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Finding Robben Island: The metaphors lurking in the lost ferry

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Marianne Thamm has toiled as a journalist / writer / satirist / editor / columnist / author for over 30 years. She has published widely both locally and internationally. It was journalism that chose her and not the other way around. Marianne would have preferred plumbing or upholstering.

Earlier this month the ancient ferry, the Susan Kruger, en route to Robben Island with a load of tourists on board, sailed on right past the iconic Unesco World Heritage Site and had to be rescued out at sea. The woes that have beset Robben Island post 1994 have come to symbolise many issues that plague and bless contemporary South Africa.

Cape Town – Tourists wanting to visit the landmark Robben Island have had anything but a smooth ride, after the Susan Kruger ferry suffered a malfunction with its radar, motored past the island and had to be rescued Traveller24, 15 January 2015

Let’s get this out of the way. The fact that a former domestic worker, Joyce Mtingeni, who had upskilled herself and obtained a certificate of competency from the South African Maritime Safety Authority, was skippering the Susan Kruger when it got lost in thick fog is actually one of the upsides in the story.

The tone of many of the reports about the incident, which occurred on 5 January, has been overtly racist, sexist and classist. That sisters are doing it for ourselves or have been “fast-tracked” is a good thing. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to skipper a ferry; you need a competency certificate, which requires passing a rigorous exam. The South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) doesn’t make allowances for anyone. Ask any seasoned Cape Town sailor who has had to take the test. So, there.

Since the dawn of democracy Robben Island, where the founding fathers of modern South Africa – such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe – spent the best years of their lives imprisoned and banished from mainland South Africa, has become a symbol of revolutionary resistance, a repository of memory as well as a metaphor for the myriad of challenges and problems that currently beset the country.

Many of the ghosts that haunt and inspire us intersected physically with the island, including Jan van Riebeeck who suddenly found himself back in the headlines 338 years after his death in Indonesia in 1677. Jan first made a comeback at the ANC’s 103 birthday celebrations in Cape Town on 10 January when an imbongi eloquently told him to bugger off, right here, right now. A few days later President Jacob Zuma conjured Jan back when he charged that the country’s woes all began with the Dutch colonial administrator’s arrival in South Africa. And of course he is entirely correct.

Then about a week later, Nelson Mandela’s former assistant, Zelda la Grange, appeared to have been possessed by Jan’s angry departing spirit as she deliriously tweeted up a storm as Zelda van Riebeeck. Meneer van Riebeeck clearly decided that he would not be leaving without a bit of the proverbial bang. See what happens when you awaken the dead…

It was Van Riebeeck, of course, who imprisoned Autshumato/Autshumao, the Gorinhaikona chief (whom the Dutch referred to as Harry Die Strandloper) on Robben Island in 1659. In 1660, Autshumato escaped after, um, commandeering a rowing boat with another prisoner. They remain, by all accounts, the ONLY two individuals to have ever successfully escaped, a feat which no doubt served as inspiration to many who would later find themselves banished to the island 11km from Table Bay Harbour in years to come.

In his bid for freedom on Christmas day in 1819, Xhosa prophet and revolutionary, Nxele ‘Makana’ Makhanda, along with around 30 others who had been imprisoned by the British, drowned. The island’s alternative name is indeed Makana Island. And while we’re on topical issues, why not rename Robben Island after Makhanda instead of Table Bay Boulevard after FW De Klerk? Apologies, that’s a different hornets nest for another column.

Oh, by the way. Did I mention that the Democratic Alliance won Robben Island in the 2009 and 2014 elections? I didn’t? Well, it did.

Since 1999 – when Robben Island was named a World Heritage Site – it has been beset by problems too numerous and too depressing to list entirely. These include gross mismanagement, the theft of fuel intended for the ferries, staff defrauding the souvenir shop and exorbitant salary increases for executive management.

The continual breakdown of ferries in particular has had an enormous impact on the island’s tourist potential and its ability to generate an income over the years. It is quite extraordinary that in 2015 those who wish to make the pilgrimage to the University of Robben Island have to do so in boats procured and built during the Apartheid era.

In 2007, the modern Sikhululekile ferry was acquired for R26-million as a flagship in what was later found to be an irregular tender award. It took a year before the boat transported its first load of tourists to the island but only a few weeks later it was in the dry dock undergoing repairs.

The ferry was then attached by its manufacturer Farocean because of non-payment and then suffered seven major breakdowns between 2008 and 2010. The repairs totaled around R10-million and at some point these were attributed to “sabotage”. The ferry was eventually taken out of service last year. In 2013 the then minister of arts and culture, Paul Mashatile, informed parliament that the museum had spent R2.6-million on hiring private boats.

However, the truth of why the Sikhululekile was unsuitable finally emerged last year when a Council of Geosciences underwater study of Robben Island’s Murray Bay Harbour showed that a rocky outcrop was causing the damage and that the boat’s hull was too heavy, particularly at low tide. Previous museum management had failed to conduct a proper study before commissioning the boat.

The hidden rocky outcrop has come to symbolise all the currents that lurk below the contemporary political surface and which have emerged and continue to emerge and bubble forth. These include the devastating legacy of Apartheid and how much this has scuppered and continues to scupper current progress. The backlog in health, education, housing and much more can indeed be traced back to then. But part of the challenge in making redress is also how to prevent the disturbing haemorrhaging of public money due to corruption, incompetence and mismanagement by the current government over the past 20 years.

Both are to blame for our inability to navigate our way into a brighter future, the future envisaged by the leaders who once found themselves on Robben Island dreaming it up.

It is ironic that the rocks in Murray Harbour are no sweat for the Dias, the other old Apartheid ferry and the Susan Kruger. The ship, by the way, is named after the notorious former minister of justice, Jimmy Kruger, who said that the murder of Steve Biko while in police custody “left him cold”.

It is also deeply ironic that it is the Susan Kruger that today still ferries tourists and staff to Robben Island. Some things, we have learned, have survived Apartheid and continue to thrive.

And when it comes to the ferry getting lost en route to the island on 5 January while Mtingeni was captaining it, I blame Apartheid.

I can, and I will.

And in this case apportioning blame is entirely justified; the boat’s navigation system failed, not the captain. We hope the president and the ruling party might find some lessons in the story. DM

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