Oral History interviews reveal a glimpse into the life and the personal experiences that shaped the interviewee. Khotso Pudumo, an Oral historian of the National Museum’s Human Science Research Department talked with activist Modise Phekonyane, who shared his journey to Robben Island as a young man who was arrested and sentenced to serve time in the infamous prison over there.

The following conversation with Mr Phekonyane stirs a person to reflect on the thoughts of political activists when they were embarking upon this grim trek to Robben Island.  One would wonder if perceptions of all the political activists were similar to those experienced by Mr Phekonyane.

Robben Island was named after the seals that once amply inhabited its shores (robben is a Dutch word for ‘seal’). The island was used as a port for grazing sheep and cattle by the Dutch upon their arrival at the Cape in 1652. Because of the island’s isolation from the mainland, convicts, and political prisoners — including chiefs and religious leaders — were eventually banished there.

This practice was continued when the British seized the Cape in 1806, upon which a whaling station was established on the island which lasted until 1820. The penal colony was moved to the mainland in 1845, and the place was resettled with lepers, who were joined by other ‘undesirables’, including paupers, alcoholics, the mentally ill and the others chronically sick.

The sickly were sent to hospitals in Cape Town after 1931 and the island became a military outpost during World War II (1939–1945). Government-built roads, a power station, houses, an airstrip and artillery positions were installed. In 1961, the South African apartheid government opened a maximum-security incarceration facility for political prisoners and convicted criminals and anti-apartheid activists.

Below is an excerpt from the interview during which Phekonyane describes his thoughts and emotions during the ferry trip from Cape Town harbour to Robben Island:

Pudumo: When did they [Security Police] arrest you?

Phekonyane: The follow-up of 1976 [Soweto Uprising], so in June/July 1977 we had that kind of thing [student riots] in Bloemfontein, Mangaung. I got arrested and I was sent to Robben Island. So, I hardly completed schooling.

Pudumo: Is it where the following happened: Morris [an interviewee] mentioned that the office of a gentleman by the name of Mr Bolt was burned and the students who were responsible for that…

Phekonyane: … I was at the forefront; I was charged for that. I did burn that office with one or two guys who turned to become state witnesses against me… I was transported like a slave, most of my friends, we were 14, the fear of getting into a boat [ferry that transported prisoners to Robben Island] I had never been anywhere near the sea, not even putting my foot in the shallow water of sea or walking on the beach.

Pudumo: What was the impact of that? Because now, Robben Island was an island in the middle of the sea…

Phekonyane: Yes.

Pudumo: …What is the psychological impact of that place on its own, surrounded by the sea which was like impossible for you to reach the mainland?

Phekonyane: For the record, for future researchers: in 1978 there was no waterfront as it stands today.

Pudumo: Really?

Phekonyane: There were sporadic buildings here and there, there was totally no waterfront. So, but there was one place there where we were taken, and they loaded us.  This boat called ‘Dias’ like Bartholomeu Dias. It is called Dias, these boats were used to transport and ferry animals, food, anything. When we were taken down to the dock it smelled horrible and again in itself it was torturous to the mind and to the emotion.

Pudumo: Yes.

Phekonyane: It was torturous, I mean as young guys, we always “yaka yaka”, you know, but for the first time being put into that place, we were dead quiet. You could actually look around and see everybody is in their own world and the common thing was how safe are we? How sure are we that there is this island where they are taking us, we have never been there, and we are not sure if it is there and if there are people there. The wardens are white wardens, they are servants of the system they serve and why are we just sitting here? Is this our prison, is this what they mean by this island or what? What if to me personally it was, what if it is fine, what if they drive this boat into the middle of the sea but what if they either pull something or press something and this [boat] opens underneath.

Pudumo: And you fall in.

Phekonyane: We fall into the sea, and we drown in the water.

Pudumo: Nobody is going to know anything.

Phekonyane: And nobody is going to know anything, okay. That time came and they started that boat, and we could just hear the roar of the engine, and we could hear them moving up in the stairs; it is getting busy. You know there is anxiety.

Pudumo: Yes.

Phekonyane: Of the curiosity of the boat moving, I promise you every single joint in my body went lame. My stomach started turning, even before the boat moved.

