Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe’s birthday was on 5 December. It also marked five years since Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela’s passing. Getaway was invited to attend the night vigil and pilgrimage on Robben Island to commemorate his legacy and that of other Struggle heroes.
Image credit: Gabrielle Jacobs.
Along with this commemoration, 2018 also marks a hundred years since the birth of Albertina Nontsikelelo Sisulu.
Attendees of the vigil, including former activists, clergy and academics arrived at the Nelson Mandela Gateway at the V&A Waterfront to board the Sikhululekile which would take us to Murray’s Harbour. Here we were welcomed by the Robben Island Museum CEO Mava Dada and staff.
The Very Reverend Michael Weeder looks on towards the Robben Island entryway. Image credit: Gabrielle Jacobs.
Just past the Robben Island gateway. Image credit: Gabrielle Jacobs
Our 135-strong party walked to the island gateway and then on towards the Robert Sobukwe Complex. Here we were entertained by the Bitterfontein Riel Dancers’ young girls and boys who presented a traditional northwestern Cape dance to the sound of a fiddle and acoustic guitar.
Our big group was split into two and took turns visiting the house where Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) founder Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe was kept in solitary confinement, and we were given the chance to see the room where his four children at the time stayed when they came to visit him on the island.
Former prisoner and Sobukwe’s compatriot Chief Bandile Joyi was invited to share his memories of Robben Island and his late comrade. He paid homage to all the fallen heroes and the ones who never lived to join him in sharing this experience.
Our party left the site of Sobukwe’s house and headed to what Mr Joyi informed us used to be the old prison gymnasium. There the Ikamva Marimba Band from Khayelitsha continued the evening’s entertainment with a beautiful acapella rendition of ‘Shosholoza’, with the rest of the hall soon adding their own voices. The quintet turned to their instruments thereafter and played favourite and familiar songs, bringing lots of energy and flare.
Jenny Morris and the team from her restaurant, Yumcious, served what the celebrity chef called a ‘humble meal’ of bobotie, lemon and herb chicken and salads, and toasted sandwiches, to see us through the night.
After supper, we began our silent pilgrimage to the Maximum Security Prison’s B Section, where we gathered in the prison courtyard.
Robben Island Museum’s Luvuyo Ndzuzo then provided his own insights into the deep intellectual and political life of Robben Island’s prisoners. He calls the island and the B Section ‘one of the most powerful spaces the world has known and has come to know in the past few decades’.
‘This is what some of us called a huge mistake for the [apartheid] regime, a mistake because it decided to take all the people that were opposing the regime, irrespective of their [political] persuasions, irrespective of their theory, and put them in one space […] some of the most powerful leaders put in the same space,’ he remarked with irony.
Thereafter, we listened to poetry and watched a conceptual dance performance celebrating freedom and acknowledging the past. In silence, we sat in the quad and watched a video acknowledging notable political icons of the era while a choral rendition of the funereal protest song ‘Senzenina’ played.
Ndzuzo then introduced the Dean of St George’s Cathedral, the Very Reverend Michael Weeder, who had his own unique role in the Struggle among other clergy.
The Very Reverend Michael Weeder shares his memories of his fellow Struggle comrades as well as anecdotes of his activism as a cleric during apartheid. Image credit: Gabrielle Jacobs
It was after midnight when Revd Michael took to the podium and spoke about the nature of pilgrimages and the spiritual significance of the one we’d all started six hours before. He shared some quirky anecdotes about what ‘God’s work’ sometimes entailed during those Struggle days, and shared poetry that commemorated the island, its prisoners and their reflections on the Struggle and liberation.
Candles were lit to commemorate Mandela, Sobukwe and Ma Sisulu, and participants were allowed to assist in lighting the other candles which also bore the names of fallen Struggle heroes.
The vigil officially begun, the pilgrimage continued and the pilgrims were then allowed to visit the B Section where Nelson Mandela had been detained under maximum security, a stark contrast to what we’d seen earlier in the Sobukwe Complex.
We visited other sections of the prison and various cells in the complex. Our large group was allowed to walk around and visit the cells, reading up on who had occupied them and sometimes hearing their voices via audio boxes in selected cells.
Luvuyo Ndzuzo of the Robben Island Museum shares a personal story about a young political prisoner who was detained here. Image credit: Gabrielle Jacobs
It was after 2am when the candles were brought back to the old gym and our party of 135 followed. The marimba band brought their energy and boosted spirits with more lively musical stylings which prompted dancing from our large group. The band was followed by a Griqua heritage group who recited poems and songs, and then a final poetical exposition about isiXhosa Chief Maqoma and Tata Madiba himself.
At 5.30am we began the last leg of our pilgrimage back into daylight towards Murray Harbour to board the ferry and head back to Cape Town – a surreal experience after a night spent on the prison island with the memories of late and great political icons of the new South Africa.
Inside Mandela’s cell. Image credit: Gabrielle Jacobs.
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