71

THE GRAPH of improvement in prison was never steady. Progress was halting, and typically accompanied by setbacks. An advancement might take years to win, and then be rescinded in a day. We would push the rock up the hill, only to have it tumble down again. But conditions did improve. We had won a host of small battles that added up to a change in the atmosphere of the island. While we did not run the island, the authorities could not run it without us, and in the aftermath of Van Rensburg’s departure, our life became more tolerable.

Within our first three years on the island we were all given long trousers. By 1969, we received our own individual prison uniforms, instead of being issued a different set each week. These uniforms actually fit us and we were allowed to wash them ourselves. We were permitted out in the courtyard at all hours during the weekend. Although our food was not yet equalized, African prisoners would occasionally receive bread in the morning. We were allowed to pool our food anyway, so that the differences did not matter. We had been given board games and cards, which we often played on Saturdays and Sundays. At the quarry, our talk was rarely interrupted. If the commanding officer was coming, the warders on duty would blow a whistle to warn us to pick up our tools. We had neutralized the worst warders and befriended the more reasonable ones, though the authorities realized this and rotated warders every few months.

We were able to meet among ourselves virtually whenever we wanted. Meetings of the High Organ, general members’ meetings, and meetings of Ulundi were generally not broken up unless they were too conspicuous. The inmates seemed to be running the prison, not the authorities.

Stern and God-fearing, the Afrikaner takes his religion seriously. The one inflexible event on our weekly schedule was Sunday morning religious services. This was an observance the authorities considered mandatory. It was as if they believed their own mortal souls would be in peril if they did not give us the benefit of worship on Sunday.

Every Sunday morning, a minister from a different denomination would preach to us. One Sunday it would be an Anglican priest, the next a Dutch Reform predikant, the next a Methodist minister. The clerics were recruited by the prison service, whose one edict was that they must preach exclusively on religious matters. Warders were present at all services and if the minister strayed from religion, he was not invited back.

During the first two years on the island, we were not even permitted to leave our cells for Sunday services. The minister would preach from the head of our corridor. By our third year, services were held in the courtyard, which we preferred. In those years, this was the only time we were permitted in the courtyard on Sunday, except for our half hour of exercise. Few of our men were religious, but no one minded long sermons; we enjoyed being outside.

Once services were held outside, we were given the option of attending. Some men only attended services in their own denomination. Though I am a Methodist, I would attend each different religious service.

One of our first ministers was an Anglican priest by the name of Father Hughes, a gruff, burly Welshman who had served as a chaplain in the submarine corps during the Second World War. When he first arrived, he was perturbed by having to preach in the corridor, which he found inimical to the contemplation of God. On his first visit, instead of preaching to us, he recited passages of Winston Churchill’s wartime radio addresses in his beautiful baritone: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Father Hughes soon preached to us in the courtyard and we found his sermons splendid. He made a point of discreetly inserting bits and pieces of news into his sermons, something we appreciated. He might say, for example, that like the pharaoh of ancient Egypt, the prime minister of South Africa was raising an army.

We always sang hymns at the end of services, and I think Father Hughes visited us so frequently just to hear us sing. He brought along a portable organ, and he would play for us. He praised our singing, saying that it was the only singing that matched the choirs in his native Wales.

The Methodist minister was a Reverend Jones, a nervous and gloomy fellow who had been based in the Congo during its revolution. His experience there seemed to be the source of his melancholy. Over and over, he preached the importance of reconciliation — implying that it was we who needed to reconcile ourselves to the whites.

One Sunday, during the reverend’s one-sided message, I noticed Eddie Daniels shifting uneasily. Finally, Eddie could take it no longer. “You’re preaching reconciliation to the wrong people,” Eddie called out. “We’ve been seeking reconciliation for the last seventy-five years.” This was enough for Reverend Jones and we never saw him again.

Reverend Jones was not the only minister Eddie scared away. We were visited by a Coloured minister known as Brother September. One Sunday, a prisoner named Hennie Ferris, who was an eloquent speaker, volunteered to lead a prayer. Brother September was pleased to recognize such devotion. Hennie began speaking in lofty language, and at one point, asked the congregation to close its eyes and pray. Everyone, including Brother September, obliged. Eddie then tiptoed to the front, opened Brother September’s briefcase, and removed the Sunday Times of that day. No one suspected anything at the time, but Brother September never brought newspapers again.

Reverend Andre Scheffler was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in Africa, a sister church of the Dutch Reformed Church, the faith of nearly all the Afrikaner people. The Mission Church catered only to Africans. Reverend Scheffler was a crusty, conservative fellow who usually preached to the general prisoners. One Sunday, he wandered over to our section and we asked him why he didn’t preach to us. “You men think you are freedom fighters,” he said contemptuously. “You must have been drunk on liquor or high on dagga [marijuana] when you were arrested. Freedom fighters, my foot!” But we challenged him to come to preach to us, and eventually, in the late 1960s, he responded.

Reverend Scheffler was unorthodox in one respect: he took a scientific approach to religion. I found this very appealing. Many people use science to debunk religion, but Reverend Scheffler enlisted science to bolster his beliefs. I recall one sermon in which he talked about the three Wise Men from the East who followed a star until it led them to Bethlehem. “This is not just a superstition or a myth,” he said, and then cited evidence from astronomers that at that time in history there was a comet that followed the path outlined in the Bible.

