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A DOG BARKS | 0:00:20 | 0:00:22 | |
This is Robben Island. This one is a blue hell. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:39 | |
Prisoners are not allowed to sing. Prisoners are not allowed to whistle. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:49 | |
Prisoners are not allowed to treat warders with disrespect. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:54 | |
It was assault. It was insult. It was hounds set at you. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:59 | |
With all those Afrikaaner, the warders, shouting, | 0:00:59 | 0:01:05 | |
"You shall never get that freedom." | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
They raided our cells at night. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:17 | |
They stood me, told me to hold the wall. | 0:01:17 | 0:01:22 | |
That was one incident, | 0:01:22 | 0:01:25 | |
but personally I felt very bitter - angry. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:29 | |
The spirit of solidarity with our cause | 0:01:31 | 0:01:36 | |
was visible and we could cut it with a knife. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:40 | |
This is what gave us the hope that one day we would return. | 0:01:41 | 0:01:46 | |
The accused are Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, | 0:01:54 | 0:01:58 | |
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu, | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
Dennis Theodore Goldberg, | 0:02:00 | 0:02:02 | |
Govan Archibald Mbeki, | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada, | 0:02:04 | 0:02:06 | |
Lionel Gabriel Bernstein, | 0:02:06 | 0:02:09 | |
Raymond Mhlaba, | 0:02:09 | 0:02:11 | |
Elias Motsoaledi and Andrew Mlangeni. | 0:02:11 | 0:02:14 | |
They are charged on two counts of sabotage - | 0:02:14 | 0:02:18 | |
one of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
and one of contravening the General Law Amendment Act. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:24 | |
The verdict will be... | 0:02:27 | 0:02:29 | |
accused number one is found guilty on all four counts, | 0:02:29 | 0:02:34 | |
accused number two is found guilty on all four counts, | 0:02:34 | 0:02:39 | |
accused number three is found guilty on all four counts... | 0:02:39 | 0:02:45 | |
In June 1964, the main defendants in the Rivonia treason trial | 0:02:46 | 0:02:51 | |
were flown to the new maximum security prison on Robben Island | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
to serve life sentences alongside other South African political prisoners. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:59 | |
Only intense international pressure had saved them from the death penalty. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:04 | |
I felt relaxed when I got down in the plane | 0:03:05 | 0:03:10 | |
in Robben Island. | 0:03:10 | 0:03:13 | |
The atmosphere was quite different and I knew I had come to stay, | 0:03:13 | 0:03:19 | |
I'm not passing, and therefore I was completely relaxed. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
The struggle for physical survival was not the issue. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:27 | |
You had to struggle at all levels. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:30 | |
It was a struggle for dignity even more than survival. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:34 | |
Robben Island was not a death camp or a concentration camp of any kind. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:40 | |
That was what made a lot of people survive whole. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:43 | |
If we'd had to continue to struggle at that level, I don't think many people would've come out whole. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:50 | |
What was important was the fact that the ideas for which we were sent to Robben Island would never die. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:59 | |
And we were therefore able to go through | 0:04:01 | 0:04:06 | |
some of the harshest experiences | 0:04:06 | 0:04:08 | |
which a human being can have behind bars, | 0:04:08 | 0:04:15 | |
especially a South African prison | 0:04:15 | 0:04:19 | |
where the warders were drawn from a community | 0:04:19 | 0:04:23 | |
which has always treated the blacks like pieces of rags. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:29 | |
You are locked up in the cell. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
A single cell. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:43 | |
You are allowed exercise - half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:52 | |
In the early years of our arrival, | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
you had no bed - you were using a coir mat. | 0:04:55 | 0:05:00 | |
You fold your blankets, you would sit on that, | 0:05:01 | 0:05:07 | |
and yet there would come another warder | 0:05:07 | 0:05:09 | |
who'd say, "You take those blankets out into the passage," | 0:05:09 | 0:05:16 | |
so that you'd be left sitting on... | 0:05:16 | 0:05:19 | |
that coir mat. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:22 | |
And if we recall... | 0:05:22 | 0:05:24 | |
..that Robben Island | 0:05:25 | 0:05:27 | |
is in the Atlantic Ocean - | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
it's cold. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
And the winters can be terribly cold. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:38 | |
Robben Island lies just 7km from the mainland at the southernmost tip of Africa | 0:05:45 | 0:05:51 | |
in the bay which is dominated by modern-day Cape Town. | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
Its recorded history dates back to the 15th century | 0:05:54 | 0:05:58 | |
when it was visited by sailors passing the Cape of Good Hope | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
on their way to and from India and the East. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
"In this bay, there is a small island | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
"not inhabited, nor any good thing groweth. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
"In this island, there is an abundance of seals and penguins | 0:06:12 | 0:06:16 | |
"in such number as is almost incredible. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:19 | |
"The penguin is a strange creature. | 0:06:19 | 0:06:22 | |
"Being a bird which has a strange and proud kind of going, thereof the bigness of a duck. | 0:06:22 | 0:06:27 | |
"They have finny wings with which they swim a great pace, but cannot fly. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:32 | |
"The eggs of these penguins was there in such abundance | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
"so that we laden our boat with seals, penguins and eggs in two hours." | 0:06:36 | 0:06:41 | |
Few visitors stayed long on the island as there was no fresh water | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
and the rocky shoreline made landing extremely difficult. | 0:06:56 | 0:07:00 | |
Surrounded by near freezing waters and treacherous currents, the island is a natural fortress. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:07 | |
Like its US counterpart, Alcatraz, an ideal place of banishment | 0:07:07 | 0:07:11 | |
for enemies of the state and other offenders. | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
They wanted to deep freeze us | 0:07:16 | 0:07:18 | |
so that we were forgotten by our people | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
and the flame of liberation is obliterated. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:25 | |
The fact that, for instance, we were in a complete state of siege | 0:07:25 | 0:07:29 | |
to drive in the point you are not entitled to be in contact | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
with the civilised world and that you were there to die. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:38 | |
I remember one guy....er...er... | 0:07:38 | 0:07:41 | |
who would...who would make the point expressly | 0:07:41 | 0:07:47 | |
that you must pay the price. | 0:07:47 | 0:07:50 | |
Prison is a place in which you must suffer. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
If we were to convert this place into a five-star hotel, | 0:07:57 | 0:08:01 | |
then you'd be coming in here, you know, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:06 | |
in your thousands. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
The first thing we had to do was get into Robben Island clothing. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:16 | |
I was given long pants, jersey, shirt, jacket, shoes, socks. | 0:08:16 | 0:08:22 | |
They were given the same clothing, | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
except they were given short pants to wear right through the winter. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:30 | |
and they were given no socks. As a special concession, they were given shoes | 0:08:30 | 0:08:36 | |
because African prisoners, according to regulations, were only allowed sandals. | 0:08:36 | 0:08:42 | |
The African prisoners were | 0:08:44 | 0:08:48 | |
put on the F diet scale. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:52 | |
And for us, there was no bread. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:57 | |
We longed for bread. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
We longed for bread. | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
And... | 0:09:08 | 0:09:10 | |
..what struck us, what was strange to us... | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
..was that the people who were denying us bread... | 0:09:18 | 0:09:22 | |
..were very keen to tell us - | 0:09:23 | 0:09:26 | |
almost daily... | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
..that... | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
they were religious... | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
..and that they were Christians. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:38 | |
And they prayed every day, probably twice daily... | 0:09:40 | 0:09:45 | |
..and did that with their families too and their children, | 0:09:46 | 0:09:51 | |
"Give us this day, our daily bread." | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
And yet, to them... | 0:09:54 | 0:09:56 | |
..we were not part of the "us" | 0:09:58 | 0:10:01 | |
that should be given daily bread. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord | 0:10:06 | 0:10:11 | |
"and in the power of his might. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:13 | |
"Put on the whole armour of God | 0:10:13 | 0:10:17 | |
"that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. | 0:10:17 | 0:10:22 | |
"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood | 0:10:22 | 0:10:25 | |
"but against principalities, against powers, | 0:10:25 | 0:10:29 | |
"against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." | 0:10:29 | 0:10:36 | |
I actually lost hope at one time, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
hope of ever coming out alive in Robben Island. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:46 | |
There was no reading material that was allowed for us to read | 0:10:47 | 0:10:52 | |
except the Bible. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:54 | |
And we were also not allowed to have contact with the other people. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:59 | |
