Robben Island

We were allowed to sleep in today – very nice and needed rest! Joan and Kay and I went shopping at the Waterfront from 9:00 a.m. to 12ish. Bought some dish towels and magnetic book marks, a few books, and a small giraffe. In the afternoon, we took the ferry to Robben Island where Nelson Mandella was held prisoner for 18 years.

Here we met Kgotso (which means peace). He was a political prisoner at Robben Island from 1984 to 1991. He had originally been sentenced to 25 years in prison for his political activity with the Pan African Congress (PAC). He shared his experiences of being a prisoner, the conditions, and the associations of Mandella’s time and what it is like now to live next door (on the island) to his former jailer. There were 60 men to a room (about 20 ft wide and 60 ft long). Mandela was in that prison from 1964 to 1982. His prison number was 466/64. When Kgotso talked about apartheid, he described the situation of having to always carry a book with you or you would get jail time. Often mothers were taken away from their children in the street if not carrying their book. When asked how his life was different now that apartheid was abolished, he replied that ‘now I can sit on an empty bench in the park with no fear. Before I could not sit on an empty bench if it was marked White Only or if I did, I had to make sure no one was watching’. We were also taken on a bus tour of the island and our guide, Yasien, a professional story teller, used humor and stories giving us the history of the island, which was used for prisoners, as well as to segregate individuals with Leprosy (1846). We learned that work at the quarry was responsible for eye damage in the prisoners both from exposure to the reflected sun and the dust. Mandela suffers from poor sight because of this. He told us about cannons that were built to protect Cape Town from enemies during WWII. The only problem is that they were not completed until 1947. He asked us not to relay to President Bush that the island has ‘weapons of mass destruction’.

After our visit we ferried back to Cape Town and onto the bus to head out for dinner at a home hosted meal (Patricia and Jack Shaerer). Their niece, Erin, and son, John, along with Jack and Axel van Heerden, entertained us with a number of jazz selections. The meal was very enjoyable, as was the evening. We were back to the hotel by 10:30 p.m. to get ready for an early morning (5:30 a.m.) start the next day.

Since the Dutch settled at the Cape, in the mid 1600’s, Robben Island, 12 kilometers from Cape Town, was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment where rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society. During the Second World War, it was a training and defense station. It has also been a hospital for leprosy patients and for the mentally ill. During the apartheid years, Robben Island became internationally known for its institutional brutality. The duty of those who ran the Island and its prison was to isolate opponents of apartheid and to crush their morale. Some freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century in prison for their beliefs. Those imprisoned on the Island succeeded on a psychological and political level in turning a prison ‘hell-hole’ into a symbol of freedom and personal liberation. Despite opposition from the prison authorities, prisoners organized sporting events, political debates and educational programs. Robben Island came to symbolize not only for South Africa and the African continent, but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity. It was on this island that Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for 18 years. This island is now a museum and conservation area and was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999. Former inmates lead tours around their old cells – a moving experience or both them and thousands of visitors from around the world.