A religious community lives in what seems to be peaceful unity in a modern-day Garden of Eden, surrounded by hills and mountains, about 20 km from Tzaneen in Limpopo.
But there is no idyllic paradise in the memories of those who have left the Alôn Christian Community - only the grim knowledge they spent years in the grip of a fanatical cult.
“Gradually you become trapped by fear and eventually you’re completely helpless,” Willem Tredoux* says. He and wife Michelle* were members of the community for seven years.
A year has passed since they left Alôn (Hebrew for oak tree) and they’re still struggling to make sense of the time they spent there with about 80 adults and 30 children. They’re also wrestling with why they exposed their children, Rika* (18) and Malan* (17), to a culture of manipulation, shame and guilt.
The community lives on a working farm. Families live in separate houses and singles live in single quarters, ex-members say. During the day people work in the fruit orchards, the nursery or the restaurant.
Members are required to attend meetings and there are early morning prayer sessions almost every day. If you’re caught falling asleep your “satanic” behaviour is punished in public.
Iron discipline is applied and public displays of affection between married couples are taboo. But it’s especially the ruthless treatment to which the children are subjected that still haunts Willem and Michelle.
They had to attend a school on the farm and later they were forbidden to see their parents. Willem and Michelle weren’t even allowed to have photographs of their children in their home.
The Tredoux family’s story isn’t unique: Dena Churchman (21) of Durban still gets angry when she thinks about how the community robbed her of two years of what should have been carefree youth.
She worked at the nursery school where she saw things that shocked her. “Three to four beatings a day weren’t unusual,” she says.
With hindsight she realises she was a slave of the cult. “You can’t question anything. Parents were even told if they showed affection towards their kids they were turning them into idols.”
Jonathan Taylor, one of the leaders, and Jan Tromp, a lawyer, deny they’re running a cult and accuse ex-members of waging a smear campaign against them.
Nonetheless the Child Protection Unit investigated after a tip-off to ChildLine. “The children were questioned but no one was prepared to make a statement,” Captain Simon Shikwambana says. “The investigation has been closed.”
*Not their real names.