I was in isolation all this time. | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
And I was not allowed to have discussions with any of my fellow prisoners | 0:11:01 | 0:11:08 | |
outside P section where we were kept. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:11 | |
A few days after our arrival, we were taken out for the first time, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:19 | |
out of our cells to wait in the yard, the courtyard. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:24 | |
Little knowing people from Britain would be arriving from London. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:31 | |
I think they were representing the Daily Telegraph, a newspaper. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:36 | |
When they got there, they found us... | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
knitting jerseys, all jerseys, | 0:11:43 | 0:11:46 | |
mending them, so to speak. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
And prison authorities said, "Well, this is the type of work we are giving them." | 0:11:50 | 0:11:56 | |
Simple work, | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
which did not need, you know, hard labour or something. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:06 | |
They inspected the prison | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
and took photos. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:13 | |
That is how that picture was taken. It was taken whilst I was talking to Nelson. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:21 | |
We were aware | 0:12:22 | 0:12:24 | |
that they were allowed because they were right-wing | 0:12:24 | 0:12:29 | |
and that it was going to be propaganda. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
The moment they left... | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
..everything was taken away from us, | 0:12:38 | 0:12:41 | |
and stones, big rocks were brought | 0:12:41 | 0:12:46 | |
into our yard | 0:12:46 | 0:12:48 | |
on wheelbarrows. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:51 | |
And the instructions were, | 0:12:51 | 0:12:53 | |
"You break this into small stones." | 0:12:53 | 0:12:57 | |
That was the type of work we did at the beginning. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
We were then taken out to go and work in the land quarry. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:07 | |
Political prisoners who had been lawyers, teachers or journalists in civilian life | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
were made to dig lime in all weathers. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:20 | |
They were punished if they complained of the cold in winter | 0:13:20 | 0:13:23 | |
or the glare from the lime in summer which ruined many of their eyes. | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
Some, like Sisulu and Mbeki, were already in their 50s | 0:13:27 | 0:13:32 | |
and as they worked, they sang to keep up their morale. | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
SINGING | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
We would be wielding the pick up and up to music | 0:13:40 | 0:13:46 | |
and down and down all in harmony. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:49 | |
It reserved... | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
it reserved our energy. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:56 | |
And if... | 0:13:56 | 0:13:58 | |
you found that there were workers who were working fast. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:03 | |
As you walked past... | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
..an expression like this would go. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
And you are not even stopping to address the workers. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
You say this is now in Kosa. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
HE SPEAKS IN KOSA | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
"The white man's work never gets finished, comrades. On your knees." | 0:14:33 | 0:14:39 | |
That's the expression. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:42 | |
The labour of Africans and slaves had been used to construct white South Africa | 0:14:44 | 0:14:50 | |
since its earliest days as a settlement of the Dutch East India Company, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
which used it to provision its fleets. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:57 | |
In the 1650s, the first Dutch governor, Jan van Riebeek, | 0:14:57 | 0:15:01 | |
fattened sheep on Robben Island and shipped lime and stone from it to the mainland | 0:15:01 | 0:15:06 | |
to build houses and fortifications. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
Van Riebeek's fort became the centre of the Cape's first settlement | 0:15:09 | 0:15:14 | |
and his men set about acquiring sheep and cattle | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
by means of barter with the Hottentots, | 0:15:17 | 0:15:21 | |
whose goodwill and quaint manners | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
were at this time a source of pleasure to the new colonists. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:28 | |
One version of the country's early history | 0:15:28 | 0:15:30 | |
is provided by this propaganda film made before World War II, | 0:15:30 | 0:15:34 | |
during which many Afrikaners were detained for their active support of Nazi Germany. | 0:15:34 | 0:15:40 | |
These simple people would become his children. | 0:15:40 | 0:15:44 | |
Under thoughtful guidance, they would develop into useful members of a new community. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:49 | |
And the flag of his beloved Netherlands would be the guarantee of their protection. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:55 | |
In the absence of a jail on the mainland, | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
the Dutch also used Robben Island to house convicts and recalcitrant natives, | 0:16:10 | 0:16:15 | |
whose names are recorded in the criminal records of the time. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
Throughout sentences of up to 40 years, they were forced to wear chains and leg irons | 0:16:23 | 0:16:28 | |
and were often further punished with various forms of mutilation. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:33 | |
Extreme cases were executed by being thrown into the ice-cold channel | 0:16:33 | 0:16:37 | |
between the island and the mainland with rocks tied to their bodies. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:41 | |
A significant number of these early prisoners were held for political offences. | 0:16:41 | 0:16:47 | |
They had been shipped to the island from colonies in the East by their Calvinist masters | 0:16:47 | 0:16:53 | |
for expounding the rival faith of Islam, which was prohibited by the Dutch. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:58 | |
One of the most anxious concerns of many of us | 0:17:05 | 0:17:11 | |
was whether our children would understand properly | 0:17:11 | 0:17:15 | |
why we had chosen the path we had taken...or not. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:21 | |
We knew what was being taught in the Bantu Education Schools | 0:17:21 | 0:17:26 | |
er...sought to... | 0:17:26 | 0:17:28 | |
..suffocate any interpretation of our history | 0:17:30 | 0:17:35 | |
which would enhance this understanding. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:39 | |
And the beginnings of the exercise to smuggle letters out to my daughter | 0:17:39 | 0:17:44 | |
were inspired by some of these circumstances. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:48 | |
"Dear child, the story of my arrest goes back to 1450. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:53 | |
"That is a long time ago, not so? | 0:17:53 | 0:17:57 | |
"In that year, our African forbears were the inhabitants of this country. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:02 | |
"They owned all the land and went up and down without laws to restrict them. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:08 | |
"They hunted wild game, ploughed and planted wherever they choose. | 0:18:08 | 0:18:13 | |
"Among them were great hunters, chiefs and medicine men. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
"As in the other parts of the world, | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
"these tribes went to war with each other too. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
"But certainly no-one tried to hold another in slavery or bondage of any kind. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:32 | |
"They had their problems too, of course, | 0:18:32 | 0:18:35 | |
"for they did not have the knowledge we have today. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
"People could not write, as I am able to write to you now." | 0:18:39 | 0:18:45 | |
At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, South Africa became a colony of the British, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:03 | |
who embarked on a series of campaigns against the neighbouring Kosa tribes. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:08 | |
When the Kosa were defeated, the British shipped their greatest chiefs in chains to Robben Island, | 0:19:08 | 0:19:14 | |
where, in 1868, they were visited in exile by the German traveller Gustav Fritsch. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:19 | |
The chiefs lived in huts, built all in the same style, | 0:19:19 | 0:19:25 | |
as they dwelt in in their homeland. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:27 | |
These were like beehives, furnished over with reed grass. | 0:19:27 | 0:19:31 | |
Of these men, four were convicts on the island. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:35 | |
One, Siolo, was simply a prisoner, | 0:19:35 | 0:19:38 | |
having given himself over in the British war. | 0:19:38 | 0:19:42 | |
Mokwoma was the most infamous, | 0:19:42 | 0:19:45 | |
as much known for his cunning as for his cruelty. That he must have been, | 0:19:45 | 0:19:50 | |
having buried a prisoner in an ant heap, who thus ended his life suffering very much. | 0:19:50 | 0:19:56 | |
For a little tobacco and one shilling per head, | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
they were willing to give me their presence for some time to take their portraits. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:07 | |
Not without some difficulty, as sitting still throughout seemed a problem. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:12 | |
Many of the pictures left much to be desired, | 0:20:12 | 0:20:16 | |
but at least they showed the features well enough for scientific use. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:21 | |
One of the chiefs asked that I must please plead for his release. | 0:20:32 | 0:20:37 | |
He wouldn't become healthy unless he was in the air of his fatherland. | 0:20:37 | 0:20:42 | |
And with that, the tears rolled down his cheeks. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
Me, Makoma, wishes very much | 0:20:50 | 0:20:52 | |
that government would sent his son and his child over to me on the island. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:59 | |
His name is Matolo. When he left me he was a small boy, so I like to see him now. | 0:20:59 | 0:21:06 | |
