Robben Island

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Robben Island
View of Robben Island
View of Robben Island
Waters Table Bay
Geographical location 33 ° 48 ′ 0 ″  S , 18 ° 22 ′ 0 ″  E Coordinates: 33 ° 48 ′ 0 ″  S , 18 ° 22 ′ 0 ″  E
Robben Island (South Africa)
Robben Island
length 3.2 km
width 1.3 km
surface 5.07 km²
Highest elevation Minto Hill
30  m
Residents 116 (2011)
23 inhabitants / km²
main place Robben Island
Map of Robben Island
Map of Robben Island

Robben Island ( Afrikaans : Robbeneiland ) is an island in Table Bay in the Atlantic about twelve kilometers from the South African coastal city of Cape Town and 6.9 km from the nearest mainland section at Bloubergstrand. The former prison island became a natural and national monument in the mid-1990s, and the former prison building was converted into a museum . Nelson Mandela had spent almost two decades as a prisoner in a four-square-meter single cell in the former prison .

geography

Robben Island is 3.2 kilometers from north-south and 1.7 kilometers from west to east; the area is 507 hectares. This makes it the largest island in the coastal area of ​​mainland South Africa. The island is located in Table Bay west of the Bloubergstrand coastline and 60 kilometers north of the Cape of Good Hope . The highest point on the island is Minto Hill (formerly Fire Hill ) in the southeast at 30 meters .

The largest settlement is in the southeast of the island. In 2011 the island, which politically belongs to the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality , had 116 inhabitants. The former prison is in the north, surrounded by some quarries. There is an airfield to the west of the prison building.

Geologically, the island belongs to the Tygerberg Formation, part of the Malmesbury Group, which dates from the Proterozoic or Cambrian .

The cold Benguela Current from the South Atlantic ensures moderate temperatures in the surrounding country and created a colorful cold-water flora on the seabed and the cliffs . The Robben Island coast is a natural habitat for seals and African penguins .

history

Robben Island was well suited as a prison island, as escape attempts were practically hopeless due to the distance to the land and the cold, dangerous current and Cape Town was densely populated from an early age.

The island was used as a convict colony as early as the 17th century . In addition, a good slate building material ( Malmesbury Stone ) was extracted from the quarries for the Castle of Good Hope and other structures. The Dutch built this base near Cape Town on behalf of the East India Trade Company and to supply the ships after the British had decided against a colony on the Cape of Good Hope . The merchant Jan van Riebeeck landed on April 6, 1652 in the bay under Table Mountain with 82 men and eight women who grew fruit and vegetables and exchanged them for meat with the locals. Man interned on the island Robben island but early members of the Khoikhoi .

Around 1658 the first Malays arrived as plantation workers. Under the Sufi - Imam (deported as a result of the uprising in 1694 to South Africa) Shaykh Yusuf who was allowed Islam to be practiced at the Cape. Around 1785, Abdullah Qadi Abdussalam, also known under the name Tuan Guru , was the first prominent Muslim to be deported to Robben Island. During this time he is said to have written down the Koran by heart. In 1795 he became imam of the Auwal Mosque in Bo-Kaap , the first mosque in South Africa.

Between 1795 and 1806 the conquered United Kingdom , the Cape Colony and created in 1834 the slavery from. Robben Island was known to the Xhosa as Esiquithini , which roughly means "on the island". The Xhosa commander Makana (also Makanda Nxele ) was exiled here by the British after he had led an uprising against British colonial rule in the course of the border wars in 1819 . He tried to escape from the island but drowned before he could reach the mainland. Xhosa leaders Sandile and Maqoma were also detained here. In 1865, after numerous shipwrecks, an 18 meter high lighthouse was built on what was then Fire Hill , and it still exists today. Up until the 20th century there was a camp on the island for lepers who lived here in isolated villages. In 1895 lepers built the Church of the Good Shepherd with self-broken slate , which is also still standing today. Since many nurses came from Ireland , part of the settlement was called Irish Town .

From 1939 Robben Island served as a military base, and in 1961 it became a prisoner island again. During the apartheid period , South Africa primarily interned political prisoners here, but also criminals. In 1991 the maximum security prison for political prisoners was closed, and in 1996 the wing for common criminals as well. Robben Island has been open for sightseeing since the beginning of 1997.

Apartheid prison and "Mandela University"

With the rise of the anti-apartheid movement, Robben Island became South Africa's most notorious prison for political prisoners. When they worked hard in the quarry, they were often inadequately dressed and initially had to sleep on thin straw mats on the cold stone floor.

The prisoners included seven of the eight convicts of the Rivonia Trial , including Nelson Mandela , Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada , as well as the chairman of the Pan Africanist Congress , Robert Sobukwe , who was held in solitary confinement for six years in what is now the Robert Sobukwe House . From 1969, the Makana Football Association existed in the prison as an independent football association organized by the inmates. In 1971, after strikes and protests, the prisoners managed to enforce more humane conditions and were allowed to study in custody. Nelson Mandela, the ANC rebel leader and later peace politician, who was imprisoned on Robben Island for 18 years, played a major part in this . He used his free time for his own further education and also called on his fellow prisoners, who called the place Mandela University in the 1970s . The first part of Mandela's memoir The Long Road to Freedom was written here. Ahmed Kathrada earned four bachelor's degrees in distance learning ; He was denied master’s degrees. He later published his diary notes and correspondence from this period, which he had kept secret.

In 1994, Mandela became the first black president of South Africa to accept eleven of his fellow prisoners from Robben Island into his government. Kathrada headed the Robben Island Committee until 2006 , which manages the island as a museum.

museum

Robben Island
UNESCO world heritage UNESCO World Heritage Emblem
SafrikaIMG 8414.JPG
Prison building on Robben Island with Table Mountain in the background
National territory: South AfricaSouth Africa South Africa
Type: Culture
Criteria : (III), (VI)
Surface: 475 ha
Reference No .: 916
UNESCO region : Africa
History of enrollment
Enrollment: 1999  (session 23)

Today Robben Iceland is a national memorial, a much-visited museum and, since 1999, World Heritage of UNESCO .

traffic

The island can be reached several times a day by ferry, which arrives from the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town in Murray's Bay Harbor on the east side of the island. The airfield is rarely used, for example for state guests.

Selection of known prisoners

gallery

  • Settlement with a lighthouse

  • Prison yard on Robben Island

  • Quarry on Robben Island

literature

  • David Fleminger: Robben Island. World Heritage Sites of South Africa Travel Guides. 30 ° South Publishers, St. Albans 2007, ISBN 978-0-9584891-2-6 . (Preview)
  • Dirk Fuhrig: An island as a memorial . Welt am Sonntag No. 18, April 29, 2012, p. 77.

Web links

View from Table Mountain on Cape Town and Table Bay with Robben Island
Commons : Robben Island  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Description on the website of the University of Cape Town ( Memento from March 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (English), accessed on January 28, 2015
  2. ↑ 2011 census , accessed on January 28, 2014
  3. ↑ Abstract of the article on the geology of the island in the South African Journal of Geology 2010 (English), accessed on January 28, 2015
  4. ↑ sahistory.org.za/archive/1700-1799 (English) , accessed on July 12, 2016
  5. ↑ Nelson Mandela: The Long Road to Freedom. Spiegel-Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-87763-007-3 , p. 430.
  6. ↑ Robben Island at sahistory.org.za , accessed on November 3, 2012
  7. ↑ History of the Church at cape-town-heritage.co.za (English), accessed January 28, 2015
  8. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Center: Robben Island. Accessed August 21, 2017 .