Sunday August 9 - Robben Island Visit

After my false start on Saturday I returned to the wharf and took the boat out to Robben Island. It is a good thing we did not run into trouble on the water as if that boat sank it would have taken everybody with it. The safety training was nonexistence other than to tell us that we should wear life jackets and that they were in some closet. But the location of that closet, not exactly made clear. There is also apparently a life boat somewhere but again, where not exactly clear and I got the impression it was like the Titanic. Meaning there were not enough life boats for everybody on the boat.

To get to Robben Island you ferry about 8 miles out of Cape Town into the open ocean and our little boat was getting tossed around a bit. Nothing too bad but there were 8-12 foot swells that day and every now and then we would roll as we came off a big one and slid into the trough between the next wave. The return trip was especially bad for this but everybody on board largely had a good time with it and whooped like we were on a roller coaster. I’ve never gotten sea sick so this was not such a big deal to me but it did make me wonder were the live vests were.

Robben Island is much larger than I had expected. I had envisioned it to be something like Alcatraz where the whole island was the prison. But the prison on Robben Island is only a small part of the island. There are actually about 200 people living on the island, including former prisoners who provide the tour of the prison and a few former guards that were felt to be sympathetic. The island has been used as a prison or detention center of some type since the Dutch ran South Africa in in 1657 so it has a bit of a notorious past to it outside of Apartheid. South Africa began using it for political prisoners like Mandela beginning in 1960 when the black and colored population began protesting Aparheid passbook laws. They would take the leaders who were organizing the protests and send them out here for years at a time. The prisoners were not just the big leaders but also included many college students as young as 15 who would help organize campus protests.

The first part of the tour is actually on a bus where they take you to various parts of the island and provide some history. This includes the leper grave yard where South Africa shipped them off to die. If somebody had Leprosy they would be sent to Robben Island where they would live in barracks and not receive any medical care, other than by some Irish nuns who opened a church there to care for them. The state just shipped them out there to die and that is where they were buried. Family members were not allowed to visit and anybody who came in contact with the Leper colony would not be allowed to leave the island for fear of spreading the disease. The others in the colony would have to bury the dead and they would not allow it unless the family paid up. I don’t know what they did with the bodies of those who could not pay but I would imagine it is not pretty. This was active until sometime in the 1910’s or 20’s.

The bus also takes you to the detention cottage where the first major political prisoner, Robert Sobukwe, who was detained here for organizing protests against South Africa’s Pass Book Law. The law required you to carry identification that dictated what areas you could go to and where you could not and was something that if you were caught without, you would be immediately jailed. The passbooks restricted movement and getting a pass to travel could require days of waiting in line. Sobukwe was held for three years and just before his release, the government passed a special law that made it illegal for him to be anywhere but Robben Island. My description is not exactly right but the law was such that immediately upon his release the police detained him and sent him back to Robben Island for another 6 years. As he was not a prisoner he was kept in solitary confinement in a cabin next to the dog kennels. He was allowed visitors but only one person for a max of 30 minutes a day. So when his wife and children came they stayed in a “guest house”, also at the kennels and only one could visit with Robert on any given day. In the 6 years Robert Sobukwe was held here his wife was only able to visit twice for about two weeks at a time.

 

The other area of interest with the bus is the Lime Quarry. This is where Mandela and other political prisoners were sent to do hard labor for more than 13 years. While it was in operation they would report to the quarry, 5 days each week from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, and during that time they were not allowed to leave the quarry pit. They would chip lime stone out of the wall by hand, crush it into sand, again by hand, and return and get another stone. The first 8 or 9 years of this they were also not provided any gloves or eye protection. As a result several of the prisoners suffered both eye damage from spending every day in the stark lime pits with the sun blaring down, and lung disease from inhaling the lime dust. As such, after their release reporters were asked not to use flash cameras as all the prisoners had suffered from what amounted to permanent snow blindness.

In the quarry is a cave and this served as the toilet and lunch room for the prisoners. However, due to the smell the guards would not go into the cave so it also served as a meeting hall and has been called the home of the first democratic congress as well as the prisoners would meet there and discuss constitutional reforms, many of which became implemented into the government at the end of Apartheid in mid 1990’s.

The prison tour is typically given by a former prisoner and our guide, Jama, spent 5-years at Robben Island for organizing student protests in 1976. Jama was 16-years-old when he was sentenced to Robben Island.

Prisoners were housed in group cells for the lesser significant prisoners and the leaders were housed in individual cells. Group cells would house up to 40 prisoners or more and they slept on mats on the floor until international pressure forced South Africa to provide beds in 1978. They had a common show and bathed in sea water that was unheated until 1973. B Group was where Mandela was housed and in these cells there was no toilet facility, they could only go when allowed out of their cell. Additionally they had a sleeping mat and a small table with bowl and cup. The cells themselves were actually smaller than the dog kennel spaces.

Mandela's cell

The last political prisoners were released in 1991 but the prison was still active for criminals until 1997 when it was finally closed to create the museum.

I would not say that I found the tour an emotional one for me. Political prisoners on Robben Island suffered horrific injustices while housed there but the tour itself was more of a recite of facts than an emotional journey and it strikes me it could be more. None the less I am glad that I went and it did give me a better understanding of some of South Africa’s past.