A Young Woman’s Notes on South Africa pg. 2

2007-08-07

Robben Island
 
We couldn’t view the cells where Nelson Mandela was held because they were working on three of the prison’s sections. I didn't go on the tour just to see that...but it was important for me to feel the environment that he was in.

Our tour was given by an ex-political prisoner named Sparts, who made it very clear that when he was a prisoner, his name was not Sparts. It was number 56/83 -- just like Mandela's name was not Nelson Mandela, it was number 466/64.  Sparts was a prisoner from 1983 to 1990, and was arrested for recruiting people to join the military wing of the ANC.  It was crazy for me to meet someone who had actually been arrested for "terrorism"...while only trying to gain equality for themselves and their brothers and sisters. I wondered if, for him, the emotion of it all has been removed by the telling of the conditions over and over again every day.

Our first stop at this prison-turned leper colony/insane asylum-turned military base-then prison, again was in the room where Sparts served his sentence, a community cell with ten beds and ten mini lockers. There were windows in the cell, which had bars across them, but Sparts explained that when this was a prison, there was no glass in the windows.  During the winter, and through extreme rain and wind, they had no protection.  The rain would pour into the rooms, right onto their beds, which were equipped with two small blankets jointly serving as blanket, sheet, and pillow.

Not surprisingly, he told of Coloreds and Asians being treated differently from Blacks, receiving more and better quality food rations.  Blacks were not allowed to get bread or jam...only something called mealy meal, which is, apparently the consistency of cream of wheat. Coloreds and Asians also got long sleeved shirts, jackets, long pants, shoes and socks in the winter.  Blacks had short sleeved shirts, short pants, no shoes, and no socks. No matter what the weather...rain, cold, heat...didn't matter.  Even when they were in the quarries they were forced to be bare foot.

Sparts spoke of the 19 years Mr. Mandela spent there. He spoke of the hard labor they were forced to endure in the quarries; of the permanent damage to the eyes done by the glare from the sun -- Mandela’s tear ducts had been almost entirely corroded from the limestone dust.

At the very end of the tour, we met the people that currently live in that place. They are either the ex prisoners who give the tours, or the ex guards/wardens. The idea of the ex prisoners living side by side with the wardens and guards who imprisoned them, beat them and called them “kaffirs” was unbelievable to me.

The tour guide made note of the fact that all the ex prisoners have forgiven the guards and wardens; that nothing is solved by holding a grudge. In theory I know this, but I absolutely cannot imagine living with the same person who treated me the way these men treated them.

The heart is truly a giving thing.

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