Makoma, Kaffir Chief. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
Me, Delima, I'm very sorry that government send me back to Robben Island. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:14 | |
So government must please take me away from here. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:18 | |
I'm not intend to fight any more, so I hope government will pity me. | 0:21:18 | 0:21:23 | |
Delima, Kaffir Chief. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
We were quite conscious that our presence on Robben Island | 0:21:26 | 0:21:30 | |
was actually traversing the steps which much senior fighters | 0:21:30 | 0:21:36 | |
had already traversed. The best minds from amongst our people were chiefs, | 0:21:36 | 0:21:42 | |
and very noble characters who would not bend | 0:21:42 | 0:21:46 | |
and give away the dignity and the freedom of their people. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
And that inspired a lot of us. | 0:21:50 | 0:21:53 | |
The great Kosa general, Makoma, died in poverty on the island | 0:21:58 | 0:22:03 | |
and his story was forgotten for 100 years. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:05 | |
But in 1978, he became the focus of a bizarre propaganda exercise | 0:22:05 | 0:22:10 | |
when South Africa allowed the Siskei government to send a blind albino soothsayer to the island | 0:22:10 | 0:22:16 | |
to identify and dig up his remains. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:18 | |
The bones she found may not have been Makoma's, | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
but the event was intended to shore up the legitimacy of this newly created puppet state. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:28 | |
'On Saturday August the 6th 1978, a large crowd of mourners braved the Cape weather | 0:22:28 | 0:22:33 | |
'to watch the first stage of Makoma's journey back to his homeland. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:37 | |
'After the discovery of his ancestor's remains, | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
'Chief Makoma asked the British government to arrange a state funeral. | 0:22:40 | 0:22:46 | |
'After all, it was the British who arrested him in 1857 | 0:22:46 | 0:22:50 | |
'by whose hand he died. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:51 | |
'The request for a battleship and a state funeral was turned down. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:55 | |
'It was South Africa's Minister of Defence, Mr PW Botha, who made available a frigate, | 0:22:55 | 0:23:00 | |
'men of the South African fleet, an element of the army to the Siskeians | 0:23:00 | 0:23:04 | |
'thus underlining once more the understanding and goodwill existing | 0:23:04 | 0:23:08 | |
'between the government and the leaders of the black states.' | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
From the outset, prisoners on the island were isolated from the rest of society. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:15 | |
Their only contact was with their families, most of whom lived hundreds of miles away. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:21 | |
They had to apply for official permission to go to the island | 0:23:21 | 0:23:25 | |
and were allowed only one visit every six months, | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
which was restricted to just 30 minutes. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:31 | |
The train took two nights and a third day. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:36 | |
It arrived at Cape Town at seven. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:40 | |
At half past 11, I started to walk, | 0:23:40 | 0:23:44 | |
asking people the way to the harbour | 0:23:44 | 0:23:48 | |
because I did not even know where the harbour is. I got my boat. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:55 | |
I was escorted to where Andrew was waiting. | 0:23:56 | 0:24:01 | |
It was a long passage | 0:24:01 | 0:24:04 | |
with just the top. On the sides, there was nothing. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:08 | |
And there was a fence and a passage and a fence. | 0:24:08 | 0:24:13 | |
He was standing there. Outside I was standing. We were shouting | 0:24:13 | 0:24:18 | |
at one another and there were other people, other prisoners and their family. It was such a lot of noise. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:25 | |
In our discussions... Some discussions - I couldn't even hear what he says. | 0:24:25 | 0:24:32 | |
I had been discussing some of these issues with my wife | 0:24:32 | 0:24:36 | |
before we were arrested. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:37 | |
But, my dear, we have got to prepare ourselves. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:42 | |
One day, as people engaged in a struggle... | 0:24:42 | 0:24:46 | |
..we know from the history of the other struggles that when people go to prison, they go for a long time. | 0:24:47 | 0:24:53 | |
We have got to prepare ourselves for this. | 0:24:53 | 0:24:56 | |
I didn't want to show him how much I was hurt. | 0:24:56 | 0:25:02 | |
I wanted him to feel that I'm not so worried, although, really, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:09 | |
I was very much hurt to see him, the way he was dressed and in that weather. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:17 | |
-How was he dressed? -With short trousers. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:22 | |
It's not a khaki. I don't know. It looked like a canvas trouser. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:29 | |
A jacket and sandals without socks. And it was cold. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:35 | |
I was very much hurt to see him standing there. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:41 | |
We were still very hurt and fed up about what happened to our husband. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:48 | |
We went... The government separated a home, separate the two parents. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:56 | |
People who love one another. | 0:25:56 | 0:25:59 | |
Because we were still young | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
when Andrew was arrested, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
I was still looking forward to the future with him. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
But it was torn apart by the government taking him to prison. | 0:26:08 | 0:26:14 | |
PLAINTIVE GUITAR MUSIC | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
I wrote this song on a plate, my own song. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
All other songs couldn't express how I felt at the time. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:05 | |
You know, sometimes you get feelings, which... | 0:27:05 | 0:27:09 | |
you can't write down, you can't express. And that's how I came to play that song. | 0:27:09 | 0:27:16 | |
I don't know how people know what it's like for people to be in love | 0:27:24 | 0:27:29 | |
and to be in a prison. | 0:27:29 | 0:27:31 | |
You know, it's such a contradiction. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:33 | |
I think it was more or less an expression of that contradiction of those feelings. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:37 | |
But some of the music was lively. But one can say that some of them were quite sad. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:44 | |
I was Head of the Censor Department. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:55 | |
That was sort of the lifeline of a prisoner, put it that way. | 0:27:55 | 0:28:00 | |
Everything goes through that office. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:03 | |
Can you explain what the Censor's Office did? | 0:28:06 | 0:28:08 | |
Er...well the Censor Office duty was to read each and every letter | 0:28:08 | 0:28:14 | |
and...according to rules and regulations | 0:28:14 | 0:28:20 | |
to take out or censor letters, you know. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:24 | |
Things that were then not supposed to come to their attention | 0:28:24 | 0:28:30 | |
and also vice versa. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:31 | |
That was really what it was all about. | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
What sort of things? | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
Well, as I say I can't go into it right now, | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
but there are rules and regulations that stipulated | 0:28:40 | 0:28:43 | |
political things, things like that. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:48 | |
That first sieving of letters | 0:28:48 | 0:28:50 | |
was one letter in six months. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:54 | |
And even that letter, | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
it would pain you to look at the way it is stretched. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:03 | |
And finally, left with a few, few lines. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:07 | |
Only to say the children are well and all that. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:11 | |
You look forwards for the weekend to get a letter, | 0:29:12 | 0:29:16 | |
and then you get a letter of that type - very painful. | 0:29:16 | 0:29:21 | |
I was very, very much attached to my sister | 0:29:22 | 0:29:26 | |
and I was expecting a letter from her. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:30 | |
I was called into the office, then when I came in | 0:29:31 | 0:29:36 | |
the warden said, "Are you Kwedie Mkalipi?" | 0:29:36 | 0:29:39 | |
I said, "Yes". | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
He said, "Do you know Dowis Mkalipi?" | 0:29:41 | 0:29:46 | |
I said, "Yes, that's my sister." | 0:29:46 | 0:29:48 | |
He said, "Your sister?" I said, "Yes". | 0:29:48 | 0:29:50 | |
"She's dead. Go." | 0:29:50 | 0:29:53 | |
No... There was just something that day. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:57 | |
Made it impossible for me to believe | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
or even to think that I believe what I'm hearing. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:04 | |
So I then went on, I said, "Look, what do you mean?" | 0:30:04 | 0:30:08 | |
He said, "I've told you she's dead and what do you want from me then? | 0:30:08 | 0:30:12 | |
"You're wasting my time." | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
I said, "No, but how did she die?" He said, "Look, I'm not staying there, | 0:30:15 | 0:30:19 | |
"among the Kaffirs in Transkei. | 0:30:19 | 0:30:22 | |
"I'm telling you that these are the people that have been knowing about | 0:30:22 | 0:30:26 | |
"how your sister died. Get out of my office!" | 0:30:26 | 0:30:29 | |
And that type of insensitivity, it was one of the things that er... | 0:30:29 | 0:30:34 | |
for the first time, when I came into my cell, | 0:30:34 | 0:30:38 | |
I cried for the first time ever since I've been in prison. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:43 | |
Once imprisoned, | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
the prices that came to bear | 0:30:51 | 0:30:53 | |
were not prices that could have been anticipated really. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:59 | |
You found people who came on Robben Island, for instance, | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
