QMusings

I am an American. I was born into a democratic and free society.

I have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from discrimination and freedom to love.

I know I am lucky. I know that the freedoms I enjoy were hard earned.

I know that for many, freedom is still just a dream.

On Sunday, May 6th, 2007 I took a ferry to Robben Island.

From the Robben Island Museum website:

“For nearly 400 years, Robben Island, 12 kilometres from Cape Town, was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment. It was here that rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society.

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. Robben Island came to symbolise, 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.”

I crossed a glittering bay under bright skies in a boat crowded with people. I was engulfed in the boisterous camaraderie of fellow Americans. The Americans turned out to be practically neighbors; they were from a town about 35 miles from where I live. Further evidence of our shrinking world. We delighted in the sight of a dolphin pod – evidence of our shared humanity.

Much has been written about Robben Island. Here are my impressions, my thoughts.

Laverne, Shirley and I are on a ferry, heading towards Robben Island. Robben Island whose most famous prisoner was Nelson Mandela. The trip takes perhaps 40 minutes and the boat is packed. Once ashore, we have to get onto buses, which will take us on tour of the island’s perimeter.

Our tour guide is a student, who delivers an impassioned description of the island along with it’s history and his feelings at breakneck speed. We stop at various locations.

We peer from the comfort of the bus at rows of outdoor cells, solitary confinement I believe. A church, buildings, a boat wreck are pointed out. We take photos.

The bus stops at one of the most affecting sights on the island: the limestone quarry. Here is where the prisoners labored. It wasn’t difficult to imagine the glare of the sun reflected off the walls, the intense heat, and the humiliation of having to defecate in a cave, the same cave where you ate your meals.

The bus drops us off near some buildings where we will wait for the second part of the tour – that of one of the prison buildings.

Our tour guide is a former prisoner. I wondered at his thoughts, wouldn’t it feel surreal to be giving tours of the place where you were beaten and tortured? Our guide only mentioned his hardship; he did not go into any details.

My eyes raise towards the guard towers, the stretched out lengths of concertina wire.

I see the barred windows.

Our guide shows us one of the communal cells.

Until a relief organization provided the bunk beds, the prisoners slept on thin pads on the cement floor.

I see the barred windows.

Our guide holds up a placard. The placard shows the differences between B and C diets. B diets were for Coloureds and Asiatics and C diets were for Bantus. The placard showed that the Bantus received less food. Bantus was the term used to describe Black South Africans during apartheid.

We walk through the walled courtyards, passing through rusting metal doors. Our guide describes how the prisoners would pass messages from one compound to the other using the kitchen as a post office, messages with a meal.

Sometimes tennis was used to communicate – a message would be hidden inside a tennis ball and would “accidentally” volley over the wall into an adjacent courtyard.

Our guide leads us into another building.

More antiseptic, peeling corridors, more bars, more signs of ways to erode the spirit.

He points to a sign: the Censors Office. The office employed people who could read any of the African languages.

Finally our guide leads us to the building that holds the cell of the Robben Island’s most famous prisoner: Nelson Mandela.

He points to a window, “His cell is that one, fourth from the left.”

We enter the building, walk down another corridor and cluster round the cell.

“Take your time,” our guide tells us.

I look at the wool pad on the cement floor, the bed. The simple metal plate and cup for meals.

The barred window.

Nelson Mandela spent most of his 27 years in prison in this cell.

Twenty-seven years.

As we board the ferry, we head back to Cape Town into the setting sun.

I am standing on the top deck, leaning against a rail; jacket zipped up against the chill ocean wind.

I feel as if I could weep: the sea is liquid mercury, the skies are softly fading into night, and I am infinitesimal, floating in a drop of the universe. Such suffering and such hope.

I journeyed across the waters in the early afternoon.
Free.

I returned with the wind in my face.
Free.

I returned, squinting my eyes at the slanting rays of the setting sun.
Free.

“While we will not forget the brutality of apartheid, we will not want Robben Island to be a monument to our hardship and suffering. We would want Robben Island to be a monument…reflecting the triumph of the human spirit against the forces of evil.” – Ahmed Kathrada (sentenced to Robben Island in June 1964)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Trackback URI | Comments RSS