Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- Foreword by Ahmed M. Kathrada
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Prison as a Source of Politics
- 2 Politics and Prison: A Background
- 3 Resistance For Survival
- 4 Resistance Beyond Survival
- 5 Prisoner Politics and Organization on Robben Island
- 6 Debates and Disagreements
- 7 Influencing South African Politics
- 8 Political Imprisonment and the State
- 9 Theorizing Islander Resistance
- 10 Beyond Robben Island: Comparisons and Conclusion
- Appendix I Diagrams of Robben Island Prison
- Appendix II Methodological Notes on Oral and Archival Sources
- Appendix III Capsule Biographies of Interview Respondents
- Select Bibliography
- Index
2 - Politics and Prison: A Background
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- Foreword by Ahmed M. Kathrada
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Prison as a Source of Politics
- 2 Politics and Prison: A Background
- 3 Resistance For Survival
- 4 Resistance Beyond Survival
- 5 Prisoner Politics and Organization on Robben Island
- 6 Debates and Disagreements
- 7 Influencing South African Politics
- 8 Political Imprisonment and the State
- 9 Theorizing Islander Resistance
- 10 Beyond Robben Island: Comparisons and Conclusion
- Appendix I Diagrams of Robben Island Prison
- Appendix II Methodological Notes on Oral and Archival Sources
- Appendix III Capsule Biographies of Interview Respondents
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The tragedy of Africa, in racial and political terms, [has been] concentrated in the southern tip of the continent – in South Africa, Namibia, and, in a special sense, Robben Island.
This chapter locates prisoner resistance on Robben Island in the context of apartheid political history, including resistance to racial rule. It shows how the dynamic of repression and resistance shaped who was sent to Robben Island. The role of imprisonment in racial rule is also examined, including the introduction of widespread political incarceration and how the state controlled its carceral system by prohibiting knowledge about prison life and monitoring political prisoners. No understanding of political resistance and change in South Africa would be complete without reference to the crucial role international pressures played in interacting with and reinforcing local demands for change. This topic is addressed in the last section of this chapter.
Political Context
Apartheid and Resistance: 1948 to the Early 1960s
Race-based discrimination, oppression, and exploitation began in what is now South Africa with the arrival of Europeans. In 1948, when the National Party (NP) came to power with the policy of apartheid, a more comprehensive commitment to racism began. Apartheid promised “the comprehensive separation of all the volkere [ethnic nations] of South Africa into their own national units.” Over the decades that followed, the white South African minority achieved the economic, political, and social dispossession of the black majority through a range of laws and official government actions, in concert with a profit-hungry economy and acts of repression and terror, both legal and illegal.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid , pp. 14 - 32Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003