  Robben
Island, Cape Town: For nearly 400 years, Robben Island, 12 kilometres from Cape
Town, was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment. It was here at Robben
Island that rulers sent those 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 Robben Island and the Robben Island
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 on Robben Island 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.
People lived on Robben Island many thousands of years ago, when the sea channel between
the Island and the Cape mainland was not covered with water. Since the Dutch settled at
the Cape in the mid-1600s, Robben Island has been used primarily as a prison. Indigenous
African leaders, Muslim leaders from the East Indies, Dutch and British settler soldiers
and civilians, women, and anti-apartheid activists, including South Africa's first
democratic President, Nelson
Rohihlahla Mandela and the founding leader of the Pan Africanist Congress, Robert
Mangaliso Sobukwe, were all imprisoned on Robben Island.
Today, however, Robben Island also tells us about victory over Apartheid
and other human rights abuses: 'the indestructibility of the spirit of resistance against
colonialism, injustice and oppression'. Overcoming opposition from the prison authorities,
prisoners on Robben Island after the 1960s were able to organise sporting events,
political debates and educational programmes, and to assert their right to be treated as
human beings, with dignity and equality. They were able to help the country establish the
foundations of our modern democracy. The image we have of Robben Island today is as a
place of oppression, as well as a place of triumph.
Robben Island has not only been used as a prison. It was a training and defence station in
World War II (1939-1945) and a hospital for leprosy patients, and the mentally and
chronically ill (1846-1931). In the 1840s, Robben Island was chosen for a hospital because
it was both secure (isolating dangerous cases) and healthy (providing a good environment
for cure). During this time, political and common-law prisoners were still kept on Robben
Island. As there was no cure and little effective treatment available for leprosy, mental
illness and other chronic illnesses in the 1800s, Robben Island was a kind of prison for
the hospital patients too.
Since 1997 Robben Island has been a museum. The museum on the Island is a dynamic
institution, which acts as a focal point of South African heritage. The Robben Island
Museum runs educational programmes for schools, youths and adults, facilitates tourism
development, conducts ongoing research related to Robben Island and fulfils an archiving
function. |
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