maybe sentenced to incredibly long sentences. | 0:31:03 | 0:31:06 | |
I recall er...one er... | 0:31:06 | 0:31:10 | |
one of our people who came to Robben Island was sentenced to 20 years. | 0:31:10 | 0:31:15 | |
He was illiterate. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:17 | |
He came from the countryside of the Transkei. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:21 | |
And because of his illiteracy, | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
he did not understand what... He could not conceptualise 20 years. | 0:31:24 | 0:31:28 | |
And it took time. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
When he began to learn, to read and write, | 0:31:31 | 0:31:35 | |
he calculated what a year means and so on. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:39 | |
And for the first time, | 0:31:39 | 0:31:41 | |
he realised just how long he had been sentenced to. | 0:31:41 | 0:31:45 | |
I know one who got 40 years. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:49 | |
He too, took some years | 0:31:49 | 0:31:50 | |
before he became alive to the reality of what he had to deal with | 0:31:50 | 0:31:55 | |
and he lost his mind. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:57 | |
The prison was one in a line of institutions | 0:31:57 | 0:32:02 | |
which had been set up on the island. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:04 | |
In the 1860s, it was used to house mental patients from the mainland | 0:32:06 | 0:32:11 | |
and the so called "chronic sick". | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
As in other Victorian asylums, conditions were harsh | 0:32:13 | 0:32:17 | |
and the inmates were expected to comply | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
with a suitably draconian regime. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:23 | |
Instead of being treated as sick, | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
they were regarded as outcasts who were a danger to the society. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:29 | |
They were soon joined by another group whose existence was thought offensive and even threatening. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:41 | |
When leprosy was discovered to be contagious, | 0:32:42 | 0:32:46 | |
those suffering from it were forced into quarantine on the island. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:50 | |
Even though their condition was rarely infectious | 0:32:50 | 0:32:52 | |
and many had been quite adequately cared for by their families in the past. | 0:32:52 | 0:32:57 | |
Despite their tragic deformities, | 0:32:57 | 0:32:59 | |
the lepers were perfectly normal. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:02 | |
They formed bands, organised picnics and kept animals on the island. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:06 | |
Nevertheless, they were treated as freaks whose very presence was a social embarrassment. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:15 | |
As victims of an incurable disease, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:21 | |
theirs was a life sentence. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:23 | |
They had to stay on the island till they died, | 0:33:23 | 0:33:26 | |
and despite protests from their families, | 0:33:26 | 0:33:28 | |
they were also buried there. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:30 | |
Robben Island in one sense has been the dustbin of South African history. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:44 | |
All the unwanted things and people have been dumped on Robben Island, | 0:33:44 | 0:33:49 | |
whether they were rebels against whatever system, | 0:33:49 | 0:33:53 | |
lepers, insane so-called, insane people, they were all dumped in this dirtbin, so to speak. | 0:33:53 | 0:34:00 | |
But it is a very peculiar dirtbin, | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
because in reality what happened there was that all this offal, | 0:34:03 | 0:34:08 | |
all this...these people, unwanted people, | 0:34:08 | 0:34:13 | |
in very many ways became symbols, became in that sense, | 0:34:13 | 0:34:19 | |
very undermining symbols for the system. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:23 | |
And we were very aware as prisoners on Robben Island, | 0:34:23 | 0:34:26 | |
we were very aware of the history. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
By the 1890s, the number of lepers on the island had swelled to more than 400, | 0:34:31 | 0:34:36 | |
roughly the same number as would one day fill the maximum security prison. | 0:34:36 | 0:34:41 | |
At various times they rose up against their conditions | 0:34:43 | 0:34:46 | |
by taking over the wards and threatening the medical staff. | 0:34:46 | 0:34:49 | |
The leader of one such rebellion was a semi-educated man named Franz Jacobs. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:54 | |
Faced with the authorities' indifference to their plight, | 0:34:54 | 0:34:57 | |
he wrote a petition to Queen Victoria to plead on the lepers' behalf. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:02 | |
"Robben Island, 10th August, 1892. | 0:35:06 | 0:35:10 | |
"Our request and entreaty to the Queen of this Empire | 0:35:10 | 0:35:14 | |
"is let us poor sick ones have our freedom. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:17 | |
"We are imprisoned and shut up on Robben Island | 0:35:17 | 0:35:21 | |
"for it is prohibited to go away. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
"We live as if we were dead. It is so dark here. | 0:35:24 | 0:35:28 | |
"We are taken from our homes, | 0:35:28 | 0:35:30 | |
"that is worse than slaves. | 0:35:30 | 0:35:33 | |
"There should be a time for coming out, | 0:35:33 | 0:35:36 | |
"but we might stay here for ever. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:38 | |
"What she does for the slaves, will our Queen do for us | 0:35:38 | 0:35:43 | |
"and free us from slavery? | 0:35:43 | 0:35:44 | |
"I know a man who died of a broken heart. | 0:35:44 | 0:35:48 | |
"He asked the doctor to let him go to see his people. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:52 | |
"The doctor would not let him go | 0:35:52 | 0:35:54 | |
"and it afflicted him that he died. | 0:35:54 | 0:35:57 | |
"It is hard to be here away from wife and children. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
"For God says, what He has joined together should no man put asunder. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:06 | |
"Dear Reverend Queen, consider not this letter, | 0:36:06 | 0:36:09 | |
"my father and brother were too poor to have me properly taught, | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
"but what I write to our Reverend Queen is true." | 0:36:13 | 0:36:16 | |
"My address is FJA Jacobs, | 0:36:17 | 0:36:21 | |
Number Two Hospital, Robben Island." | 0:36:21 | 0:36:24 | |
There is no recorded response to Franz Jacobs' petition | 0:36:26 | 0:36:30 | |
and Robben Island remained a leper colony until 1930. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:34 | |
One did get off the island to go to see specialists in Cape Town. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:44 | |
And...this was one of the most humiliating experiences in jail. | 0:36:49 | 0:36:55 | |
You had leg irons strapped onto your legs. | 0:36:58 | 0:37:02 | |
And they...clamped on you handcuffs. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:07 | |
So you have both handcuffs and leg irons. | 0:37:07 | 0:37:12 | |
With handcuffs, handcuffed hands, | 0:37:13 | 0:37:16 | |
you had to hold up the leg irons. | 0:37:16 | 0:37:21 | |
And you get a sound from the chains like this - walla-lass, walla-lass. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:31 | |
And you can't walk normally if you have got leg irons on. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:37 | |
You walk, as it were, like the movements of a he-baboon. | 0:37:37 | 0:37:43 | |
Walking forward and the people all turn their eyes to you. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:50 | |
And when you go to a hospital like this, | 0:37:59 | 0:38:04 | |
then there would be thousands of people... | 0:38:04 | 0:38:08 | |
..in the outpatient department. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
There would be a general buzz, like one experiences a beehive. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:24 | |
But the moment a prisoner appeared | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
all of a sudden people kept quiet and looked up. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:33 | |
And all those eyes... | 0:38:35 | 0:38:39 | |
thousands of them, | 0:38:39 | 0:38:41 | |
would be looking up at that one individual in leg irons. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:48 | |
Handcuffed. | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
And you'd feel, as it were, feel their eyes | 0:38:51 | 0:38:56 | |
as if they were penetrating through your whole being. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:03 | |
It was an experience. | 0:39:05 | 0:39:08 | |
An experience one doesn't like to recall. | 0:39:10 | 0:39:16 | |
But when it happened, it hurt, it hurt. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:23 | |
CAT MEOWS | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
A Kaffir is a dog. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:34 | |
And you are a prisoner and you are a dog and Mandela is a dog himself | 0:39:34 | 0:39:40 | |
because he's a prisoner. You can be educated, you can have 101 doctorates, but you're a Kaffir | 0:39:40 | 0:39:47 | |
and that means nothing to me and your number nothing. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:51 | |
HE SHOUTS ORDERS IN AFRIKAANS | 0:39:51 | 0:39:54 | |
I don't know if it would be correct to say they regarded us as animals. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:06 | |
Because they care a lot for animals. | 0:40:06 | 0:40:09 | |
See the way they care for their cats, | 0:40:09 | 0:40:12 | |
the way they care for their dogs. | 0:40:12 | 0:40:15 | |
Now, they wouldn't extend the same treatment to us. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:21 | |
In other words, | 0:40:21 | 0:40:24 | |
I'd rather say they regarded us as a deadly enemy, | 0:40:24 | 0:40:31 | |
their deadly enemy who had to be destroyed. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:36 | |
Human beings are human beings. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:43 | |
There are rises and ebbs of morale | 0:40:43 | 0:40:49 | |
and especially against the statements which were made | 0:40:49 | 0:40:54 | |
that a sentence of life means life | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
and that those people would die in prison. | 0:40:57 | 0:41:02 | |
And although always in high morale, | 0:41:02 | 0:41:07 | |
nevertheless there were moments of doubt. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:11 | |
Whether the expectations that we had that one day we'd return | 0:41:11 | 0:41:17 | |
would be fulfilled. | 0:41:17 | 0:41:19 | |
It's natural that there should have been such moments. | 0:41:19 | 0:41:22 | |
I can utter now that you ask me say, on this particular day | 0:41:22 | 0:41:28 | |
this was my mood. | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
But there were moments when one doubted whether that day would come. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:37 | |
