Robben Island
Just returned from a tour of Robben Island (Sunday) where Nelson Mandela was imprisioned for most of his 27 year sentence. What a sobering experience this was.
The tour was given by an ex-inmate of Robben Island. These men were persecuted and imprisoned here because of their belief that a black man should not be treated differently than a white man. I knew very little about apartheid before I went to South Africa and really didn’t realize that this had all happened in our lifetime.
The cells these men were kept in were barely 4 x 6. They lived in them from 4:30 p.m. until 7:30 a.m. when they were taken out to the lime pits to do hard manual labour with only sparce tools and their hands. Many endured injury to their eyes and skin due to the corrosive properties of the lime. They were given no protection from the fierce South African sun and often food was withheld as punishment for non-conformists.
Still, despite all of this tragedy, I was struck by how forgiving and enlightened the South African peoples are. Despite the fact that apartheid officially ended only in 1994, the South Africans have moved forward in a largely peaceful and positive way. They speak freely about apartheid and the steps they have taken to end it. While emotions still, I am sure, run deep, it is remarkable that this drastic change in their social structure has been assimilated so well. Despite the end of Apartheid, the principals of Apartheid are still apparent in the social and economic structure of this country but I believe each generation will see them take a step away from that.
At the end of our tour I asked the tour guide how he was able to go forward without bitterness. He said that what they were fighting was oppression and hatred. To carry bitterness and hatred with them after their imprisonment would have been to perpetuate the very things that they were fighting against.
I am not sure that given the same situation, I would be so gracious.
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Morag