Robben Island, South Africa - Place Of Sorrows

Islands are normally associated with unrestricted freedom. If inhabited, islands stand for a lazy life style far removed from society's ordinances and regulations. Robben Island though, have a history of deep sorrow, drenched in the coldness that the human bosom can bestow on others dissimilar to their ain kind.

The narrative of Robben Island started in 1652 when January avant garde Riebeeck landed in Cape Town on orders from the Dutch East North American Indian Company to set up a station where boats could seaport on manner to the East. He almost immediately started to utilize the Island - which is only a few kilometres from the mainland - as a topographic point where trouble makers could be kept away from the growth community.

The first political prisoner, Autshumato, was exiled in 1658, simply because he was taking back cows that his people believed to have got been unfairly confiscated by European settlers. Prisoners were also brought from other countries. Most of them strong-willed rebels that were removed from their societies before they could stir too much trouble.

They were soon joined by ordinary criminals, the mentally ill, lazars and even cocottes who could distribute diseases. Island life became very rough with no kindness felt or offered. Robben Island had started it's culture of alienation.

Long before its most celebrated prisoner, Horatio Nelson Mandela, another great indigenous leader, Makana, was held prisoner on Robben Island. He was a strong Xhosa leader who fought against the British over land issues during the early portion of the 18 hundreds, but surrendered in order to negociate a meaningful peace. He was unceremoniously transported to the Island and died there far removed from his people.

During the reign of the Apartheid regime, favoritism against non-white people escalated and basic human rights became non-existent. Many combatants for freedom were imprisoned on Robben Island during those dark decades. They faced an Fe manus and human interaction was kept to the minimum.

There is one heart-gripping story where the political captives where marched past the scattered house where Henry Martin Robert Sobukwe was kept in eremitic confinement. At that minute he was in the garden and when he saw the other captives he got onto his knees, picked up a manus full of sand and allow it filter through his fingers as a eremitic gesture of communication.

Nelson Mandela, one of the world's most revered leaders, spent 27 old age in jail, most of that on Robben Island, for his engagement in the cause for freedom. When the human race community met this singular adult male after so many old age in jail, they were amazed. Here was a adult male whose life had been effectively robbed from him and instead of an angry man, we all proverb a generous adult male emerging with steady eyes and a impish smile.

Robben Island that should have got killed the human spirit, had only succeeded in producing an emphatic therapist of a divided country.

A visit to Cape Town cannot be concluded without getting on the boat from the Cape Town Waterfront and walking in and around the ill-famed and at the same clip celebrated jailhouse that kept many different sorts of people behind parallel bars over the centuries.