South Africa trip report: Robben Island (mostly)
Thursday, August 29th, 2013 12:54 pmWhilst wandering the flea-markets of South Africa, all the vendors whose stalls I went past would greet me with "How are you?" I suspect this was intended as phatic, but I didn't know how to respond without being drawn into conversation, and would have to extricate myself from conversation multiple times whilst looking around the market, a rather wearying process. Amongst other quintessentially South African things being sold at such stalls were the most gorgeous beaded animal figurines. I fell in love with them and had to restrain myself from buying more than I could easily then transport home.
South Africa is apparently now the most xenophobic nation in the world, the reason for which is the large number of refugees trying to reach the most prosperous and free country in Africa, including a substantial proportion of the population of Zimbabwe. That's not so surprising, but to my surprise there's also a substantial Nigerian community there.
On my final day in South Africa, I went on a boat trip to Robben Island, the penal colony where Nelson Mandela spent most of his time imprisoned. In the same way that going from Gauteng province to Cape Town revealed centuries of earlier history than I was exposed to in the north, visiting Robben Island did the same again: Although Cape Town was not founded until 1652, there had been an intermittent European presence on Robben Island since the fifteenth century.
In fact, the earliest white, as opposed to European presence in South Africa was over two thousand years earlier. As Herodotus of Halicarnassus tells us, a Egyptian pharaoh once commissioned Phoenician sailors to find out if Africa really could be circumnavigated. They sailed down the Red Sea and Indian Ocean until they were running low on provisions, then landed, planted crops, and waited to harvest them before continuing. After three years of doing the same, they arrived back at the Pillars of Hercules. Herodotus tells us he doesn't believe this story because they reported that as they went around Africa the sun crossed the sky on their right-hand side; for us, of course, knowing what it's actually like in the southern hemisphere, this counts as proof that it really happened.
What bothered me more than the sun crossing the sky in the north was the fact it went in the wrong direction: I would position my chair so it stayed in the sun, then find twenty minutes later I was in the shade, because the sun was not moving what before the invention of clocks was called in English sunwise. Although I was only in South Africa for a fortnight, it took me months to get the confusion out of my system afterwards.
Anyhow, Robben Island. It had been used as a penal colony by the Dutch, then later as a leper colony by the British. There's also the mausoleum (kramat) there of a famous Islamic scholar (Hadje Abdurahman Moturu).
As well as Nelson Mandela, the island served as prison for other famous anti-apartheid campaigners, notably Robert Sobukwe; when he had served his three year sentence (elsewhere) the government deemed him too much of a risk to release and passed a law, which happened with no other protester, to keep him in indefinite detention. He was kept in solitary confinement, in a section apart from the other prisoners, though his wife and family were allowed to visit him (being housed in what had originally been dog kennels).
Mandela and the other prisoners were forced to perform hard labour. We saw the quarry where they worked; a cave in it was used as a latrine, and was where they used to have political meetings: it was the only place where they would not be overheard. Of course, the site of maximum interest, which everyone had to photograph, was Mandela's cell; the lack of interest in all the other cells around reminded me of the crowds around the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, whilst entire reconstructed Assyrian palaces around languished almost unvisited.
A photo of a Red Cross visit showed half of the prisoners performing hard labour―breaking rocks into small pieces―while the other half made baskets, thus giving the impression there was an alternative to hard labour. In fact, the basket-making had been put on entirely for the Red Cross (a scenario uncomfortably reminiscent of what happened when the Red Cross visited Therisienstadt); as soon as they had gone, the basket-makers were sent back to hard labour.
South Africa is apparently now the most xenophobic nation in the world, the reason for which is the large number of refugees trying to reach the most prosperous and free country in Africa, including a substantial proportion of the population of Zimbabwe. That's not so surprising, but to my surprise there's also a substantial Nigerian community there.
On my final day in South Africa, I went on a boat trip to Robben Island, the penal colony where Nelson Mandela spent most of his time imprisoned. In the same way that going from Gauteng province to Cape Town revealed centuries of earlier history than I was exposed to in the north, visiting Robben Island did the same again: Although Cape Town was not founded until 1652, there had been an intermittent European presence on Robben Island since the fifteenth century.
In fact, the earliest white, as opposed to European presence in South Africa was over two thousand years earlier. As Herodotus of Halicarnassus tells us, a Egyptian pharaoh once commissioned Phoenician sailors to find out if Africa really could be circumnavigated. They sailed down the Red Sea and Indian Ocean until they were running low on provisions, then landed, planted crops, and waited to harvest them before continuing. After three years of doing the same, they arrived back at the Pillars of Hercules. Herodotus tells us he doesn't believe this story because they reported that as they went around Africa the sun crossed the sky on their right-hand side; for us, of course, knowing what it's actually like in the southern hemisphere, this counts as proof that it really happened.
What bothered me more than the sun crossing the sky in the north was the fact it went in the wrong direction: I would position my chair so it stayed in the sun, then find twenty minutes later I was in the shade, because the sun was not moving what before the invention of clocks was called in English sunwise. Although I was only in South Africa for a fortnight, it took me months to get the confusion out of my system afterwards.
Anyhow, Robben Island. It had been used as a penal colony by the Dutch, then later as a leper colony by the British. There's also the mausoleum (kramat) there of a famous Islamic scholar (Hadje Abdurahman Moturu).
As well as Nelson Mandela, the island served as prison for other famous anti-apartheid campaigners, notably Robert Sobukwe; when he had served his three year sentence (elsewhere) the government deemed him too much of a risk to release and passed a law, which happened with no other protester, to keep him in indefinite detention. He was kept in solitary confinement, in a section apart from the other prisoners, though his wife and family were allowed to visit him (being housed in what had originally been dog kennels).
Mandela and the other prisoners were forced to perform hard labour. We saw the quarry where they worked; a cave in it was used as a latrine, and was where they used to have political meetings: it was the only place where they would not be overheard. Of course, the site of maximum interest, which everyone had to photograph, was Mandela's cell; the lack of interest in all the other cells around reminded me of the crowds around the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, whilst entire reconstructed Assyrian palaces around languished almost unvisited.
A photo of a Red Cross visit showed half of the prisoners performing hard labour―breaking rocks into small pieces―while the other half made baskets, thus giving the impression there was an alternative to hard labour. In fact, the basket-making had been put on entirely for the Red Cross (a scenario uncomfortably reminiscent of what happened when the Red Cross visited Therisienstadt); as soon as they had gone, the basket-makers were sent back to hard labour.