This week’s uniquely South African destination
Robben Island Museum
For nearly 400 years, Robben Island, 12 kilometres from Cape Town, was a place of banishment, exile, isolation and imprisonment. It was here that rulers sent those they regarded as political troublemakers, social outcasts and the unwanted of society.
During the apartheid years Robben Island became internationally known for its institutional brutality. The duty of those who ran the Island and its prison was to isolate opponents of apartheid and to crush their morale. Some freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century in prison for their beliefs.
Those imprisoned on the Island succeeded on a psychological and political level in turning a prison ‘hell-hole’ into a symbol of freedom and personal liberation. Robben Island came to symbolise, not only for South Africa and the African continent, but also for the entire world, the triumph of the human spirit over enormous hardship and adversity.
A visit to Robben Island is a deeply felt experience for South Africans and foreigners alike. Its identity is linked to the heroic lives of the people who struggled with the consequences of unjust incarceration.
Source: Robben Island Museum
Filed under: Travel, Uniquely South African | Tagged: robben island, south africa, Travel
