africa. I even learned "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika"(anthem) off by heart! At the same time I maintained my pride as an Afrikaner and tried to live my life as best I could as a member of an ethnic minority ruled by a black majority in Africa.

After a while I realised that the only way I could fully integrate into the New South Africa was if I turned my back on my proud Afrikaner heritage, culture, language and traditions as there really is no place for these in the new South African society - especially not in business. This was the first time in my life that I understood what freedom actually means because I realised that I didn't have it.

As an entrepreneur I found the ANC government's enforced racial quotas and obsession with black empowerment simply unacceptable. There were many other issues also troubling me at that time - such as openly advocated racism against Afrikaners, unprecedented levels of corruption (including the police), the country's main opposition party also supporting black empowerment and affirmative action, seriously high levels of violent crime and murder on Afrikaners (especially those living on farms), a system undermining merit etc. but I'm not going to go into all of that now as I would like to keep this as short as possible.

Instead of emigrating, as many Afrikaners do, I decided to visit Orania first as I really didn't want to leave this part of Africa that my people have paid for in sweat, blood and tears over the past 358 years. What a revelation it turned out to be! I immediately felt at home and was really impressed with the positive attitude of Oraniërs. I visited Orania a few times during the past year and have now bought land and started my own Orania-based travel company called Orania Toere. I want to allow other Afrikaners the opportunity to have the same experience I had when I first discovered Orania. It gives my people sincere hope for the future of the Afrikaner, which is more than I can say about any initiative launched by the liberals in this country.

Orania will grow from strength to strength and the Afrikaner will have their own independent state again in the near future. We've learned from our forefathers' mistakes and are now moving on by doing everything ourselves. We're regaining our independence by relying on our own labour, vision, investment and administration.

We'll do our part for Africa as we, the Afrikaners, are an indigenous volk (people) of Africa - unlike the British, French, Portuguese etc. colonisers who injected all the wealth their empires plundered from Africa back into their "civilized" cities in Europe. What the Afrikaner took out of the African soil, we put back into Africa because we know no other fatherland. We share in this continent's pain and pleasure... but we aren't willing to continue to suffer under a hostile regime that isn't showing any sign of protecting our best interests.

After all, we have the right to rule over ourselves - same as the Danish, Italians, Germans, Japanese, Israelis, Swazis etc. especially seeing that it is in our best interests to do so. By denying us this right, as most liberals seem to do, our human rights are grotesquely undermined and we simply won't stand for it.