![Sample our Global Development journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5929/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Global-Development.jpg"})
Abstract
From 1952, when Nelson Mandela received his first banning order, the apartheid government attempted to remove the African National Congress leader from public life through issuing successive banning orders, censoring the publication of his words and image and finally sentencing him to life imprisonment in the maximum security prison, Robben Island. The notorious prison – a site of brutality, quarantine and resistance – was subject to the Prisons Act of 1959, which further shrouded it in secrecy. At the same time, the post-war growth of humanitarian and human rights law resulted in increasing global concern about conditions in prisons and, in turn, in the rise of activist organisations such as Southern Africa: The Imprisoned Society (SATIS), which advocated the release of apartheid’s political prisoners. In order to prove that its prisons were humane, the state was pressured to allow human rights organisations and, increasingly, the media to have access. It was also pressured to permit access to Mandela, the country’s most famous political prisoner.
This article analyses four media visits to Mandela on the island (two in 1964, one in 1973 and one in 1977), when Mandela was interviewed and/or photographed, looking at the context that led to the authorisation of such visits, complex behind-the-scenes negotiations between journalists and the authorities, Mandela’s attempted curation of his image, and the subsequent framing, publication, censorship and dissemination of information. The article argues that the state’s attempts to control the discourse around Mandela and Robben Island grew increasingly less successful – particularly in overseas reports – and that Mandela’s incarceration on the mysterious island contributed to his mythologisation. Even from a position of imprisonment, Mandela was careful to anticipate his reception abroad, establishing an irrefutable moral authority from the confines of his prison cell. His comments reveal his consistent appeal to western democratic sensibilities, his utilisation of human rights discourse and his careful negotiation of the issue of prison conditions.
Notes
1 C. Bundy, Nelson Mandela (Auckland Park, Jacana, 2015), p. 14.
2 T. Lodge, Mandela: A Critical Life (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2006), p. ix.
3 E. Boehmer, Nelson Mandela: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 5.
4 R. Stengel, Nelson Mandela: Portrait of an Extraordinary Man (London, Virgin Books, 2012) p. 96.
5 G. Klein, ‘The British Anti-Apartheid Movement and Political Prisoner Campaigns, 1973–1980’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 35, 2 (2009), pp. 455–70, doi: 10.1080/03057070902919975. Thabo Mbeki, ‘Letter to Jacob Zuma, 8 October 2008’, politicsweb.com, available at https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/thabo-mbekis-letter-to-jacob-zuma?sn=Marketingweb+detail), retrieved 25 October 2019.
6 P. E. Louw, The Media and Political Process (London, Sage, 2005).
7 K.G. Tomaselli and A. Shepperson, ‘The Absent Signifier: The Morphing of Nelson Mandela’, in K.G. Tomaselli and D. Scott (eds), Cultural Icons (London, Routledge, 2018 [2009]), pp. 25–42.
8 Bundy, Nelson Mandela, p. 25.
9 See, for example, C. Bundy, ‘The Forging of the Steel’, in Bundy, Nelson Mandela; and T. Lodge, ‘Leading from Prison’, in Lodge, Mandela, which focuses on the Pollsmoor years.
10 S. Venter (ed.), The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela (New York, Liveright, 2018).
11 Nelson Mandela Foundation, A Prisoner in the Garden: Opening Nelson Mandela’s Prison Archive (Cape Town, Penguin Books, 2005), p. 21.
12 See B. Hutton, Robben Island: Symbol of Resistance (Johannesburg and Bellville, Sached Books/Mayibuye Books, 1994). Information in the short history of Robben Island presented here is based on this source.
13 N. Penn and H. Deacon, ‘Robben Island: A Brief History’, in J. Schadeberg (ed.), Voices from Robben Island (Randburg, Ravan Press, 1994), pp. 3–15.
14 Africa Watch Prison Project, Prison Conditions in South Africa (Washington DC, Human Rights Watch, 1994), p. 2.
15 Section 44(1)(f) of the Prisons Act, no. 8 of 1959.
16 D. van Zyl Smit, ‘South Africa’, in D. van Zyl Smit and F. Dünkel (eds), Imprisonment Today and Tomorrow: International Perspectives on Prisoners’ Rights and Prison Conditions (Boston, Kluwer, 1991), p. 546.
