We file silently into the building exchanging the harsh bright white mix of sun and limestone for the gloom of the interior. As our weary eyes recover and vision is restored the darkness recedes. A tall black man stands at the end of the hall. He watches us silently as we file in. As the last person enters he booms, “You are late!” There is a ripple of nervous laughter. Is he chastising us or is he joking?
“My name is Thulani,” he continues. “And I was a prisoner here on Robben Island.” Everyone shuts up.
There are about 120 of us – of which just 5 or 6 are South African. The rest: tourists, pilgrims really, from all over the world. And all of us have come to see the place where Nelson Mandela, perhaps the greatest man of the second half of the twentieth century, was imprisoned by South Africa’s apartheid regime.
“My name is Thulani,” he continues. “And I was a prisoner here on Robben Island.” Everyone shuts up.
There are about 120 of us – of which just 5 or 6 are South African. The rest: tourists, pilgrims really, from all over the world. And all of us have come to see the place where Nelson Mandela, perhaps the greatest man of the second half of the twentieth century, was imprisoned by South Africa’s apartheid regime.
Thulani tells us how he was imprisoned for his involvement in a bomb placed in the intelligence service building in Pretoria. “It was not in working hours – there were 47 minor injuries. No one was killed,” he emphasises.
He was sent to Robben Island to serve his sentence – joining Nelson Mandela and several others that later became prominent members of the new government.
“I was brought on the same boat that brought you to the island today. I was brought into the room in which you stand now. They then made me take off all my clothes. I stood naked before the prison officers and they examined me and then gave me one set of prison clothes and one thin jumper. If I had been Indian or Coloured I would have got a thick jumper. But because I was Black I got a thin jumper.”
“Did you have visitors?” someone asks.
“You were allowed visitors but they had to apply. One day they called me and said, ‘Thulani – on Friday you have a visitor. Your father is coming.’ I was so excited. Then, the day before the visit, I was called to the chief officer. ‘Your father is not coming. He is intensive care. He was shot yesterday 8 times.’ I went back to my cell and I just sat on the floor. The others – they came and asked what had happened and I told them. Later I found that after my father had applied to visit me the security services went to see him and they beat him up and shot him 8 times. He lived – but he could not walk again.”
There is silence.
One of the 5 South Africans, a Zulu girl from Durban, asks, “How can you be here? After all this how can you come and work here every day.”
“Some days it is difficult. In the middle of the tour sometimes I feel sad. I make an excuse and slip away and I cry for a minute. And then I wipe my face and I go back. But is difficult. I was beaten. The stripped me naked. They placed electrodes on my private parts and shocked me. I know the man who did this. He now has a rich company and makes money. He went to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and got amnesty.”
“But don’t you want justice?” someone asks.
“After the Commission they said we could pursue these things in the civil courts. But my family, we sat down and we spoke and we decided we wanted it to be over and let it go. It would not make my father walk again. Desmond Tutu said that without forgiveness there is no future so we decided to leave it to God to judge that man.”
He looks at us.
“Any other questions?”
We are silent. Or rather, we have been silenced.
“Then we will continue the tour.”
As we walk I turn to one of my friends. “That makes it more real,” I mutter. She is weeping.
Thulani shows us Mandela’s cell. “He used to come here and do his own tours for visiting dignitaries,” he tells us. “But the last time he came he said to me that he does not think he will come again now. He does not want to come back.”
As we leave we all shake Thulani’s hand vigorously. He is not famous. He is not glamorous. He is not powerful. But he is a remarkable man.
We walk back to the boat, less chatty than when we arrived. We file on aware this time that this same boat carried Thulani and his fellow inmates. We look at the stunning view of Cape Town and Table Mountain - the same view that would have glittered on the horizon, tantalising and unattainable, as Thulani and his colleagues laboured pointlessly in the lime quarries. And we cannot help but be amazed and thankful for how completely and how bloodlessly the world changed.
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