Pudumo: Yes.

Phekonyane: I do not know whether I prayed or I wished but there was something that I did and that thing went ‘grrrrrrrrrrrrrr’ [interviewee demonstrating the sound made by the boat] and you could feel it moving to the side and you knew that now it is turning, pull to the left, and it made a turn 45 degrees to right and then it pulled. One or two tears fell, there was this parting like an unceremonious divorce of a husband and a wife, something like an umbilical cord from life, from the world.

Pudumo: From your family.

Phekonyane: From the land to a place, I do not know. I think at some point I surrendered to death. I surrendered to whatever possibility, to whatever might happen, I gave up. I was lying there, and guys were talking. You know there are guys who just talk: “Hey man, finally we are going there, and I wonder if we are going to see [Nelson] Mandela, blah, blah, blah”. You know young guys in the midst of such a thing, people still had a nerve to find a way to make a joke, still find a way to laugh. Like, no guys, come on and it is going to be nice there, blah, blah, blah, and we are going to talk politics and now we quarrel amongst ourselves. Who do you know? How sure are you? There’s always a quarrel and argument, so, but then the boat goes.

I did not know much about slaves at that time but in retrospect in my release and that is what I study a lot today. ‘Transatlantic slavery’ and like, wow, people were packed like this, and this is what we went through in Kroonstad Prison, this is what we went through here and there, you know. So, we arrived there, you know, somebody just felt like why is he stopping [the boat], maybe we are there. And we could hear when the boat docked, it hit the wall and they could be running around and later I got to learn that okay, there were rope runners, those who tied the rope to the mainland, you know.

But it was when we were getting out of the boat, you know, the sun was hot. I think it was just after lunch and the boat, when it docks, it’s in the water, so, it doesn’t park like a car.

Pudumo: Yes.

Phekonyane: So, it shifts to the left and to the right, to the left and to the right, so, it is unstable and so, you must move upstairs and go out and when it goes [tilts] to the right you lose your step and then behind you there is someone rushing you: “Come on we do not have the whole day here”, in Afrikaans. You can say things in English, swear and whatever, but remember now we are coming from a culture of Afrikaans as in forced oppressor language, so everything, even torture, and whatever that has happened in this country, so, every time you want to get to speak, you must speak Afrikaans in that setting, in that circumstance. So, there was a lot of fear, a lot of resentment.

Pudumo: Yes.

Phekonyane: A lot of depression and uncertainty and all along ever since we were detained. When we were in Kroonstad, which was one of the worst, where we were kept as sentenced prisoners, these prison wardens always reminded us that we are gonna, let me put it even for the record: “Ons gaan kak”, we are going to shit when we get to Robben Island. Robben Island is a place where they separate boys from men. And so, either we are going to grow up the hardest way or we are going to die there and so, it became a reality, and it was a question of every single moment. Today Robben Island as an island is a geographical gift from God, it is a beautiful place, wonderful place, so much nature, penguins, birds and all sorts of things. You [Mr Phekonyane] didn’t even appreciate that.

In conclusion, Oral History interviews capture otherwise elusive critical information. Mr Modise Phekonyane has shared his personal accounts of travelling to Robben Island to serve a sentence after he was found guilty of burning the office of Mr Bolt. The fear of the unknown played a major role in his emotions as he shared what was happening on the boat and how the sea was when they were sailing to Robben Island.

Sources:

Collison, L.S. 2018. A Brief History of Robben Island, Cape Town. The Culture Trip, November 23, 2018. https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/a-brief-history-of-robben-island-cape-town (accessed 26 June 2026)

Kathrada, A. 2004. Memoirs. Zebra Press.

Teja. 2026. Robben Island: Human nature and what Apartheid really is. Teja on the Horizon, June 9, 2026. https://www.tejaonthehorizon.com/travel-stories/robben-island-human-nature-and-what-apartheid-really-is/ (accessed on 26 June 2026)

Oral History Interview: Modise Phekonyane, Batho, Bloemfontein, 25 November 2025, (NM/OHI 7/22).

