An island that is a reminder of the grim Apartheid past

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Cape Town can steal the heart of anyone with eyes for beauty or a heart for art, but it is also a town that can give you emotional constipation on account of its leading role in the Apartheid era of South Africa, courtesy of its island across the water.
Robben Island has a 400 year history as a place of isolation and banishment. From 1962 till 1991, it attained its notoriety as the gulag of the Apartheid government, where they tried to break the spirit of the political leaders of black South Africa. Famous inmates include Nelson Mandela and the incumbent, Jacob Zuma.
The island’s limestone quarry, where temperature can hit 45degree in the summer, was where penal servitude was exerted on prisoner. There, Mandela worked nine hours a day for 13 years until his tear ducts dried up and he could not shed tears in the last years of his life. At the quarry, wind blew grit into the nose and throat of the prisoner and affected his lung. Working there was an effective way of killing them “slowly but surely.” The cave that form harsh sunshine used as toilet, feeding room and rest room
That was the hell-on-earth where 32 leaders of black South Africans were condemned to work. The quarry had a bright side, though: it afforded the elite, who were mostly doctors, lawyers and university intellectuals, the opportunity to converse.
Sipho Msomi, our guide was a former inmate. Arrested in Lesotho, with five other youngsters aged 18 to 21, he arrived in the prison at the age of 20 in 1984 and stayed there for five years, convicted for political reason on a three-count charge of being a member of ANC, a banned movement. He spent six months in solitary confinement. “In questioning you, they torture you individually or in group and we lost one person,” he recalled.
He showed us the Census Office “where inmates’ letters are read and censured before they received it”, and the Prison Court, “where those who organised hunger strike or caught with political literature or failure to do prison work which attract extra jail term or solitary confinement.”
At the A-section, we went through 40 cells and read 40 short moving stories.
Guata Mokgoro, who was an inmate from 1965 to 1971, wrote: “I was issued with this shaving machine when I arrived on Robben Island. When I left I took it with me and I’ve used it since 1965 up to now. Basically, it reminds me of my youth. It reminds me of the period I spent on Robben Island with my comrades.”
Sazi Veldtman spent time there between 1987 and 1991: “I got arthritis in the prison. At times I would use bandages for my wrists, elbow and hands just to stay warm. Comrade Djuju said “Ok you are having this problem, I think what you can do is to use these shoes”. They were made by an old man from Natal, Baba Mdlallose. They have the fur of rabbit inside, so they were very warm.”
Sindile Mangqibisa was there for 15 years starting from 1963. He wrote: “We started education on this island with cement bag paper. Those prisoners who built the harbour and the new prison stole empty cement bags for our education inside the cell. We used the cement bag paper to make books sometimes the criminals who worked for the warders smuggled in paper or lead pencils in exchange for Tobacco.”
We visited Mandela’s cell––kept as it were then––and were shown the yard where the leaders were kept in the sunshine, where Mandela buried the manuscript of his biography, Long Walk To Freedom stuffed in plastic.
At the big communal Cell 5, our guide relived the past: “We used hunger strike to put pressure on the authorities. Speakers in the hall were used for instruction from the control room. But they also had a reverse use as listening devices. When we wanted to sit down for serious political business, we covered the speaker, because anyone caught would be charged.”
During the day, inmates used to organise political education classes – “It was not allowed but we have to do it; we smuggled newspapers in; we do bulletin and get newsreader, you read and the group analysed it. They also indulged in recreation such as singing of political songs, and subsequently formed a choral group.
Inmate meals were arranged according to race starting with The A Class prisoners who are White, followed by the B Class, which comprised the blacks and other people of mixed race and Asians. At the bottom of the class is the C group, the Bantus. Fruits were given as special doctor’s prescription to a few individuals until 1979 when the diet was standardised.
It was not until 1991 that Robben Island prisons became exclusively a facility for criminal prisoners.