As Reverend Scheffler became familiar with us, he became more sympathetic. He had a dry sense of humor and liked to poke fun at us. “You know,” he would say, “the white man has a more difficult task than the black man in this country. Whenever there is a problem, we have to find a solution. But whenever you blacks have a problem, you have an excuse. You can simply say, ‘Ingabilungu.’ ” We burst into laughter not only because his pronunciation was unintentionally comical, but also because we were amused by the idea. “Ngabelungu” is a Xhosa expression that means, “It is the whites.” He was saying that we could always blame all of our troubles on the white man. His message was that we must also look within ourselves and become responsible for our actions — sentiments with which I wholeheartedly agreed.

What Sundays were to the rest of the week, Christmas was to the rest of the year. It was the one day when the authorities showed any goodwill toward men. We did not have to go to the quarry on Christmas Day, and we were permitted to purchase a small quantity of sweets. We did not have a traditional Christmas meal, but we were given an extra mug of coffee for supper.

The authorities permitted us to organize a concert, hold competitions, and put on a play. The concert was the centerpiece. Our choirmaster was Selby Ngendane of the PAC. Selby had been a member of the ANC Youth League before switching allegiance to the Pan Africanist Congress. He was a natural entertainer with a lovely voice and a fine ear.

Selby chose the songs, arranged the harmonies, selected the soloists, and conducted the performance. The concert took place on Christmas morning in the courtyard. We would mix in traditional English Christmas songs with African ones, and include a few protest songs — the authorities did not seem to mind or perhaps know the difference. The warders were our audience, and they enjoyed our singing as much as we did.

Before coming to prison, Ngendane was perceived as something of a political lightweight. But in prison, Selby showed his mettle. In prison, one likes to be around men who have a sunny disposition, and Selby had one.

Prison was a kind of crucible that tested a man’s character. Some men, under the pressure of incarceration, showed true mettle, while others revealed themselves as less than what they had appeared to be.

In addition to the concerts, we held a chess and draughts (or checkers) tournament, and also played Scrabble and bridge. Every year, I competed in the draughts competition, and some years, I won the grand prize, which was usually a candy bar. My style of play was slow and deliberate; my strategy conservative. I carefully considered the ramifications of every option and took a long time between moves. I resist such analogies, but it is my preferred mode of operating not only in draughts but in politics.

Most of my opponents played more swiftly, and often lost patience with my manner of play. One of my most frequent opponents was Don Davis. A member of the Non-European Unity Movement, Don had grown up in the diamond-mining area of Kimberley and was a rugged, fearless fellow who was also highly strung. Don was an excellent draughts player, but his style contrasted with mine. When Don played, perspiration would flow down his face. He became tense and agitated as he played, and made his moves rapidly as though points were awarded for speed. Several times Don and I found ourselves in the finals of the annual tournament.

Don called me Qhipu because of a habit I had when playing draughts. I would ponder each possibility, and then when I was about to move, I would call out, “Qhipu!” — which means “I strike!” — and then move the piece. Don found this frustrating and he called me Qhipu more in irritation than in amity.

Don and I played in many tournaments, and even if he won, he would come back within a few minutes, challenging me to another match. Don always wanted to play draughts, and did not seem satisfied until I responded. Soon I was spending so much time playing with Don that my other pursuits languished. When I once failed to pass an exam in my studies, a few colleagues asked me why, and I responded, to much laughter, “Don Davis!”

Our amateur drama society made its yearly offering at Christmas. My thespian career, which had lain dormant since I played John Wilkes Booth while at Fort Hare, had a modest revival on Robben Island. Our productions were what might now be called minimalist: no stage, no scenery, no costumes. All we had were the words of the play.

I only performed in a few dramas, but I had one memorable role: that of Creon, the king of Thebes, in Sophocles’ Antigone. I had read some of the classic Greek plays in prison, and found them enormously elevating. What I took out of them was that character was measured by facing up to difficult situations and that a hero was a man who would not break even under the most trying circumstances.

When Antigone was chosen as the play, I volunteered my services, and was asked to play Creon, an elderly king fighting a civil war over the throne of his beloved city-state. At the outset of the play, Creon is sincere and patriotic, and there is wisdom in his early speeches when he suggests that experience is the foundation of leadership and that obligations to the people take precedence over loyalty to an individual.

Of course you cannot know a man completely,

his character, his principles, sense of judgment,

not till he’s shown his colors, ruling the people,

making laws. Experience, there’s the test.

But Creon deals with his enemies mercilessly. He has decreed that the body of Polynices, Antigone’s brother, who had rebelled against the city, does not deserve a proper burial. Antigone rebels, on the grounds that there is a higher law than that of the state. Creon will not listen to Antigone, nor does he listen to anyone but his own inner demons. His inflexibility and blindness ill become a leader, for a leader must temper justice with mercy. It was Antigone who symbolized our struggle; she was, in her own way, a freedom fighter, for she defied the law on the grounds that it was unjust.