17 A. Sparks, cited in Frene Ginwala, ‘The Press in South Africa’, paper prepared for the UN’s Unit on Apartheid; republished by Index on Censorship in 1972, p. 27, available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/030642207300200303, retrieved 31 October 2019.
18 N. Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Randburg, MacDonald Purnell, 1994).
19 N. Alexander, Robben Island Dossier, 1964–1974 (Cape Town, UCT Press, 1994), p. 13.
20 J. Moreillon, ‘Moments with Madiba’ (ICRC, 2005), p. 64, available at https://archive.nelsonmandela.org/uploads/r/nelson-mandela-centre-of-memory-south-africa/1/0/0/1007b9eccbb212f0a2242480aa32b97cfd5d 6374ea6330be9e634b43a348ea9c/Moments-with-Madiba-Jacques-Moreillon.pdf, retrieved 31 October 2019..
21 G. Hoffmann, Delegate General of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Africa, ‘ICRC Report on the Visit to “Robbeneiland” Prison on 1 May 1964’, International Review of the Red Cross, 98, 3 (2016), pp. 1,067–77. Detention: Addressing the Human Cost, doi:10.1017/S1816383117000741.
22 Nelson Mandela, ‘Letter to Amnesty secretary’, 6 November 1962, reprinted in Venter (ed.), The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela.
23 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 255.
24 See Venter, The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela, p. 5.
25 Bundy, Nelson Mandela, p. 28.
26 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom.
27 Own correspondent, ‘Reporter on Island “Bogus”’, Rand Daily Mail, Johannesburg, 26 October 1964, p. 13.
28 Christian Action, Prisoners of Apartheid: By a South African, Christian Action pamphlet (collection no. AD1897, STATE vs ERNST, D, ARENSTEIN, RI and FINKELSTEIN, J, Trial records, 1966 (Johannesburg, Historical Papers, University of the Witwatersrand, 2013).
29 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 381.
30 Nelson Mandela in conversation with Richard Stengel, c. March 1993. CD 21, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Johannesburg.
31 Nelson Mandela, ‘Letter to Commanding Officer of Robben Island Prison’, 12 September 1964, South African National Archives (Mandela, Box A2, Vol. 5).
32 Staff reporter, ‘Travel Author Arrives to Write on SA’, Rand Daily Mail, 8 June 1964, p. 4.
33 See Liddell Hart, Letter to Bernard Newman, 9 November 1959 (held in Liddell Hart Collection: 13/30/1, 1938–1963), Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College London.
34 Staff reporter, ‘Travel Author Arrives to Write on SA’, Rand Daily Mail, 8 June 1964.
35 G. Williams and B. Hackland (eds), The Dictionary of Contemporary Politics of Southern Africa (Oxford and New York, Routledge, 2015), p. 251.
36 South African Press Association, ‘UK Author Says Some Papers “Mislead”’, Rand Daily Mail, 11 July 1964, p. 6.
37 A. Sampson, Mandela: The Authorised Biography (London, HarperCollins, 1999), p. 218.
38 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 382.
39 Commonwealth staff, ‘Prison Visitor to Mandela’, The Times, London, 14 August 1964, p. 7.
40 M. Benson, ‘The Men of Robben Island’, Guardian, 10 August 1964.
41 The prisoner was later revealed to be the PAC’s Johnson Mlambo – see D.Z. Mdluli, Robben Island: The Memoirs of Dan Zwelonke Mdluli (Bloomington, Xlibris Corporation, 2013 [1973]); see also Mlambo’s testimony for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s special hearing on prisons, available at http://www.justice.gov.za/trc/special/prison/mlambo.htm, retrieved 20 March 2019.
42 B. Newman, ‘Letter to the Editor: Prison Conditions on Robben Island’, Guardian, 27 August 1964, p. 8.
43 Mandela, ‘Letter to Commanding Officer’.
44 Alexander, Robben Island Dossier, p. 47.
45 See, for instance, Dan van der Wat, ‘Mr Healy Finds his “old friend” Mr Mandela in Good Spirits on Robben Island’, The Times, 21 September 1970, p. 6; ‘Jailed African Leader Is “in good spirits”’, The Times, 4 April 1973, p. 10.
46 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 323.
