“Ons Dien Met Trots – We Serve With Pride” are the words which greet visitors upon arrival at Robben Island, just a 20-minute boat trip from Cape Town.
This was the place which Nelson Mandela described as “like going to another country”, the place where he served 18 of his 27 years behind bars.
A generation spent away from his family, from the faces and places he knew best and denied the opportunity to help right the many wrongs inflicted by the apartheid regime, that Mandela didn’t emerge from prison possessed by vengeance remains almost miraculous.
Despite ascending to the Presidency of South Africa in 1994, despite becoming a revered figure the world over and despite living to the grand old age of 95, Madiba, at least in my mind’s eye, is already somewhat mythical.
Almost eight years after his death, the reality of his life is beyond any work of fiction. To think he did all that. To think Mandela lived his life as he did, in spite of all he was denied, never wavering from his cause, as the heavy hand of minority rule suppressed millions and defied logic, is beyond my comprehension.
Of course, a saint was not interred in December 2013, nor would he have ever have wished to be considered in such terms.
But nobody who has led his country since he left office has commanded any commensurate level of respect either domestically or internationally. Alas, that’s of no great surprise in reality, for not many in any century or on any continent have been made of the stuff which made Mandela the man he was.
To stand in the cell he spent 18 years in, overlooking the prison yard at Robben Island, will forever remain one of the standout moments of my life.
The only other cell I’d ever stood in was the facility my Grandfather, a Garda Sergeant, rarely if ever had to use during his 20 years of duty in my native Portlaw. That fact only occurred to me as I sat to consider this entry.
Modise Phekonyane, a prisoner on Robben Island from 1978 to 1982, was my guide when I visited in 2005 as part of a travelling party from South East Ireland. He was considered, softly spoken and in utter command of his commentary as he took us through the facility.
Modise brought us to Mandela’s cell, unlocking its grilled door. Sixteen years later, it remains a deep and abiding memory, to have stood for a few brief minutes in a space Mandela, Prisoner 4664, occupied for far too long.
In 1969, he wrote the following letter to his two daughters, who were barely in double figures at the time.
"Zindzi (Mandela’s youngest girl) says her heart is sore because I'm not at home and wants to know when I will come back. I do not know my darlings when I will return. You will remember that in the letter I wrote in 1966 I told you that the white judge said I should stay in jail for the rest of my life. It may be long before I come back. It may be soon. Nobody knows when it will be. Not even the judge who said I should be kept here but I am certain that one day I will be back at home to live in happiness with you until the end of my days."
Bear in mind that in July of that year, his son Tembi had been killed in a car accident while his mother Nosekeni (“the centre of my existence”) had died the previous year. Mandela was not allowed to attend either funeral.
"It added to my grief that I was not able to bury my mother, which was my responsibility as her eldest child and only son.” His heartache must have been unfathomable.
Somehow, Nelson Mandela endured, despite spending the most naturally productive years of his life away from his family, away from office but, critically, not removed from influence.
“To survive in prison, one must develop ways to take satisfaction in his daily life,” he wrote in his memoir, ‘Long Walk To Freedom’.
“One can feel fulfilled by washing one’s own clothes so that they are particularly clean, by sweeping a corridor so that it is free of dust, by organising one’s cell to conserve as much space as possible. The same pride one takes in more consequential tasks outside prison, one can find in doing things inside prison.”
Logging onto the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s website in the early hours of this morning, I discovered that 22 years ago, on this very date, Madiba delivered his final address as President to the South African Parliament.
“It is a measure of our success as a nation that an international community that inspired hope in us, in turn itself finds hope in how we overcame the divisions of centuries by reaching out to one another. To the extent that we have been able to reciprocate in renewing hope amongst the people of the world, we are grateful indeed and feel doubly blessed. And it goes without saying that we should all live up to those expectations which the world has of us.”
He added: “To the extent that we have still to reconcile and heal our nation; to the extent that the consequences of apartheid still permeate our society and define the lives of millions of South Africans as lives of deprivation, those challenges are unchanged.” To a large extent, that sadly remains one of the most pressing matters facing the Rainbow Nation in 2021.
Our emotive impulses require dampening during periods of great personal torment and pressure. We are all on a more even keen when the head rules the heart. Nelson Mandela lived with such a level of cognisance more than most and for longer than anyone ought to have. And it would appear that his writings were among the most positive forces which he routinely engaged during his imprisonment.
“I was fascinated by the fact that every afternoon at 3:30, they would lock the doors and the prisoners would be in those single cells until about 5:30 the next morning,” said journalist Sahm Venter, who assembled and published Mandela’s prison letters in 2018.
“So I asked him, ‘What did he do when he was locked away like this every day.’ And he said, ‘I read and I wrote letters.’ So he spent a lot of time and effort on those letters. They were beautifully written, full of detail and essentially he poured his heart into them.”
Nelson Mandela’s words were powerful, impactful and many. That he has left so many to the world is a great gift both for this generation and to all who will follow us.
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