IFLA WLIC Day 3 - Robben Island

Wow.

This one was just so impressive.  Definitely a must-see if you're ever in Cape Town. Intense history, natural beauty - this was a combination of two things that I definitely love.  There's a reason Robben Island is a World Heritage Site, kids.

Robben Island is named for the Dutch word for seal, because lots of fur seals used to live on the island.  The English called it Penguin Island, and one explorer named it for his mother, but Robben Island was the one that really stuck.  I'd always thought it was named for a Mr. Robben, but no.  Seals.

Robben Island has been an important stop for explorers and traders and settlers and so on, since people first started sailing this way.  It made for an easy supply stop, without having to land on the mainland and deal with locals (aside from the seals and penguins, no one lived on Robben - at it's closest, it's still about 7km from shore - not exactly a convenient commute).  It's got a gorgeous view of the bay and Table Mountain.  It'd be million-dollar-real estate if it wasn't so far offshore.  Almost makes you forget why this island is significant, but that beauty supposedly just added to the imprisonment - life and beauty and freedom so visible, but not close enough to touch.

Activity on the island has a pretty long history too.  It's been used as a prison for almost as long as it's been used as a supply and communication point.  Starting in the mid-1600s (only a couple years after finding the place!), the Dutch put political prisoners out on the island - local leaders, mutineers, that sort of thing - the people they wanted secluded so as to not stir up more trouble.

The island was also used as a leper colony in the 1800s.  Though most of the leper buildings have been destroyed, you can still see the leper graveyard and the church used at the time.  Interestingly, the only reason the church survived the repurposing and redevelopment of the island was that it was the only building on the island not owned by the state; it was (and is) owned by the Anglican church.

Then the island was outfitted with 9inch guns during WWII, to protect Cape Town and Table Bay, should it ever be attacked.  The tour guide made a point to say the guns have never been fired in aggression though; Cape Town wasn't attacked.  The guns have been restored though, and one of the guns on the island is the only remaining gun of its kind still functional (well, it would be fully functional if they put in the firing pins, but otherwise...).  It's a big sucker, that's for sure!

The most famous use of the island though, was the prison for political prisoners during the apartheid era, beginning in the 1960s.  Many were sent without trial, or rather a sham trial, and one of the most famous residents had no trial, but an actual clause in the legislation keeping him there pretty much indefinitely.  Robert Sobukwe was another anti-apartheid political leader, a contemporary of Mandela's, and after his official sentence was completed, the government didn't want to release him, so they sent Sobukwe to Robben under a special legislation.  He was kept in a tiny house next to the guard dog kennels, not among the other prisoners, and only one person could talk to him, the priest who visited once a month.  And he suffered through six years of that. Humans can be so... well, inhuman, sometimes.

We passed the quarry on the tour, where many were sent to work as their hard labor detail.  Because of the range of backgrounds of the prisoners on the island, some were highly educated and some only with grade school level education.  The quarry was one of the places which brought them together, and they turned it into their university.  People would work with one man for a while, say a lawyer, and learn history, and then move to work under another man and learn math, and so on.  One man, currently a Supreme Court Justice, said that he arrived at Robben Island with a grade 8 level education, and left with his doctorate.  They even taught some of the guards ("warders"), and for that reason, guards were rotated regularly on duties on the island, and for overall time on the island.  The administration didn't want guards sympathetic to the prisoners or their political beliefs.

The pile of rocks in the forefront of the quarry was from a reunion trip in the 1990s.  Many of the former prisoners, including Mandela, came back in 1995 to celebrate the 5 year anniversary of his release.  They were talking about the duties at the quarry, and breaking rocks, and Mandela demonstrated.  Other former prisoners split rocks too, adding to the pile.  The pile grew into an Isivivane, or a memorial for those prisoners who had died on the island and didn't get to experience freedom again.

We passed the Medium Security prison building on the island too.  It was built because the security prisoners (the political prisoners) were supposed to be kept separated from the common law prisoners. Apparently the guards didn't want the political prisoners converting the others to their ideology.  The political prisoners were housed in the Maximum Security building, while the common law prisoners were in the Medium Security building.  In other words, the thieves, murders, rapists and so one were considered less dangerous than those people incarcerated for objecting to apartheid.

But the big stop after the tour of the island was the Maximum Security building.  Former prisoners serve as the tour guides now, and it adds an interesting element, hearing first hand how the apartheid government prosecuted and punished, even into the 1980s (when our guide had been arrested).

As part of my school work this summer, preparing for this trip, I've been reading a lot on South Africa, and have been reading Long Walk to Freedom too.  I was actually standing in the yard and at the cell that I'd been reading about, and seeing in so many old pictures.  I always like seeing history in person (so to speak).  Makes it seem much more real.

 

The only real downside I felt for the day was the length of time I was able to spend there.  We had great tour guides, both on the bus and through the prison.  But the tours were so structured, we didn't have a lot of time to wander on our own and read signs and really experience it ourselves.  Maybe it was because it was the last ferry of the day, maybe because it was the tour from the museum and not a private/chartered something, I dunno.  I just know that our family reads signs at museums (some more than others - love you, Mom!) and there was a lot of information on the island.  I ended up taking a lot of pictures of signs as well as landmarks and scenery, so that I could go back later and read.  It's not that I didn't like the tour, or didn't find it interesting or educational; I just feel like I could have learned and felt so much more if I'd had a little more time.  Still, that doesn't mean you shouldn't make the trip out to the island - definitely don't miss it if you're in the area.

On a lighter note, I couldn't have asked for a better day to go out on the water!  It wasn't choppy, cold or too windy - perfect weather, in fact!