For most South Africans who were born after 1994 apartheid is synonymous with a host of discriminatory laws that regulated society along racial lines. Behind these laws was a vast apartheid bureaucracy that rigorously enforced the notorious apartheid regulations, decrees and prescripts. Yet, this bureaucracy could only function because people – the so-called “authorised officers” that included policemen, councillors, officials, clerks, school principals, teachers, spies and informers – enabled it. In racially segregated townships the public “face of apartheid” was black, to quote historian Jacob Dlamini. Black policemen demanded to see passbooks, black councillors enforced apartheid regulations in ‘locations’, black officials issued permits at pass offices, and black police informants spied on struggle activists. Most of these black “apartheid bureaucrats” participated and collaborated reluctantly. Often resistance and collaboration were two sides of the same coin because some bureaucrats were resisting and collaborating at the same time. They functioned in the shadowlands between the system and the struggle against it.

Among the thousands of black people that were employed to ensure the smooth functioning of the apartheid state and, ironically, to serve its interests, was Motshane Elias Nakedi (b. 1950). During the late 1960s and early 1970s – the heydays of apartheid – Elias was a policeman in Bloemfontein. For eleven years (1965–1976) he not only ‘enforced’ apartheid laws but also witnessed and experienced the worst of it. Elias was born on a farm near the village of Sannaspos approximately 30 kilometres east of Bloemfontein. During the 20^th century, Sannaspos functioned as an important railway junction of the Orange Free State railway system. The station building, which dates from 1899, still stands today. The farm where Elias spent his childhood and early teens belonged to a Mr Van Tonder. Elias’s parents, Daniel and Martha Nakedi, were people of modest means who worked as farm workers for Van Tonder and his wife.

Elias attended Eden farm school that was situated near Sannaspos in the vicinity of the Bloemfontein-Thaba Nchu Road (N8). After completing Standard Four (Grade Six), he left school to work with his father on the farm. Elias did typical farmwork: cleaning the yard, tending the soil, planting seeds, working in the vegetable garden, and looking after Van Tonder’s Fries cattle. Because of the lowly wages, Daniel encouraged his son to find a job in Bloemfontein. Elias heard about opportunities offered by the South African Police for black men. He applied and was appointed; the year was 1965 and he was only fifteen years old. Together with other black recruits, Elias was placed at Park Road (also spelt Parkroad) Police Station in Willows. In those days everyone referred to the police station in Afrikaans as Parkweg. To qualify for the rank of constable, Elias and the other recruits had to complete a six-months training course at Hammanskraal Police Training College outside Pretoria. At the time, Hammanskraal was a racially segregated training facility for black policemen.

Elias was assigned to Park Road’s charge office (then known as the aanklagkantoor) where he served members of the public who laid criminal charges and reported crimes. He served all races but mostly white Afrikaners who insisted on being serviced in Afrikaans. Needless to say, Elias had to master the language in a very short time. Most whites treated him well, especially after they learned that he could speak and write their language. In addition to serving in the charge office, Elias fed and looked after offenders who were kept overnight in the holding cells. Moreover, black policemen were also expected to conduct street patrols during which black people were requested to show their passbooks. Elias had to check if a passbook was valid and whether the bearer was legally employed. Being in the full-time employment of a white baas (boss) meant that a black person could legally reside in a township.

Stops and searches for passbooks, typically done by lower-ranking policemen nicknamed ‘blackjacks’ and ‘platkeps’ (municipal constables), was an effective tool to enforce the apartheid system. Elias explained that people whose passbooks were not in order were apprehended and then taken to Park Road or the nearby Batho Police Station where they were locked up. Only after paying a fine “from R10.00 up to R20.00” depending on the offence, they were released. Enforcing the passbook system and other petty apartheid measures that regulated relations between blank en nie-blank (white and non-white) caused widespread distress and discontent, to put it mildly, among black people. How did this make Elias feel? “I did not feel anything … nothing”, he said. At face value, this remark may seem indifferent, even heartless, yet it must be contextualised. For Elias and other black ‘foot soldiers’ of apartheid to function and survive as black ‘insiders’ of the apartheid system, they had to develop their own set of survival skills. At home those apartheid ‘insiders’ became ‘outsiders’ who lived in townships among the victims of the system.

