CAPE TOWN: It was once the centre for oppression and cruelty. But what stands at South Africa’s Robben Island today is a contrast. Freshly-painted walls and redone buildings have wiped away the painful history of the anti-apartheid movement.
The face-lift given to the high-security prison at the island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years is being frowned upon by the history-conscious and tourists.
Robben Island near Cape Town has been the home of the mentally-disturbed, political prisoners and criminals. For years, it served as a jail for anti-apartheid protestors, holding about 700 convicts at the end of 1996. An island of sad tales, the prison is a national monument and was declared a Unesco world heritage site in 1999.
However, people who expect to see pain and suffering there’s disappointment as the fresh coat of grey and white plastic paint on the walls has erased the painful memories and the collage of graffiti made by the prisoners. The island today has no exhibits on the daily life of the prisoners, though surviving prisoners, many of whom serve as tourist guides here, have some horrifying tales to tell.
“People across the globe come here to see pain and suffering. But there are no grim and dirty walls. Whitewashing has erased the graffiti. There are no clothes or furniture from the old times. Rooms are so well-lit, it doesn’t give you the feel of a prison. It is disgusting,” said a tourist from America.
“This prison had a lot of sad stories on its walls. We were kept hungry, stripped naked and beaten till we bled. No medication was given. We had painful blisters on our hands due to working in limestone quarries, but no first-aid kits were provided. The prisoners had to apply urine to their wounds to sterilise them. Since we were not allowed to talk, we wrote about those painful moments on the walls. But all that is gone due to renovation,” said 48-year-old Eugene Mokgori, a former political prisoner who is now a tourist guide.
It is learnt that experts were summoned from abroad to remove the fresh paint to try and uncover the desperate messages and calendars prisoners had written on the walls. But nothing could be salvaged.
Similar contrasting pictures emerge from the Phoenix settlement area in Durban where Mahatma Gandhi once lived. Though Gandhi continues to be a source of inspiration in South Africa, the house where he lived is crying for attention.
The house, which fell victim to the anti-apartheid violence, was rebuilt during Mandela’s regime but it hardly has anything that evokes the spirit of the Mahatma. A few photographs donated by the Indian government and a printing machine once used by Gandhi are the only exhibits.
p_vineeta@dnaindia.net