47 Cited in ‘S. Africa Rejects Complaints of Beatings’, The Times, 28 November 1966, p. 7.
48 B. Newman, South African Journey (London, Herbert Jenkins, 1965), p. 184.
49 Ibid., p. 160.
50 Ibid., p. 166.
51 ‘Sobukwe and Mandela Speak in New Book on SA’, Rand Daily Mail, 8 June 1965, p. 8.
52 Newman, cited in ibid.
53 Stengel, Nelson Mandela, p. 96.
54 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 381.
55 Mandela, ‘Letter to Commanding Officer’.
56 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, pp. 381–2.
57 ‘The Gaol of Absolute Apartheid’, Sunday Times, London, 25 April 1965.
58 Mandela, ‘Letter to Commanding Officer’.
59 Dennis Brutus, cited in Anti-Apartheid News, London, September 1966, p. 3.
60 Boehmer, Nelson Mandela, p. 134.
61 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 381.
62 See ibid., p. 321.
63 Mandela, ‘Letter to Commissioner of Prisons’, 14 March 1965, South African National Archives (Mandela, Box A2, Vol. 6).
64 Staff reporter, ‘Mandela Quote is “Dynamite”’, Rand Daily Mail, 29 April 1965, p. 1.
65 Political correspondent, ‘Prison Pictures were Allowed’, Rand Daily Mail, 30 April 1965, p. 1.
66 South Africa Assembly Debates, Hansard, 4 May 1965, column 5266.
67 Cloete Breytenbach, interviewed by the author, Cape Town, 19 March 2019.
68 Cloete Breytenbach, interviewed by Sahm Venter, Cape Town, 30 June 2013.
69 B.F. Doherty ‘Paradise and Loss in the Mirror Vision of Breyten Breytenbach’, Contemporary Literature, 36, 2 (1995), p. 226.
70 B. Breytenbach, The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist (London, Faber and Faber, 1984), p. 68.
71 L. Weschler, ‘An Afrikaner Dante’, New Yorker, 8 November 1993, p. 80.
72 Cloete Breytenbach, interviewed by the author, 19 March 2019.
73 ‘South Africa’s Alcatraz’, Tampa Tribune, 6 May 1965, p. 44; ‘South Africa’s Alcatraz’, Hays Daily News, 12 May 1965, p. 15. See also Orlando Evening Star, ‘Making Little Ones from Big Ones’, 5 June 1965, p. 13; ‘South Africa’s Biggest Prison’, Pensacola News Journal, 3 May 1965, p. 58. All are US newspapers.
74 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, p. 381.
75 AAM Archive, Bodleian Library, po034, available at https://www.aamarchives.org/file-view/file/6463-po034-release-all-southern-african-political-prisoners.html?start=40, retrieved 31 March 2019.
76 In 1973, for instance, it was used in an article, ‘Authorities Crack Down on Robben Island Prisoners’, Anti-Apartheid News, October 1972, p. 9 (AAM Archives, Anti-Apartheid News, MSS AAM 2201).
77 E. Boehmer, Mandela: A Brief Insight (New York, Sterling, 2010), p. 58.
78 See Venter, The Prison Letters.
79 H. Walston, ‘Prisoners in South Africa’, The Times, 17 May 1974, p. 21; see The Times digital archive, http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/Bg83T2, retrieved 12 September 2019.
80 C. Brand, Doing Life with Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 2014).
81 Sampson, Mandela, p. 259.
82 J. Farquharson, ‘Obituary for David Ramsay McNicoll (1914–2000)’, Obituaries Australia, available at http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/mcnicoll-david-ramsay-712, retrieved 20 March 2019.
83 S. Lawson, ‘An Illiberal Wind Blows All Well and Good’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 May 1995, p. 158.
84 D. McNicoll, ‘The Mandela Scoop’, in McNicoll, Deal Me In: Sixty Years in Journalism and Never a Dull Moment (Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1995), p. 96.
