I had the great fortune of visiting Robben Island. The Island is a few miles off the coast of Cape Town and could be walked around in a few hours. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site due to it’s significance in South African history. At one time in history the island was used as a leper colony to quarantine the sick and there is a grave yard still here for those who died of it. In more recent history though, the Apartheid government build a prison and housed male black political prisoners who where responsible for peacefully organizing protest to segregation.
Nelson Mandela the most famous resident, spent 18 of his 27 prison years here. The tour while rushed due to the crowds was moving because former prisoners here are the guides. My guide walks us through cell blocks and shows us his small cell where he was incarcerated because he was black and had become part of the ANC (African National Congress), an outlawed political group because it was against segregation. His cell is roughly 6×10 feet with a matt on the floor, one small table, and a trash can as his toilet.
The living conditions were brutal and some the the guards were extraordinarily mean. Beatings, solitary confinement, and sodomising were not uncommon. It took years of underground organizing between the inmates but over the years their conditions where ever so minority improved. First they got blankets, then beds, better cloths, and better treatment from the guards.
For 45 minutes my guide/former inmate walks us around the prison explaining life here as an inmate. The prison is divided into cell blocks and prisoners from different blocks don’t get to interact. They are awaken early each morning served a watered down pourage breakfast and sent to a lime quarry where they spent the days in hard labor toiling with the most basic of tools. No lunch was served and after a long hard day of work would be taken back to the cells for another most basic of meals designed to just barley keep them alive. Interestingly, since these prisoners where not criminals in the traditional sense of the word but where political prisoners voicing their opposition, they are mostly educated and spent their evenings teaching each other by holding classes to further each others education.
The inmates were desperate for outside knowledge and they got their news through stealing newspapers from the guards. They would be secretly circulated between the different cell blocks by the few inmates which worked in the kitchen and were the only one’s that made it between the cell blocks. News, particularly political news was debated and disgust heavily among the inmates. Nelson Mandela and several others here started working on writing a constitution for a government which treated and respected everyone equally. They buried it in the garden to keep it hidden from site. Being caught with such information could lead to a long stay of weeks or even months in solitary confinement. It’s here where the beginning of a free democracy for South Africa began.
I find it amazing that several of those who severed here are now proud to show people like me around. The memories must be horrific yet they are proud. As my guide explains with the saying on the wall, ” We (the ex political prisoners) want Robben Island to reflect the triumph of freedom and human dignity over oppression and humiliation.” If only a site like this can inspire other leaders around the world to give freedom to their people as well. I’m blessed and fortunate to be from a time and land that these struggles are from a the past and are only in the history books for me.
While South Africa is now free, yet still has it’s problems, on a macro scale, I can’t help but think that within a few generations things are going to continue to improve and this wonderful land will continue to greatly improve and life will be better for it’s people.
