A Trip to Robben Island

The tip to Robben Island on the 6th of April occurred just as the Cape Town Jazz festival was going on at the V&A Waterfront. It was my first time really seeing the Waterfront, and, although I am unlikely to return, it was not a horrible place to be. Anyway, after buying ginger beer (think root beer but with a strong, ginger-flavoured taste) and a smoothie at the Waterfront, we took the ferry from Nelson Mandela Gateway with scores of tourists. During the ride to Robben Island (which means Seal Island in Dutch and is about 11 or 12 km always from Cape Town), TV screens above our seats played short videoclips about the history of imprisonment at Robben Island dating back to the colonial period as well as short advertisements.

Upon arrival at Robben Island, we saw folks from the other house, waiting for the ferry to take them back to Cape Town. Then we walked toward the tour buses (they were all full by the time we sat down in the back of ours) and proceeded on our way, with a woman as our guide, telling us about the flora, fauna, buildings, and general history, such as that of the Sobukwe House (where Robert Sobukwe was incarcerated, one of the organizers of the Sharpeville anti-pass demonstration that resulted in dozens of deaths under apartheid rule as innocent, unarmed marchers were fired upon), the Pan-Africanist Congress, the old Irish village (Irish workers were brought there in the 19th century under British rule), the quarry where prisoners were forced to work endlessly and the cave nearby where political prisoners taught each other literacy and other skills, the “university” for many of South Africa’s liberators, an old Anglican church, the site of the former leper colony where those suffering from the disease were sent by the Cape Colony’s government, the Kramat, a beautiful Islamic shrine with a dome, naturally, built for a Southeast Asian dissident and holy man imprisoned on Robben Island under the VOC-government’s rule, and, eventually, to the maximum-security prison that housed political prisoners under apartheid rule. The bus-tour part was not the best since the tour guide’s voice was a little annoying and hard to follow at times. We were surprised to see that the dog kennels were larger than the cells in one prison (I think it was the medium-security one)!

As for the second half of the tour, we were taken through and around the maximum security prison while a former political prisoner (a man who was imprisoned there in 1978 with a group of four or five other anti-apartheid activists from Port Elizabeth or East London) explained basic facts about the function of apartheid, apartheid practices within the prison (differing allocations of food for meals of political prisoners based on Coloured or Black categorization), and showing us around the courtyards, sleeping rooms, cells, and former cell of Nelson Mandela! Alas, I don’t have a camera but Melly and Alexander have pictures of us there! We also took a photo at a café on the island for the tourists, where I made the mistake of purchasing disgusting coffee.

Unfortunately, the tour ended too soon (we did not get time to walk around the island, to explore the Kramat structure, or even really take it all in, and I did not ask our former political prisoner-now guide too much). To our collective detriment, the tour guide at this point was difficult to follow at times, and he did not fully explain what his group was imprisoned for or other essential details about his personal life. That struck me as odd, since another guide at the maximum-security prison we overheard while in the courtyard was speaking very clearly, loudly, and quoting from a speech by Mandela. If only our guide had that spirit…oh well, he survived incarceration on Robben Island and the horrors and humiliation of apartheid, he earned the right to relax and keep his own privacy.

Without anytime to really explore, we found ourselves rushed back to the dock to board the ferry. There were more waves so it was a turbulent return voyage, and a whale was sighted, both contributing to an expected tourist shrieks, shouts, and wails, which, to me at least, seemed disrespectful to the legacy of the ingenuity of the human mind to torture its fellow humans and the spirit of freedom that culminated in the freeing of Mandela, other political prisoners and, finally, all prisoners from Robben Island in the 1990s. There were beautiful, inspirational video clips and photographs at the Robben Island Museum that also helped contribute to the optimistic outlook for South Africa and humanity after Mandela was freed.

Overall, it was a beautiful day despite a dark, rainy beginning, ended well with mediocre Italian dinner from a Waterfront restaurant. As mentioned previously, some of the behaviour of the tourists seemed odd and disrespectful, including a group of what appeared to be South Africans from Durban or Johannesburg, in the delight of beign able to travel and take excessive photographs. But then again, who am I to judge them, South Africans probably only recently able to travel, from enjoying themselves and the island that symbolized their past oppression? My goal is to, one day, return to Robben Island when there are fewer tourists and to try to spend at least 3 or 4 hours there, seeing the Kramat and appreciating the beauty and horror of the prison.