RECORDING: The accused have told me and their counsellor told me | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
that the accused who all recognised leaders | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
of a non-European part of the population | 0:41:49 | 0:41:53 | |
have been motivated entirely by a desire to ameliorate these grievances. | 0:41:53 | 0:42:01 | |
I am by no means convinced of the motive of the accused | 0:42:03 | 0:42:07 | |
whether it is as altruistic as they wish the court to believe. | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
People who organise the devolution | 0:42:11 | 0:42:14 | |
usually plan to take over the government | 0:42:14 | 0:42:19 | |
and personal ambition cannot be excluded as a motive. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:24 | |
The function of this court, as is the function of the court in any country, | 0:42:27 | 0:42:32 | |
is to enforce law and order and to enforce the laws of the state. | 0:42:32 | 0:42:37 | |
The crime of which the accused have been convicted, | 0:42:40 | 0:42:45 | |
a crime of conspiracy, is in essence modified treason. | 0:42:45 | 0:42:50 | |
The state has decided not to charge the crime in this form. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:57 | |
Bearing this in mind and giving the matter very serious consideration, | 0:42:57 | 0:43:04 | |
I have decided not to impose the supreme penalty, | 0:43:04 | 0:43:09 | |
which in a case like this would usually be the proper penalty. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:14 | |
As consistent with my duty, | 0:43:14 | 0:43:18 | |
that is the only leniency which I can show. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:24 | |
The sentence in the case of all the accused | 0:43:24 | 0:43:28 | |
will be one of life imprisonment. | 0:43:28 | 0:43:30 | |
JANGLING KEYS | 0:43:48 | 0:43:51 | |
Many prisoners did not look at escape as a feasible project. | 0:43:51 | 0:43:57 | |
A mass escape from Robben Island getting to the mainland | 0:43:57 | 0:44:01 | |
necessarily meant immense loss of life, if not a complete destruction of the project. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:07 | |
But there were others, including myself, | 0:44:07 | 0:44:13 | |
who from the day of my arrest never gave up the idea of physically escaping from prison. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:20 | |
Escaping prison meant working at that project | 0:44:20 | 0:44:25 | |
with a great determination and steadfastness. | 0:44:25 | 0:44:29 | |
It was a question of accumulating the tools | 0:44:29 | 0:44:33 | |
and...instruments that you would need, | 0:44:33 | 0:44:36 | |
in little bits and pieces that would not necessarily connect and be useful as an end product. | 0:44:36 | 0:44:43 | |
You saw a piece of wire at work. | 0:44:45 | 0:44:49 | |
It has no meaning from the point of view of escape, | 0:44:49 | 0:44:54 | |
but to take a better example, you came across a piece of flat steel, | 0:44:54 | 0:44:59 | |
iron, wrought iron. | 0:44:59 | 0:45:01 | |
At that stage it makes no sense, | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
but provided you stored it, as it happened in my case, | 0:45:04 | 0:45:10 | |
years later it became the basis to make the master key to Robben Island. | 0:45:10 | 0:45:15 | |
Because without that steel, we couldn't have made it. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:19 | |
And it was only if your mind was occupied with the problem | 0:45:19 | 0:45:23 | |
that you could see and say to yourself, | 0:45:23 | 0:45:27 | |
"Let me pick up this blade and hide it away. It may be necessary." | 0:45:27 | 0:45:32 | |
We did it by simply taking... collecting some lard | 0:45:32 | 0:45:36 | |
and filing down that piece of iron | 0:45:36 | 0:45:40 | |
and inserting it into the keyhole and looking for each point at which it was meeting resistance. | 0:45:40 | 0:45:46 | |
And then filing through the resistance points, | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
we then had to ensure that it served as a master key. | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
It turned out that that master key could be used for all cells in our section | 0:45:58 | 0:46:03 | |
and we were then left with the question of the access gates. | 0:46:03 | 0:46:07 | |
Again, what we found was that our master key needed very slight adaptation | 0:46:08 | 0:46:13 | |
to serve the purpose of the external entrances to the prison. | 0:46:13 | 0:46:17 | |
It wasn't really for the purpose of escaping, | 0:46:18 | 0:46:23 | |
you see we were living in this section where there were 80 cells | 0:46:23 | 0:46:27 | |
of which we only occupied the one wing of about 30 cells. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:31 | |
So around the corner from us and in the other wing all the cells were open. | 0:46:31 | 0:46:35 | |
So we'd open one of those cells with our key and keep contraband. | 0:46:35 | 0:46:40 | |
That's what we used the key for. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
I'd been used to working with criminal prisoners for a long time | 0:46:47 | 0:46:51 | |
and this was a total change about. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:54 | |
Criminal prisoners, you couldn't leave, for instance, | 0:46:54 | 0:46:58 | |
some money lying around or even a pen for that matter or a lighter | 0:46:58 | 0:47:04 | |
in your office, it would be gone. | 0:47:04 | 0:47:06 | |
Quicker than what you could look for it, it would be gone, | 0:47:06 | 0:47:09 | |
but not the story or the case with the political prisoners. | 0:47:09 | 0:47:13 | |
They'd probably bring it to you and give it back to you. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:17 | |
We never had in all the time there | 0:47:17 | 0:47:19 | |
one case where a member complained about anything being lifted from his office or whatever. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:25 | |
Not even a newspaper? | 0:47:25 | 0:47:28 | |
No, newspapers weren't allowed in a section, the prisoners won't allowed to use them. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:33 | |
If we were discovered with newspapers, the penalties were harsh. | 0:47:35 | 0:47:40 | |
You would, um... be sentenced to spare diet, | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
which means that every day you'll get mainly rice and water. | 0:47:43 | 0:47:49 | |
I've seen people come out of an 18-day spare diet | 0:47:50 | 0:47:55 | |
with the skin on their faces so taut, | 0:47:55 | 0:47:59 | |
you could actually see the shape of the skull | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
and it was very, very, very frightening. | 0:48:02 | 0:48:05 | |
On June the 16th 1976, | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
the first major revolt erupted in the townships after 15 people, | 0:48:09 | 0:48:13 | |
many of them schoolchildren, were shot dead in Soweto. | 0:48:13 | 0:48:17 | |
The result was a full-scale uprising. | 0:48:17 | 0:48:20 | |
Whenever there were big events outside, | 0:48:23 | 0:48:26 | |
they used to react. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:28 | |
And we immediately guessed that something was happening outside | 0:48:28 | 0:48:32 | |
which would be favourable to us. | 0:48:32 | 0:48:34 | |
There was one particular period when they acted quite normally, | 0:48:34 | 0:48:40 | |
as if nothing had happened, and that was the Soweto Uprising. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
Um...we heard some snippets of garbled information | 0:48:44 | 0:48:49 | |
which was grossly exaggerated and distorted. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:52 | |
They were so successful in keeping the news away from us that time... | 0:48:52 | 0:48:56 | |
..that there was literally a news drought... | 0:48:58 | 0:49:02 | |
..and we first came to hear of the Soweto Uprising in August of 1976, | 0:49:04 | 0:49:09 | |
which was two months after it had happened. | 0:49:09 | 0:49:13 | |
The Soweto Uprising set off a new wave of resistance, | 0:49:13 | 0:49:17 | |
both inside and outside South Africa. | 0:49:17 | 0:49:20 | |
Military and civilian installations were sabotaged, | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
international trade sanctions were imposed | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
and unrest in the townships reached almost revolutionary proportions. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:30 | |
In an effort to smother this growing opposition, | 0:49:30 | 0:49:33 | |
arrests were stepped up | 0:49:33 | 0:49:35 | |
and a new generation of prisoners arrived at the maximum security prison on the island. | 0:49:35 | 0:49:40 | |
I knew a lot about Robben Island before I went there | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
because that's where we knew that our heroes were kept. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
We knew that Comrade Mandela was there, Comrade Sisulu, so... | 0:49:56 | 0:50:02 | |
we really equated Robben Island with freedom. | 0:50:02 | 0:50:07 | |
If you ask me about dialectical materialism, | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
ask me what did I read about that. | 0:50:14 | 0:50:16 | |
If you ask me about Karl Marx, | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
I didn't learn that in a college or somewhere. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
If you ask me about the actual development of society, | 0:50:21 | 0:50:25 | |
and all those things, about Hegel and all that, | 0:50:25 | 0:50:28 | |
I'm telling you it was on the island. | 0:50:28 | 0:50:30 | |
By taking all of us onto the island and putting us together, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:35 | |
they brought together potential politicians, | 0:50:35 | 0:50:39 | |
from all parts of the country. | 0:50:39 | 0:50:41 | |
People who otherwise would not have had an opportunity | 0:50:42 | 0:50:46 | |
to sit and exchange views, | 0:50:46 | 0:50:48 | |
and therefore develop a...you know, a single, national perspective. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:54 | |
One of the things that we discovered there, | 0:50:54 | 0:50:57 | |
and which enriched our own lives, | 0:50:57 | 0:51:00 | |
was the calibre of the men who were on the island. | 0:51:00 | 0:51:04 | |
It was fantastic. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:07 | |
Um...men with whom you could sit down | 0:51:07 | 0:51:10 | |
and at the end of the conversation, you feel that you've been enriched. | 0:51:10 | 0:51:15 | |
Your horizons have been widened | 0:51:16 | 0:51:19 | |
and your roots in your own country have been deepened. | 0:51:19 | 0:51:23 | |
The new prisoners were housed in general cells, | 0:51:26 | 0:51:28 | |
separated from the isolation section in which their leaders were kept. | 0:51:28 | 0:51:32 | |
There was strict security against communication between the sections. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:39 | |
And one of the first things we set out to break was this. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:47 | |
It took us time to do that. | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
But when we made the breakthrough... | 0:51:51 | 0:51:55 | |
it was joy! | 0:51:55 | 0:51:57 | |
It was joy because we could now get across the walls... | 0:51:57 | 0:52:03 | |
..and communicate with our comrades... | 0:52:04 | 0:52:07 | |
