The picture is of Robben Island, which is in Cape Town, South Africa.
It has been used, among other things, as a leper colony and an animal quarantine station. But is it most famous as a prison, where political prisoners were sent to be silenced and kept out of sight.
Perhaps the most famous former prisoner held on Robben Island is Nelson Mandela. Mandela spent 18 years on the island. He was sent there as a young violent radical; he emerged nearly two decades later as the statesman who helped prevent a massive bloody civil war in South Africa.
Why the Island? The Island to me is symbolic of life. “Life is not fair.” We all deal with our own Island – our circumstances, which are a composite of our own consequences, coupled with unfair outcomes beyond our control.
I am not diminishing the extreme suffering that Mandela endured, or the high price he paid for his nation. Rather, he is an inspiration – as one who had such enormous obstacles to overcome. His REACTION to his life circumstances determined his legacy.
The question is:
How are you doing on your Island? Are you thriving?
Because to fulfill our potential, we must learn to thrive on our Island.
Nelson Mandela's cell at Robben Island
Further Background Info
Below, more on Robben Island, from Nelson Mandela’s website. He is now an artist.
To those with power in South Africa, Robben Island became the perfect dumping ground. A place where elements that became anxiety provoking could be pushed out of awareness. As importantly, it also became a place where impurities could be contained and punished. Not just perceived impurities with regards to race, but impurities to certain ideologies and beliefs.
Robben Island was a naval training base until 1959 when the apartheid government decided to build a maximum-security prison for black men. In 1964 Nelson Mandela began what would be an 18-year imprisonment on the island. During his incarceration his attitude towards prison was that it was a microcosm of the struggle as a whole. “We would fight inside as we had fought outside… [just] on different terms.”
Prison authorities went to great lengths to ensure that political prisoners were confronted with a loss of personal control, disorientation and isolation, arbitrary punishments, discriminatory regulations and often-cruel prison authorities.
Prisoners’ campaigns for better conditions and privileges, such as permission to study, did achieve some success with the help of outside pressure. Although there were generational and political tensions, the Robben Islanders were able to form personal and political ties, both among themselves and between their different political organisations. They turned the maximum-security prison into a university of the anti-apartheid struggle.
- Prisoners chipping stones on Robben Island
With the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990 and the last of the political prisoners in 1991, Robben Island became a symbol of human freedom. With democracy in 1994 came calls for closure of the prison. In 1996 the last criminal prisoners were removed and the prison closed.
In December 1999 Robben Island became South Africa’s first World Heritage Site.