85 D. McNicoll, ‘Inside South Africa’s Worst Prison’, The Bulletin, Sydney, 14 April 1973, pp. 28—31.
86 D. McNicoll, ‘Mandela Picks Seaweed and Goes On Hoping’, Observer, London, 22 April 1973, p. 7.
87 D. McNicoll, ‘Surprises on Robben Island’, Rand Daily Mail, 13 April 1973, p. 13.
88 McNicoll, ‘The Mandela Scoop’, pp. 96–103.
89 Advert in New Age, Johannesburg, 12 April 1973, p. 2.
90 See L. Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003).
91 McNicoll, ‘Surprises on Robben Island’.
92 See the account of these visits in Bundy, Nelson Mandela, p. 26.
93 Alexander, Robben Island Dossier, p. 119.
94 Lawson, ‘An Illiberal Wind Blows All Well and Good’.
95 ‘Interview with South African Prisoners’, Militant (USA), 37, 19 (18 May 1973).
96 Rand Daily Mail comment on David McNicoll, ‘Surprises on Robben Island’, Rand Daily Mail, 13 April 1973, p. 13.
97 Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, pp. 36–9.
98 Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom.
99 McNicoll, ‘The Mandela Scoop’, p. 97.
100 Ibid., p. 99.
101 Klein, ‘The British Anti-Apartheid Movement’, p. 460.
102 ‘Pretoria to Investigate Claims of Jail Assault’, The Times, 1 March 1977, p. 6.
103 N. Ashford, ‘Reporters on Secret Tour to Robben Island’, The Times, 26 April 1977.
104 Martin Schneider, interviewed by the author, 19 April 2019, Cape Town.
105 Ashford, ‘Reporters on Secret Tour to Robben Island’.
106 Cited in SABC footage of Robben Island press tour, 25 April 1977.
107 Cited in Frontline documentary series, Public Broadcasting Service, ‘The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela’, series 17, episode 16 (dir. Cliff Bestall), first screened 6 December 2013.
108 Martin Schneider, interviewed by the author, 19 April 2019, Cape Town.
109 M. Johnson, ‘No One Escapes from Robben Island’, Daily Press, Newport News (USA), 28 April 1977, p. 30.
110 Nelson Mandela Foundation, A Prisoner in the Garden, p. 155.
111 Cited in Sampson, Mandela, p. 387.
112 A. Prabhala, ‘The Prisoner and his Pin-Up Girl’, Africa Is a Country, n.d., available at https://africasacountry.com/2014/01/the-prisoner-and-his-pin-up-girl, retrieved 20 February 2019.
113 Cited in Frontline, ‘The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela’.
114 Cited in Reuters, ‘Outsider’s Look at Special South African Jail’, New York Times, 27 April 1977.
115 Nelson Mandela, Letter to the Head of Prison, Robben Island, 19 May 1977, reprinted in Venter (ed.), The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela, pp. 340–43.
116 F. de Villiers, ‘Mandela’s Moral Authority’, Nieman Reports, Cambridge, Mass., 16 December 2013, available at https://niemanreports.org/articles/mandelas-moral-authority/, retrieved 31 March 2019.
117 F. de Villiers, ‘The General who Treats Prisoners as Real People’, Sunday Times, 1 May 1977, p. 15.
118 F. de Villiers, ‘If We Put a 5-Star Hotel Here It would Still Be a Prison’, Sunday Times, 1 May 1977, p. 15.
119 Cited in Sampson, Mandela, p. 287.
120 M. Schneider, ‘Verdict: It’s No Devil’s Island and the View’s Great’, Rand Daily Mail, 27 April 1977, p. 17.
121 Cited in Johnson, ‘No One Escapes from Robben Island’, Daily Press, Newport News, 28 April 1977.
122 Johnson, ‘No One Escapes from Robben Island’; ‘S. African “Alcatraz” Holds Hard Core Dissidents’, Sioux City Journal (USA), 28 April 1977, p. 17; ‘Robben Island: South Africa’s Black Alcatraz, Hazleton Standard Speaker (USA), 27 April 1977, p. 24.
123 Commissioner of Prisons Report, 1977.
124 Klein, ‘The British Anti-Apartheid Movement’, pp. 466–99.
125 Buntman, Robben Island and Prisoner Resistance to Apartheid, p. 224.
126 T. Peterson, ‘“Mandelarisation of Robben Island Must Stop” – Ex-Prisoners Say They Are being Sidelined’, News24, Cape Town, 30 November 2018, available at https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/mandelarisation-of-robben-island-must-stop-ex-prisoners-say-they-are-being-sidelined-20181130, retrieved 28 March 2019.