..in manners and in ways | 0:52:08 | 0:52:12 | |
which were not visible to the authorities. | 0:52:12 | 0:52:15 | |
But those things happened right under their noses. | 0:52:17 | 0:52:21 | |
And, of course, we felt happy. | 0:52:21 | 0:52:24 | |
We were succeeding... | 0:52:24 | 0:52:26 | |
..while they were there. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:29 | |
There's nothing like success. It makes one feel so nice. | 0:52:29 | 0:52:35 | |
There were various methods we used to communicate. | 0:52:38 | 0:52:42 | |
One method was... | 0:52:44 | 0:52:46 | |
..we used the kitchen... | 0:52:47 | 0:52:50 | |
and the kitchen was a nerve centre - | 0:52:50 | 0:52:52 | |
one of those few nerve centres in jail. | 0:52:52 | 0:52:55 | |
The prisoners who worked in the kitchen operated a clandestine postal service | 0:53:02 | 0:53:07 | |
Messages from one section to another were wrapped in plastic | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
and hidden inside pots in which food was distributed to the prison. | 0:53:11 | 0:53:15 | |
I worked in the kitchen and I was a cook | 0:53:21 | 0:53:24 | |
and, um...at that point in time, | 0:53:24 | 0:53:26 | |
Mandela's section - B Section - was effectively the leader's section. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:31 | |
Now, from the kitchen, | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
the guys take food, | 0:53:33 | 0:53:36 | |
you know, in big pots, into this section. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:40 | |
So I was, um... | 0:53:40 | 0:53:42 | |
put into this pot. You can imagine - I'm this small! | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
So I was put in this one big pot | 0:53:45 | 0:53:48 | |
and, after that, carried... | 0:53:48 | 0:53:50 | |
into, you know, there are trolleys, | 0:53:50 | 0:53:52 | |
very big trolleys from the kitchen into there - that section. | 0:53:52 | 0:53:56 | |
I think it was all plain. | 0:53:56 | 0:53:58 | |
Because, when I was there, | 0:53:58 | 0:54:00 | |
I heard this voice, "Now I'm ready." | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
Then I was to come out. | 0:54:03 | 0:54:05 | |
And, coming out of the pot, I was in Mandela's room. | 0:54:05 | 0:54:08 | |
I had to sit down with our now President Nelson Mandela and brief him about what was happening. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:14 | |
But I must mention this. What came out clearly to me, | 0:54:14 | 0:54:18 | |
is that the people there had, um... | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
a different idea of what was happening outside. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:24 | |
To them, at that time, | 0:54:24 | 0:54:27 | |
they were saying, "The point has come where we'll be freed." | 0:54:27 | 0:54:32 | |
You know, and they were thinking of it as early as tomorrow, | 0:54:32 | 0:54:35 | |
you know, next month, next week, next year. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:39 | |
They just heard that there was a revolution outside | 0:54:39 | 0:54:43 | |
and some of them had high expectations that now, oh, Lord, | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
this revolution is about to release us out of this prison. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:50 | |
Mandela himself spent a further 14 years in prison. | 0:54:53 | 0:54:56 | |
A political prisoner, before he goes to jail, | 0:54:56 | 0:55:02 | |
he says to himself, | 0:55:02 | 0:55:04 | |
"I am not going to allow myself to go under." | 0:55:04 | 0:55:10 | |
There were those who came to jail illiterate | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
and we taught them at the quarry, at the places of work to read and write. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:19 | |
Firstly, there were no papers. | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
And we used the site. | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
The quarry where we worked, for instance, | 0:55:27 | 0:55:30 | |
in our section, was a lime quarry. | 0:55:30 | 0:55:32 | |
And there you just levelled the lime and wrote there... | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
..until those students were able to read and write from that. | 0:55:39 | 0:55:44 | |
BIRDS CALL OVERHEAD | 0:55:44 | 0:55:47 | |
When I went to prison, | 0:55:48 | 0:55:51 | |
I hadn't studied for 22-23 years. | 0:55:51 | 0:55:54 | |
And I am greatly indebted to my fellow prisoners | 0:55:54 | 0:55:59 | |
who assisted me so unselfishly. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:03 | |
They enabled me to get two degrees - | 0:56:03 | 0:56:07 | |
a BA and a BCOM. | 0:56:07 | 0:56:09 | |
The prison authorities always liked people to believe | 0:56:18 | 0:56:23 | |
that they encouraged prisoners to study. | 0:56:23 | 0:56:26 | |
But my experience with them | 0:56:26 | 0:56:28 | |
was that they didn't like to see us progressing academically. | 0:56:28 | 0:56:33 | |
Even if you had finished your work, | 0:56:34 | 0:56:37 | |
you were not allowed to study during the day. | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
Should they find you studying during the day, | 0:56:40 | 0:56:43 | |
your privileges would be withdrawn. | 0:56:43 | 0:56:46 | |
We used to study during the day but to do so, we'd have to hide. | 0:56:48 | 0:56:52 | |
For instance, I remember myself and my study partners used to study in the toilet during the day | 0:56:52 | 0:56:59 | |
and other comrades would be watching for us. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:02 | |
If the warder came, they would tip us that he was coming | 0:57:02 | 0:57:06 | |
and then we'd fold our books. | 0:57:06 | 0:57:08 | |
There was a raging debate right from the beginning. | 0:57:13 | 0:57:16 | |
Some said, "Let's treat these people as human beings. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:20 | |
"It has happened on odd occasions | 0:57:20 | 0:57:22 | |
"that people who've been prisoners are released | 0:57:22 | 0:57:25 | |
"and they've become heads of governments. | 0:57:25 | 0:57:28 | |
"And they're very important people. | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
"Let us prepare for that day. | 0:57:31 | 0:57:34 | |
"And, um...let us give them newspapers, | 0:57:34 | 0:57:36 | |
"let us allow them radios." | 0:57:36 | 0:57:38 | |
But there were others who said, "Look, we must not take that risk. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:43 | |
"What we must do is to get these people to understand | 0:57:43 | 0:57:49 | |
"that opposing white supremacy... is a disaster for them." | 0:57:49 | 0:57:56 | |
Our treatment was intended to make them never again to resist the white supremacy. | 0:57:58 | 0:58:06 | |
CHILDREN SING IN AFRIKAANS | 0:58:08 | 0:58:10 | |
The white warders and their families formed a close-knit Afrikaner community on the island, | 0:58:45 | 0:58:51 | |
many of whom had lived there for more than a generation. | 0:58:51 | 0:58:54 | |
If you hear the name ANC or PAC or Umkhonto We Sizwe | 0:59:06 | 0:59:10 | |
you know that it's a communist, um... | 0:59:11 | 0:59:15 | |
and that's your enemy. That's how you've grown up. | 0:59:15 | 0:59:19 | |
Anything, even Nelson Mandela, | 0:59:19 | 0:59:22 | |
if you hear that name you... | 0:59:22 | 0:59:24 | |
your hair is risen, | 0:59:24 | 0:59:27 | |
if that is the correct word. That is the enemy. | 0:59:27 | 0:59:30 | |
That is a communist. | 0:59:30 | 0:59:32 | |
That is the people trying to take over our country. | 0:59:32 | 0:59:35 | |
It was a cultural shock for them | 0:59:36 | 0:59:38 | |
to enter Robben Island and find a Catholic saying, | 0:59:38 | 0:59:41 | |
"I want to see my priest." | 0:59:41 | 0:59:43 | |
It was a shock to find us speaking Afrikaans because they thought we only spoke Russian or Cuban. | 0:59:43 | 0:59:48 | |
It was a shock for them to find that they're dealing with highly educated and highly intellectual people. | 0:59:48 | 0:59:54 | |
Eventually, those stereotypes fell. | 0:59:54 | 0:59:58 | |
We broke walls between ourselves and them | 0:59:58 | 1:00:01 | |
and were able... | 1:00:01 | 1:00:03 | |
to find common ground and, of course, friendships were built. | 1:00:03 | 1:00:07 | |
Strong ones. | 1:00:07 | 1:00:08 | |
There is a built-in limit to which I would say Afrikaners would generally always go. | 1:00:08 | 1:00:16 | |
And that is their own sufferings, | 1:00:16 | 1:00:18 | |
their own struggles against British Imperialism, did play a role. | 1:00:18 | 1:00:23 | |
I mean, the fact that some of their libratory heroes - | 1:00:23 | 1:00:27 | |
General De Wet, many of them, Boers and so on - | 1:00:27 | 1:00:30 | |
that these people suffered in jail, if not as long as we did, | 1:00:30 | 1:00:33 | |
nonetheless for a cause. | 1:00:33 | 1:00:35 | |
I think that those things made them realise there is a definite limit. | 1:00:35 | 1:00:40 | |
I don't think some evil genius in Pretoria thought it out, so to speak. | 1:00:47 | 1:00:51 | |
It was a systemically determined relationship, | 1:00:51 | 1:00:54 | |
um...that was something that was cruel not just to us, | 1:00:54 | 1:00:59 | |
but particularly to the warders | 1:00:59 | 1:01:01 | |
because what it meant was that their innermost, um... | 1:01:01 | 1:01:06 | |
the innermost components of their own identity | 1:01:06 | 1:01:09 | |
were being challenged in day-to-day practice. | 1:01:09 | 1:01:11 | |
They saw, daily, that we were scholars, | 1:01:11 | 1:01:14 | |
that we were organised people, we were disciplined people, | 1:01:14 | 1:01:17 | |
we were articulate people and so on. They saw that daily. | 1:01:17 | 1:01:21 | |
And, no matter what they may have thought or said initially, | 1:01:21 | 1:01:24 | |
those things obviously undermined | 1:01:24 | 1:01:26 | |
and eroded eventually all the images they had in their heads about us and made them vulnerable. | 1:01:26 | 1:01:31 | |
Of course, when I went, um...to Robben Island... | 1:01:34 | 1:01:36 | |
..in those days, you know, you were told these people are terrorists. | 1:01:38 | 1:01:43 | |
You know, it was... fed to you every day in the media, | 1:01:43 | 1:01:48 | |
the radio, whatever, you know? | 1:01:48 | 1:01:51 | |
And that is what you thought, that you'd find a lot of monsters there. | 1:01:52 | 1:01:56 | |
And, when I got there, you know, I sort of kept my distance... | 1:01:57 | 1:02:02 | |
in the beginning. | 1:02:02 | 1:02:04 | |
An ordinary warder can be more important | 1:02:04 | 1:02:08 | |
than the Commissioner Of Prisons and even the Minister Of Justice | 1:02:08 | 1:02:14 | |
because if you went to the Commissioner Of Prisons, | 1:02:14 | 1:02:17 | |
or the Minister, and you said, | 1:02:17 | 1:02:19 | |
"Sir, it's very cold. I want four blankets." | 1:02:19 | 1:02:23 | |
He is going to look at the regulations and say, | 1:02:23 | 1:02:25 | |
"No, the regulations say you can have only three blankets. | 1:02:25 | 1:02:29 | |
"Four blankets! I can't. It's a violation of the regulations. | 1:02:29 | 1:02:33 | |
"And if I give you four blankets, I'll have to give others four." | 1:02:33 | 1:02:37 | |
But if you go to your warder in your section, | 1:02:37 | 1:02:41 | |
and you say, "Look, I want an extra blanket." | 1:02:41 | 1:02:44 | |
If you treat him with respect... | 1:02:44 | 1:02:48 | |
..he'll just go to the, um...store room | 1:02:49 | 1:02:53 | |
give you an extra blanket and that's the end of it. | 1:02:53 | 1:02:56 | |