Scorned by their white superiors and belittled by the communities they ‘served’, black policemen were caught between a rock and a hard place. The fact that they wore uniforms not only made them highly visible but also vulnerable targets. Elias explained that black constables were poorly paid. Consequently, he did not have enough money for public transport to get to work; instead, he walked from his house in Rocklands to Park Road. He remembered how school children heckled and insulted him on his way to work. It was especially bad during the time of the school unrests of 1976 when the Soweto troubles spread to schools all over the country, including Mangaung. Elias remembered how learners from Sehunelo Secondary School in Batho accused him and his black colleagues of being “the [police] station commander’s impimpis”. They were accused of being “sell-outs” and “collaborators” who betrayed the struggle against apartheid.

Repeated ridicule, disrespect and scolding took a toll on Elias. He wanted to be a policeman but without the baggage that came with it and the labels that were attached to it. “Sometimes you go to work feeling ‘all right’ and other days you cannot cope that day”, Elias explained. It was during the time of the school unrest that Elias became aware of the blatant racial discrimination within the police. He remembered how he and other black constables were ordered to leave their normal duties to confront angry stone-throwing groups of learners. While white riot police were issued with pistols and rifles, the black policemen had to defend themselves with knuppels (batons).

It was at the time of the riots that Elias’s career as a policeman was abruptly cut short. He recalled the incident as if it happened yesterday: “A vice-captain or major – I cannot remember the name – told me that I drove around with his car”. Elias explained to the white officer that it wasn’t him who drove the car but another sergeant who was on duty that day. The officer did not believe Elias, who was unceremoniously discharged after eleven years of service. The emotional impact of the incident was such that Elias never worked again. “I just stayed at home”, he said. Elias’s wife Selma looked after him until she became too weak to do so.

Today, Elias lives at an old age facility, but he wants “to go home”. Unable to explain exactly what he means by ‘home’, Elias looks vulnerable and tired. Eleven years of service in the South African Police during a time when policemen – black and white – epitomised apartheid, crushed him. For black South Africans who suffered the worst of the system at the hands of black policemen, the ‘blackjacks’ and ‘platkeps’ still symbolise the dreaded ‘face of apartheid’. Yet, behind this ‘face’ were men and women who not only served apartheid, but who were also victims of it. Making sense of their individual choices requires novel ways of looking at South Africa’s apartheid period (1948–1994). To understand the complexities of the apartheid past one must ‘read between the lines’ and ‘go against the grain’ of conventional historiography.

 Sources

Brewer, J.D. 1994. Black and blue: Policing in South Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198273820.002.0001

Dippenaar, M. de W. 1985. Die SA Polisie – die geskiedenis van die ‘Dun blou lyn’ (Part II). Lantern 34(4): 68–78.

Dlamini, J. 2009. Native nostalgia. Auckland Park: Jacana Media.

Dlamini, J. 2017. Askari: A story of collaboration and betrayal in the anti-apartheid struggle. Auckland Park: Jacana Media.

Dlamini, J. 2020. The terrorist album: Apartheid’s insurgents, collaborators, and the security police. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Du Bruyn, D. 2024. Memories and testimonies of passbooks, permits and platkeps in apartheid-era Batho, Mangaung. New Contree 91: 1–19. https://doi.org/10.4102/nc.v91.254

 Le Roux, C. 2003. The role of the South African Police and supportive local authorities in crime prevention in Mangaung, Bloemfontein, 1945–1976. Journal for Contemporary History 28(3): 198–215. https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC28290

National Museum Oral History Collection: M.E. Nakedi, 6 February 2026.

Those who are familiar with the popular 1995 movie How to make an American quilt will remember the scenes that feature a group of women working on a quilt. While piecing together the fabric squares, they share their personal stories of love, failed relationships, disappointment and remorse. The completed quilt becomes a metaphor for the women’s lives; each square represents a unique life story.  Comparably, women from the Portuguese island of Madeira have for centuries combined embroidery and storytelling to create exquisite hand-embroidered articles.  The art of Bordado da Madeira (‘Madeira Embroidery’) developed in the mountainous villages of Madeira where the island’s lush vegetation served as inspiration for the embroiderers (bordadeiras).