Cape Town, Post-Apartheid 2/20

On Wednesday we visited the Robben Island Museum, the launching point for the ferry to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held for 25 years before his release in 1990. Robben Island was an exile for all kinds of ‘undesirables’ for many centuries: criminals, political prisoners, and those suffering from mental illness or leprosy or even venereal disease. Unfortunately we couldn’t get onto a tour of the island, but the museum itself was really fascinating. There aren’t too many details known of the earliest years (1500s-1800s) but there were a lot of comings and goings and So-and-So claimed the island for Britain but was largely ignored, and So-and-So was sent to the island for ‘suspicious behavior and insubordination’. The Dutch started sending political prisoners to Robben Island in the 1960’s and Mandela was released only a few years prior to the dismantling of apartheid in 1994. The museum has hundreds of posters and photographs documenting the protests not only in South Africa but around the world. It was all very moving to see the positive result of massive, global political action.