You know, since he's been out, he's phoned me on a few occasions | 1:02:56 | 1:03:01 | |
and, um...he calls me James and I call him Mr Mandela. | 1:03:01 | 1:03:04 | |
-< -Doesn't it feel weird you were the warder and he the prisoner? | 1:03:04 | 1:03:10 | |
Not really. I think we understood each other too well, so... | 1:03:12 | 1:03:16 | |
it wasn't weird, you know. | 1:03:16 | 1:03:18 | |
He had no animosity towards me and I had none towards him. | 1:03:18 | 1:03:23 | |
The relationship was very, very good. | 1:03:23 | 1:03:26 | |
I would... We would sit and talk for hours. | 1:03:26 | 1:03:29 | |
He never tried to convert me to his politics | 1:03:31 | 1:03:34 | |
but, you know, about general things. News, you know, what's happening. | 1:03:34 | 1:03:39 | |
So there was a very good relationship between the two of us. | 1:03:39 | 1:03:42 | |
There still is today. | 1:03:42 | 1:03:45 | |
-< -How would you describe him as a person? | 1:03:45 | 1:03:48 | |
Um...Mr Mandela? | 1:03:48 | 1:03:51 | |
Since I've met him... | 1:03:51 | 1:03:53 | |
..till now... | 1:03:54 | 1:03:56 | |
he was a perfect gentleman. | 1:03:56 | 1:03:58 | |
That's all I can say about him. | 1:03:58 | 1:04:01 | |
He was one of the most refined, um...warders. | 1:04:01 | 1:04:06 | |
Well informed and, um...courteous with everybody... | 1:04:07 | 1:04:14 | |
soft spoken... | 1:04:14 | 1:04:16 | |
very good observations. | 1:04:16 | 1:04:18 | |
I developed a lot of respect for him. | 1:04:18 | 1:04:22 | |
The leadership, they were in a certain section on the island. | 1:04:22 | 1:04:27 | |
And I used to go there. | 1:04:27 | 1:04:29 | |
If I had trouble with one of the group where he was, | 1:04:30 | 1:04:35 | |
you know, any kind of trouble, | 1:04:35 | 1:04:38 | |
I would actually go to him and tell him, "Look, this has happened." | 1:04:38 | 1:04:42 | |
Then he would talk to this person. | 1:04:42 | 1:04:46 | |
In the early 1980s the prisoners, | 1:04:47 | 1:04:49 | |
aware of growing international pressure on the authorities, | 1:04:49 | 1:04:53 | |
fought to improve conditions inside the prison. | 1:04:53 | 1:04:57 | |
They did so at considerable personal risk. | 1:04:57 | 1:04:59 | |
In 1981, we mounted a hunger strike. | 1:05:00 | 1:05:03 | |
It was not long after the Irish hunger strikes | 1:05:03 | 1:05:06 | |
in which Bobby Sands and others died. | 1:05:06 | 1:05:09 | |
Of course, the hunger strike is a two-edged sword. | 1:05:10 | 1:05:13 | |
You come out of it and many people have got ulcers. | 1:05:13 | 1:05:17 | |
Once you have a case of ulcers, you have ulcers forever. | 1:05:19 | 1:05:23 | |
You don't heal those sores. | 1:05:23 | 1:05:25 | |
We had, over the years, complained about and demanded the right of access to our children. | 1:05:26 | 1:05:32 | |
The prison authority's argument was that we were prisoners, | 1:05:32 | 1:05:36 | |
we were terrorists | 1:05:36 | 1:05:38 | |
and that the fact of our children seeing us | 1:05:38 | 1:05:41 | |
would impact very badly on their minds. | 1:05:41 | 1:05:44 | |
Our constant argument... | 1:05:44 | 1:05:47 | |
was that, um... | 1:05:47 | 1:05:48 | |
whilst it is true that white society saw us as terrorists, | 1:05:48 | 1:05:53 | |
within our communities... | 1:05:53 | 1:05:56 | |
we were...we were heroes. | 1:05:56 | 1:05:59 | |
People suffered. There's no doubt about that. | 1:06:01 | 1:06:04 | |
Probably, for all of us, | 1:06:06 | 1:06:08 | |
the greatest deprivation was not the sexual one - | 1:06:08 | 1:06:12 | |
the separation from women for example - | 1:06:12 | 1:06:15 | |
not that so much but the separation from children. | 1:06:15 | 1:06:18 | |
The fact that I never saw a child for ten years, | 1:06:18 | 1:06:22 | |
was something which even now boggles my mind. | 1:06:22 | 1:06:25 | |
CHILDREN SHOUT AND PLAY | 1:06:25 | 1:06:28 | |
One day we were working in the quarry. | 1:06:29 | 1:06:32 | |
While we were digging, we heard a few noises of some children, | 1:06:32 | 1:06:37 | |
just on the other side of the bush. | 1:06:37 | 1:06:40 | |
It was spontaneous for us. We all turned as if automatons | 1:06:41 | 1:06:46 | |
and looked in the direction where the noise came from | 1:06:46 | 1:06:49 | |
because we were deprived so much of even the voice of a child, | 1:06:49 | 1:06:53 | |
never mind seeing a child. | 1:06:53 | 1:06:55 | |
So we had to look into that | 1:06:55 | 1:06:57 | |
but then the warders saw that we were looking in that direction, | 1:06:57 | 1:07:01 | |
so they ran, of course, naturally, to chase these children away, | 1:07:01 | 1:07:05 | |
so that we should not see them, we should not talk to them. | 1:07:05 | 1:07:09 | |
The 1981 hunger strikes succeeded in changing prison regulations | 1:07:09 | 1:07:13 | |
about access to their children | 1:07:13 | 1:07:15 | |
and gradually, through a combination of their own and external efforts, | 1:07:15 | 1:07:20 | |
further privileges were won | 1:07:20 | 1:07:21 | |
which allowed prisoners to lead a more human existence. | 1:07:21 | 1:07:25 | |
Robben Island is a small place. | 1:07:33 | 1:07:35 | |
The prison on Robben Island is also a small building. | 1:07:35 | 1:07:42 | |
To survive, the mind must have time and must read, | 1:07:42 | 1:07:46 | |
must do all sorts of things, | 1:07:46 | 1:07:47 | |
and of course must keep physically fit also. | 1:07:47 | 1:07:51 | |
Because if you are sitting in one place - my cell was 2m x 2m - | 1:07:51 | 1:07:54 | |
to be stuck there for 13 years is a long time, | 1:07:54 | 1:07:57 | |
so you need to go out and play sports. | 1:07:57 | 1:07:59 | |
We would do anything to play all types of sports on Robben Island - | 1:07:59 | 1:08:04 | |
we even tried golf. | 1:08:04 | 1:08:05 | |
They refused because the balls would fall into the ocean | 1:08:05 | 1:08:08 | |
and if they did and you are asked to go there you may not come back. | 1:08:08 | 1:08:11 | |
MEN YELL, WHISTLE BLOWS | 1:08:11 | 1:08:15 | |
My nickname "Terror" comes from being a striker. | 1:08:17 | 1:08:20 | |
So one on the things I took to jail with me was my footballing skills. | 1:08:20 | 1:08:26 | |
Many people tend to think that I am called Terror because I was a terrorist. | 1:08:27 | 1:08:32 | |
But, no, I was a terror, I think, more for the goalkeepers of the opposition, | 1:08:32 | 1:08:40 | |
and that's really where the nickname comes from. | 1:08:40 | 1:08:43 | |
BALL BEING HIT BY A RACQUET | 1:08:44 | 1:08:47 | |
What was your sport on the island? | 1:08:53 | 1:08:56 | |
I played tennis... and I played volleyball. | 1:08:56 | 1:09:00 | |
I probably played other games... | 1:09:00 | 1:09:03 | |
-What is this game where you throw a ring? -< Quoits. | 1:09:03 | 1:09:06 | |
-Eh? -< Quoits? | 1:09:06 | 1:09:08 | |
-Deck quoits? -No, I don't know that. | 1:09:08 | 1:09:10 | |
Um, there is a ring, a rubber ring which you throw over the net... | 1:09:10 | 1:09:15 | |
What do you call it? Ladies, you should know. | 1:09:15 | 1:09:19 | |
Um, I'll remember the name, now, | 1:09:19 | 1:09:22 | |
and of course we had indoor games as well, | 1:09:22 | 1:09:26 | |
chess, drafts, dominoes, you know, | 1:09:26 | 1:09:32 | |
and one of the other games where you had some rich...? | 1:09:32 | 1:09:38 | |
Scrabble was played. | 1:09:39 | 1:09:43 | |
But there's another game which is also very popular... | 1:09:43 | 1:09:47 | |
-< Monopoly? -Monopoly, yes. Mm. | 1:09:48 | 1:09:53 | |
Kind of quoits, the other, what do you call...kind of quoits, yes. | 1:09:53 | 1:09:57 | |
I played those. Mm. | 1:09:57 | 1:09:59 | |
It's a funny idea, a lot of left-wing politicians playing Monopoly... | 1:09:59 | 1:10:04 | |
-on Robben Island. -Yes, quite, yes! Yes, that's true. | 1:10:04 | 1:10:08 | |
< Understanding capitalism! HE LAUGHS | 1:10:08 | 1:10:11 | |
Right through the period of Christmas, | 1:10:11 | 1:10:15 | |
the competition of singing. | 1:10:15 | 1:10:17 | |
We were placed in our particular group, | 1:10:18 | 1:10:24 | |
in a position whereby windows could be used, you can open windows, | 1:10:24 | 1:10:30 | |
it was not a typical prison. | 1:10:30 | 1:10:32 | |
We were able to sing and make competition. | 1:10:32 | 1:10:36 | |
We would stand at these windows, Raymond and I, | 1:10:37 | 1:10:42 | |
or someone, reciting a poem... | 1:10:42 | 1:10:46 | |
..and amazingly the acoustics there were so good | 1:10:47 | 1:10:52 | |
that the voice travelled right down the passage. | 1:10:52 | 1:10:55 | |
What did you do? | 1:10:55 | 1:10:57 | |
Well, I used to sing, as well as others used to sing... | 1:10:58 | 1:11:03 | |
..a variety of songs. | 1:11:04 | 1:11:08 | |
There used to be some who'd sing Blue River, | 1:11:08 | 1:11:14 | |
and others who'd sing Be Mine, | 1:11:14 | 1:11:21 | |
and so on and so on. | 1:11:21 | 1:11:23 | |
There was such a good range of music that came through those rooms. | 1:11:23 | 1:11:30 | |
# Under the starlit skies | 1:11:30 | 1:11:34 | |
# Be mine | 1:11:34 | 1:11:38 | |
# When the night falls into a lullaby | 1:11:38 | 1:11:44 | |
# My arms will embrace you | 1:11:44 | 1:11:50 | |
# With love divine | 1:11:50 | 1:11:55 | |
# And now | 1:11:55 | 1:11:59 | |
# Is the time to whisper that you'll be mine | 1:11:59 | 1:12:05 | |
# Come into my heart | 1:12:05 | 1:12:09 | |
# And stay for ever | 1:12:09 | 1:12:15 | |
# Tell me, tell me that you'll be mine... # | 1:12:15 | 1:12:18 | |
There were guys who went to ballroom dancing before they came to prison, | 1:12:18 | 1:12:23 | |
so they taught some of us who have never been introduced to the art. | 1:12:23 | 1:12:29 | |
So we would do these things in the cells. | 1:12:29 | 1:12:33 | |
Competitions for an outstanding pair. | 1:12:33 | 1:12:38 | |
A club would attract the attention of the warders, | 1:12:38 | 1:12:42 | |
that an entertainment is going on in the cell, | 1:12:42 | 1:12:46 | |
which was supposed not to be the case, | 1:12:46 | 1:12:48 | |
because the cell was supposed to be a place of gloom, of brooding and anxiety and all that kind of thing. | 1:12:48 | 1:12:55 | |
But we brightened up the cell, you know, and engaged in this kind of activity, | 1:12:55 | 1:12:59 | |
so for an outstanding performance, | 1:12:59 | 1:13:01 | |
the chap would say, "Give them a brush." | 1:13:01 | 1:13:05 | |
A brush would be like this, | 1:13:05 | 1:13:06 | |
not a clap, like this, because a clap would attract their attention, | 1:13:06 | 1:13:10 | |
so a brush, "Give them a brush." | 1:13:10 | 1:13:13 | |
We started then also to stage some plays. | 1:13:16 | 1:13:20 | |
There is a book called Waiting For Godot. | 1:13:20 | 1:13:26 | |
That book was written by Samuel Beckett. | 1:13:26 | 1:13:30 | |
And it was a book that, after reading it, | 1:13:30 | 1:13:33 | |
then, a group of us then began then to stage a play on it. | 1:13:33 | 1:13:39 | |
And after that there was a discussion about it - | 1:13:39 | 1:13:43 | |
is this real? | 1:13:43 | 1:13:45 | |
What did the tramp stand for? | 1:13:47 | 1:13:49 | |
What was the message of the author? | 1:13:49 | 1:13:53 | |
Some people said that, you know, | 1:13:53 | 1:13:56 | |
the tramp tried to show us that we can go on hoping against hope. | 1:13:56 | 1:14:03 | |
Others said then that, no, that is discouraging, | 1:14:03 | 1:14:05 | |
because it is something then that is just like Christianity, | 1:14:05 | 1:14:09 | |
that is keeping you down and saying, you get heaven above if you sacrifice everything down here on Earth. | 1:14:09 | 1:14:16 | |
We knew no tyrant is there for all time, | 1:14:19 | 1:14:24 | |
and that in the long run, | 1:14:24 | 1:14:27 | |
