A weather-beaten sign over the island’s gateway proclaims “We Serve With Pride.” On a stone wall, black-and-white mural-size photos show prisoners being offloaded from boats. Cormorants stand on the harbor’s breakwater like sentries.
This is infamous Robben Island, 7 miles off the coast of Cape Town. Over the course of 400 years, it was the dumping ground for lunatics, lepers and political prisoners, most recently opponents of apartheid (an official policy of discrimination against non-whites formerly practiced in the Republic of South Africa). Among them was Nelson Mandela, who in 1994 became South Africa’s first democratically elected president.
The last political prisoners were released in 1991.
Today, the small island is a national monument and museum. Its outstanding universal value was recognized in 1999 when it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “Robben Island represents the triumph of the human spirit over the forces of evil; it is therefore a shrine for all people of the world,” stated South Africa’s ambassador to France, Thithu Skweyiya, upon its inscription. With this designation, Robben Island joins 753 other extraordinary UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Acropolis, the Great Wall of China and Independence Hall, birthplace of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
I have come to Robben Island to learn about apartheid, the struggle against it and its abolishment. While Martin Luther King and other African-American leaders led protests against segregation in the United States, Robert Soboukwe, Mandela and other South Africans fought against apartheid. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 marked the end of legal segregation in the United States. In contrast, the South African struggle to topple apartheid continued another 27 years.
Within the unique context of Robben Island, individuals who experienced apartheid, including men who were imprisoned here for their political views, tell South Africa’s story. As we disembark from the passenger boat that transported us here from the Nelson Mandela Gateway in Cape Town, museum personnel direct us to brown school buses. Visitors from Sweden, Trinidad-Tobago, Australia and other points around the world cram together on the seats. With no air conditioning, the heat is stifling. Yet physical discomfort seems appropriate in this historic setting.
Sobantu Stofile of the Xhosa tribe welcomes us aboard. The tour, he tells us, has two parts: a narrated bus excursion of the island and a guided tour of the maximum-security prison in which apartheid opponents were incarcerated.
As we ride past the Good Shepherd Church, Stofile describes how the island served as a leper colony from the 1840s to the 1930s. Fearful that the disease was contagious, the government banished all lepers from the mainland. Men and women were forced to live separately because it was believed any children born of lepers would be affected. Their church and cemetery are the colony’s only vestiges.
Tennis courts and rugby fields border the Village Precinct. The lepers’ caretakers, prison personnel and museum staff and their families have successively resided here.
At a 19th Century lighthouse beyond the settlement, a view unfolds of Cape Town and Table Mountain. The blue expanse of the bay shimmers under golden sunlight–a beautiful sight for those free to leave the island at will. For those confined to these 3 square miles, those waters formed a treacherous barrier.
The road then winds through terrain carpeted with wild grasses. Springboks, a type of antelope, bound across a meadow. White-dotted guinea fowl skitter into bushes. Crowned with impressive antlers, a European farrow deer struts by.
Harsh history thrusts us out of the tranquility of this scene when we reach the limestone quarry. Here, Mandela and 30 other political prisoners labored for more than 13 years. Using hand picks, shovels and wheelbarrows, they excavated limestone eight hours a day, five days a week. The brightness of the sun and softness of the stone damaged their eyes and lungs.
Stofile points out a large hole in the quarry wall where the men ate their mid-day meals and conducted informal classes. Embracing the slogan “each one teach one,” the educated taught the illiterate. Lacking books and pencils, they scratched lessons in the dirt with their fingers.
Hunger strikes and public pressure eventually resulted in their right to take correspondence courses through the University of South Africa and other educational institutions. “In the midst of brutality and oppression,” Stofile states, “they turned Robben Island into a university.”
Earning bachelor and business degrees, several rose to prominent positions in the post-apartheid government. Jacob Zuma, for example, could not read or write English when he was imprisoned at the age of 22. Today he is the deputy president of South Africa and chancellor of the University of Zululand.
A mound of stones stands at the quarry entrance like a monument. When apartheid ended, former political prisoners, including whites, held a “rock breaking” ceremony as an expression of peaceful conciliation. “The stones are different colors, sizes and shapes, symbolizing the country’s different cultural backgrounds,” Stofile explains. “They formed one nation–the Rainbow Nation of South Africa.”
Riding to the maximum-security prison on roads originally built of quarried limestone, we passengers fall silent. Barbed wire tops the facility’s fences and gateway. After gathering us in a prison dormitory, a former inmate, who prefers anonymity, describes in an eerie monotone the humility and brutality that he and other political prisoners endured.
He tells how letters to them were stripped of all content except the salutation and closing. How an ailment or injury could go unattended as long as a week because the doctor visited the clinic only on Mondays. How guards often demoralized them by taking away their books and writing materials.
He recalls how they suffered a series of punishments until they learned and spoke Afrikaans, then the official language of South Africa. And how they had to apply six months in advance for a 30-minute visit by a friend or relative. Often they waited up to two years for approval. Visits were shortened if their conversation was not conducted in Afrikaans.
The guide then leads us into infamous B Section, in which Mandela spent years incarcerated in Cell 5. I peer through the iron-bar door into the 6 1/2-by-7-foot space. Its only contents are a red bucket, mat for his bed, blanket, short bench, hanging cabinet, and metal bowl and cup. A small barred window faces the courtyard. Standing in front of the window, however, was prohibited.
The maximum-security prison’s oppressive past saturates the air like a dark cloud. But stepping outside, I sense the triumphant human spirit that flooded the darkness with hope and determination as bright as the South African sun.
As I board the boat back to Cape Town, Stofile’s parting words ring in my ears: “What happened in South Africa must never happen again.”
IF YOU GO
THE TOUR
The 3 1/2-hour standard tour of Robben Island includes two half-hour boat rides between Cape Town and the island, a 45-minute, narrated bus tour of the island and a visit to the maximum-security prison, guided by a former political prisoner.
Boats depart daily (the first at 9 a.m., the last at 3 p.m.), weather permitting, from the Nelson Mandela Gateway at Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town.
The cost is about $22 U.S. for adults, $11 for children 4 to 7. Reservations can be made at the Robben Island Museum’s ticket office on Nelson Mandela Gateway, at the V&A Waterfront or with a credit card by phone 011-27-21-413-4208 or 4209, or via the Web site, www.robben-island.org.za.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Robben Island Web site (above), the UNESCO World Heritage Web site, whc.unesco.org/heritage.htm, or the official South Africa tourism Web site, www.southafrica.net.
–N.M.
