Robben Island

I finally got the chance to go to Robben Island today. The island is most famous for its prison, with Nelson Mandela and other political activists being held there during the anti-apartheid struggle, but I learned that is was also at one time a defensive outpost for the Dutch, a leper colony, as well as a World War II naval center (not at the same time of course).
The ride out from Victoria Warf was less than stellar, as I got really seasick despite the seemingly calm waters (the way back was much worse). However, once we made it to the island we were quickly escorted to a waiting bus where we were giving a driving tour of the island as a whole. Our guide was very funny but also very knowledgeable and pointed out the various buildings and sites that mark the island. We saw the site of the original prison, which was knocked down, as well as the tiny shack that housed Robert Sobukwe, one of the most influential and important figures in the anti-apartheid movement. The only political prisoner to be kept on Robben Island (the other anti-apartheid members were deemed "terrorists" of the state), he founded the Pan Africanist Congress, a branch of the African National Congress (the ruling party in South Africa today) and organized anti-apartheid movements throughout the country, most notably against the Pass Laws, which required blacks to carry identification papers on them at all times. He was arrested and housed in solitary confinement for his imprisonment, which was renewed at the discretion of the government every year. Ultimately he spent six years on Robben Island, where he was allowed to read and study (he earned a degree in Economics from University of London) but he had no contact with his fellow prisoners besides secret hand gestures during his daily exercise while the other prisoners were being lead to the limestone quarry. Sobukwe was eventually moved to Kimberley where he lived with his family under house arrest, and he finished his law degree and opened his own practice but fell ill from cancer and died in 1978.
We were then taken to the stone quarry, where prisoners from certain areas of the prison were forced to do hard manual labor from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon. The prisoners were all well-educated men, however, and when the guards attempted to force them to work harder by abusing them, many fought back in court (prisoners were allowed to bring cases of injustice before the wardens). Most often the prisoners one, and eventually the quarry became less of an area for physical labor so much as a place of intellectual labor. A former prisoner spoke to us about how the guards allowed the prisoners to set up "school" while they were supposed to be working, and men were taught everything from, depending on their educational levels, reading and writing to high levels of philosophy or law. Many inmates left Robben Island with University degrees.
The prison was not at all an intellectually stimulating environment, as the government did not want the inmates spreading their political beliefs. The tour through the cells was indicative of this, and when you consider that the prisoners were kept in cells barely large enough for a bed and the metal pot they used for a toilet until the late seventies for upwards of ten hours a day, it's easy to understand why so many people feared the prison on Robben Island. The rules also enforced the apartheid ideals, where inmates were classified based on their race and treated differently according to that distinction. For example, based on what race a prisoner was, he was given a different portion of food from the inmates of a different racial group, thereby harboring resentment against the racial group that got more food or fostering a feeling of superiority over another group that got less food. The prisoners peacefully protested this treatment by subverting those rules, sharing what little they had between themselves for the good of the whole.
By 1991 all of the anti-apartheid activists were released from the island thanks to Nelson Mandela's bargaining, and every year on the date of their release many of the prisoners return to Robben Island to commemorate their experiences. A pile of stones in the rock quarry is added to during this time by each of the prisoners as a reminder that every stone is different and useful in its own way, but united they make a stronger and taller structure.