however well-armed the tyrant was, | 1:14:27 | 1:14:31 | |
the will of the people would overcome the tyrant's forces, | 1:14:31 | 1:14:38 | |
that we knew. | 1:14:38 | 1:14:40 | |
And the people... | 1:14:40 | 1:14:43 | |
..the people that struggle for freedom... | 1:14:45 | 1:14:49 | |
..the people that struggle for liberation from oppression, | 1:14:51 | 1:14:55 | |
and worse oppression that is accompanied by racism, as in the case of South Africa. | 1:14:55 | 1:15:03 | |
An organisation that leads such people... | 1:15:04 | 1:15:09 | |
..the nationalists didn't learn this lesson. | 1:15:10 | 1:15:13 | |
Probably they haven't learned it even today | 1:15:13 | 1:15:17 | |
that such an organisation can't be destroyed. | 1:15:17 | 1:15:23 | |
Faced with the prospect of economic collapse, | 1:15:23 | 1:15:26 | |
the South African Government decided in the late-1980s | 1:15:26 | 1:15:29 | |
to prepare for a negotiated transition to majority rule. | 1:15:29 | 1:15:33 | |
As part of this opening-up process, | 1:15:33 | 1:15:35 | |
several of the original Rivonia group were released from their life sentences, | 1:15:35 | 1:15:40 | |
in October 1989. | 1:15:40 | 1:15:42 | |
The very first day I did not believe whether it's Andrew. | 1:15:46 | 1:15:52 | |
I was not sure whether to touch Andrew, or whether to do what. | 1:15:52 | 1:15:59 | |
But anyway, when days went on, | 1:15:59 | 1:16:03 | |
I did not even wish to leave him alone for a few minutes. | 1:16:03 | 1:16:09 | |
I wanted to be with him... every five minutes. | 1:16:09 | 1:16:16 | |
Even when he had to come to the office, | 1:16:16 | 1:16:20 | |
that thing came back to say, "Oh, I'm alone again"! | 1:16:20 | 1:16:25 | |
Every now and then I come across something that is new to me. | 1:16:25 | 1:16:31 | |
Um, the first thing I came across when I came out was this, um...cordless telephone, | 1:16:31 | 1:16:37 | |
at my house, | 1:16:37 | 1:16:39 | |
and I'd never heard of or seen one before. | 1:16:39 | 1:16:42 | |
But the most simple thing was the Gillette razor. | 1:16:42 | 1:16:45 | |
I was used to those blades of the old type and I'd never seen this, | 1:16:45 | 1:16:50 | |
and I just couldn't insert a Gillette into...a blade into a razor. | 1:16:50 | 1:16:55 | |
But there were so many little things that were new to me. | 1:16:55 | 1:17:00 | |
The only thing which is still a problem between my wife and I is lights. | 1:17:02 | 1:17:07 | |
I think I got used to lights and I like light anyway, | 1:17:07 | 1:17:12 | |
I don't like darkness. | 1:17:12 | 1:17:14 | |
So my wife takes the opposite view. | 1:17:14 | 1:17:18 | |
She switches off the light, I switch on, | 1:17:18 | 1:17:23 | |
and that is like the prison and the warder. | 1:17:23 | 1:17:27 | |
In prison, I'm not sure whether it was there... In some cases, they put on the light. | 1:17:27 | 1:17:34 | |
You switch off. | 1:17:34 | 1:17:36 | |
Nelson Mandela chose to remain in prison, | 1:17:38 | 1:17:42 | |
until the government conceded to the terms on which negotiations would be conducted. | 1:17:42 | 1:17:47 | |
As the most famous political prisoner in the world, | 1:17:47 | 1:17:50 | |
he became the focus of intense journalistic and political interest. | 1:17:50 | 1:17:55 | |
More and more people wanted to come and see him. | 1:17:55 | 1:17:58 | |
Some of them have curiosity, | 1:17:58 | 1:18:02 | |
many of them tried to climb on the bandwagon, I don't know, | 1:18:02 | 1:18:06 | |
it was so bad that I actually went to him. | 1:18:06 | 1:18:11 | |
The people I knew, you know, that were really visitors, | 1:18:11 | 1:18:14 | |
I issued permits for. | 1:18:14 | 1:18:17 | |
But the people I did not know who they were, | 1:18:17 | 1:18:20 | |
I went to him. | 1:18:20 | 1:18:22 | |
"This person has applied to see you. Do you want to see them, yes or no?" | 1:18:22 | 1:18:27 | |
And he would tell me yes or no, and that is the answer I would give. | 1:18:27 | 1:18:32 | |
So I was very much a buffer between the outside world and him, | 1:18:32 | 1:18:40 | |
and between him and the outside world. | 1:18:40 | 1:18:44 | |
From prison Mandela wielded more authority than his fellow politicians who were free. | 1:18:44 | 1:18:50 | |
Despite repeated offers of deals from the government, | 1:18:50 | 1:18:53 | |
he refused to agree to his release until he felt his demands had been met. | 1:18:53 | 1:18:58 | |
When you first met him did you think he would play such a leading role one day? | 1:18:58 | 1:19:04 | |
To tell you the truth, I had no idea. No idea. | 1:19:04 | 1:19:10 | |
It was only later, I would say from 1985, 1986, I started realising... | 1:19:10 | 1:19:18 | |
..what is happening because I was also, you know... | 1:19:19 | 1:19:24 | |
..interested in both sides, let me put it that way. | 1:19:26 | 1:19:29 | |
I think he started realising, you know, that this is going somewhere, | 1:19:29 | 1:19:34 | |
really going somewhere. | 1:19:34 | 1:19:37 | |
I mean, you know, maybe being the future President, | 1:19:37 | 1:19:43 | |
I mean, not only through my work... | 1:19:43 | 1:19:46 | |
..but, um, you know, I'm an avid reader, | 1:19:47 | 1:19:53 | |
and two and two, you can put two and two together, | 1:19:53 | 1:19:57 | |
and so on, that they had to... Change had to come, | 1:19:57 | 1:20:02 | |
you know, to majority rule. | 1:20:02 | 1:20:05 | |
And it is, I mean, there. | 1:20:05 | 1:20:07 | |
SIRENS WAIL | 1:20:07 | 1:20:10 | |
Mr Nelson Mandela, | 1:20:12 | 1:20:15 | |
a free man, taking his first steps into a new South Africa. | 1:20:15 | 1:20:21 | |
Mandela's release after 27 years opened the way for negotiations with the government, | 1:20:21 | 1:20:28 | |
and the release of all remaining political prisoners. | 1:20:28 | 1:20:32 | |
TRANSLATION OF VOICES SINGING: | 1:20:40 | 1:20:44 | |
Robben Island still functions as a prison for common-law criminals. | 1:22:42 | 1:22:47 | |
Many of the present warders worked on the island when the political prisoners were held there. | 1:22:47 | 1:22:53 | |
When I came to the island, people told me, this is like a BIG island, | 1:22:53 | 1:22:58 | |
with very very vicious guys - you can't even speak with them, | 1:22:58 | 1:23:02 | |
and when you got here, a few months past, | 1:23:02 | 1:23:07 | |
I saw, this is people as well. | 1:23:07 | 1:23:10 | |
OK, the crimes might be different, but still they're people. | 1:23:10 | 1:23:13 | |
Did you think then that they were going to be very important politicians | 1:23:13 | 1:23:18 | |
when they left the island? | 1:23:18 | 1:23:20 | |
Oh yes. I mean, the type of high- profile prisoner that they were, | 1:23:20 | 1:23:27 | |
it was obvious often that they would be in a position in a political party, | 1:23:27 | 1:23:34 | |
that they would have some say, even at that stage. | 1:23:34 | 1:23:37 | |
What do you think about that? | 1:23:37 | 1:23:40 | |
Well, we have to accept, I mean, the country has to change. | 1:23:40 | 1:23:45 | |
What do you think about the days you spent with them? | 1:23:45 | 1:23:49 | |
I try to recall their names. | 1:23:49 | 1:23:52 | |
And still, when I seem them, | 1:23:55 | 1:23:58 | |
that's his name, he was in that section. | 1:23:58 | 1:24:02 | |
Walter Sisulu and Andrew Mlangeni were both kept in the prison's isolation section. | 1:24:03 | 1:24:09 | |
On this return visit to show the island to their wives, | 1:24:09 | 1:24:14 | |
the only rules they must follow are those which apply to ordinary tourists. | 1:24:14 | 1:24:21 | |
But the prison itself is still out of bounds. | 1:24:21 | 1:24:26 | |
"The following rules are applicable to all visitors to Robben Island." | 1:24:26 | 1:24:32 | |
"Conversations with prisoners will not be allowed. | 1:24:32 | 1:24:36 | |
"No parcels or articles of any kind are to be handed to | 1:24:36 | 1:24:42 | |
"or received from prisoners. | 1:24:42 | 1:24:45 | |
"Your visit will be on your own risk, | 1:24:45 | 1:24:49 | |
"the management of Robben Island do not accept any responsibility | 1:24:49 | 1:24:54 | |
"for damage incurred or injuries sustained. | 1:24:54 | 1:24:59 | |
"Flora and flora and marine life may not be disturbed in any way." | 1:24:59 | 1:25:04 | |
Ooh, Lord, they are spoiling this quarry now. | 1:25:04 | 1:25:09 | |
They are proud to destroy the history of this place here. | 1:25:09 | 1:25:14 | |
-Where we are standing, people like Mhlaba used to work here. -Yes. | 1:25:14 | 1:25:18 | |
This is history, why are they making a dumping place? | 1:25:18 | 1:25:22 | |
-They did everything here... -Yes. Education... -..Politics, everything here. | 1:25:22 | 1:25:29 | |
Academic studies, everything here. | 1:25:29 | 1:25:31 | |
-Singing was not allowed in the first place. -Oh... | 1:25:31 | 1:25:36 | |
All prisoners, it's a tradition they sing, | 1:25:36 | 1:25:39 | |
-in order to get, you know, energy. -Mmm...of the people. | 1:25:39 | 1:25:46 | |
But, with us, no singing. | 1:25:46 | 1:25:49 | |
Although Walter can't sing he loves listening to other people sing. | 1:25:49 | 1:25:53 | |
-Oh, he is a good singer, you don't know him... -He used to sing. | 1:25:53 | 1:25:57 | |
He is, he still is. | 1:25:57 | 1:26:00 | |
THEY SING | 1:26:00 | 1:26:03 | |
-How about the warders? -Where were they deployed? | 1:26:11 | 1:26:15 | |
There, along those lines...there. | 1:26:15 | 1:26:19 | |
'We bore no ill will, no bitterness to those people who were so cruel to us. | 1:26:19 | 1:26:27 | |
'We felt possibly we could, even in a small way, rehabilitate them.' | 1:26:27 | 1:26:33 | |
When I was released from prison, I was subjected to banning orders. | 1:26:35 | 1:26:40 | |
And when I went to court after transgressing my banning orders, | 1:26:40 | 1:26:44 | |
one of the security policemen who had tortured me in detention, | 1:26:44 | 1:26:48 | |
offered me his hand, and I took his hand and I said hello. | 1:26:48 | 1:26:53 | |
I've seen a lot of the prisoners that I met on the island, | 1:26:53 | 1:26:59 | |
and realising they might possibly will be the leaders of the next government, | 1:26:59 | 1:27:05 | |
um...it's a funny feeling, | 1:27:05 | 1:27:08 | |
because one didn't really think of that when you worked on the island, | 1:27:08 | 1:27:13 | |
although you knew it was a possibility. | 1:27:13 | 1:27:15 | |
One never ever thought of them eventually being your boss. | 1:27:15 | 1:27:18 | |
One is grateful, | 1:27:18 | 1:27:21 | |
um, although it was a tragedy that you had the opportunity to lead another life, | 1:27:21 | 1:27:28 | |
and to be able to stand back from you and your work and to look at it from a distance, | 1:27:28 | 1:27:35 | |
and to be able to evaluate your work and the mistakes that you made. | 1:27:35 | 1:27:40 | |
It offered us that opportunity. | 1:27:40 | 1:27:42 | |
And do you think that's benefited you? | 1:27:42 | 1:27:45 | |
Oh, naturally. It benefited not only me, but others as well. | 1:27:45 | 1:27:49 | |
I'm supposed to be a very angry man, | 1:27:49 | 1:27:52 | |
and, um...but I think, as a Christian, | 1:27:52 | 1:27:56 | |
I understand and...I hope they will realise what they've done to me. | 1:27:56 | 1:28:03 | |
I was not an isolated case, but I still needed to be a young person, | 1:28:03 | 1:28:08 | |
still needed to be a boyfriend to a girlfriend, | 1:28:08 | 1:28:12 | |
still needed to...play around. | 1:28:12 | 1:28:16 | |
So I'll say prison really took all they days of my youth. | 1:28:18 | 1:28:23 | |
Subtitles by BBC Broadcast 2005 | 1:29:05 | 1:29:09 | |
E-mail us at [email protected] | 1:29:09 | 1:29:14 |