“The island is still in exactly the same condition as it was when it was a prison island,” our guide Mike tells us, “the only difference is that there are no more prisoners.” We later go to the prison complex, but already see the village where prison guards lived with their families. The village is very similar to the villages you often encounter in the Netherlands: in the middle there is a white church, there is a café and we drink a cup of coffee in a kind of canteen on the waterfront, with a very nice view of Cape Town in the distance. Every now and then we see a penguin walking around.
We stop briefly at a quarry, where prisoners used to have to work in very poor conditions. Marl was extracted here, which was used to build the roads on the island. In the summer (when it is winter in the Netherlands), it is extremely dusty and hot here.
In the middle of the quarry lies a pile of stones. “This pile of stones symbolizes the unity that South Africa can be,” says Mike. “You see large, small, white and black stones. It shows how we can be one despite our differences.” Nelson Mandele once laid the first stone here, followed by other ex-prisoners. We are not allowed to leave the bus, says Mike, because tourists had previously scratched their names into the edges of the quarry.
Black South Africans came off worst, Asians, for example, were given a bit more to eat.
Then we arrive at the prison, where we are given a tour by Thulani Mabaso. This man, already quite elderly, is not just a tour guide who tells groups of tourists about some sights – no, Mr Mabaso himself was imprisoned on Robben Island. He was a political prisoner.
That makes quite an impression, when you realise that the man you just shook hands with was imprisoned on this barren island for years. Together with ex-presidents Nelson Mandela, Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe and Jacob Zuma, Mabaso was imprisoned for 2,190 days.
