‘Bible’ ruse saved Bard for Robben Island men
| From Glasgow to Mvezo, the world this week celebrated the spirit of a man who championed ubuntu
A READING from the Robben Island “bible” here on Nelson Mandela’s birthday sounded very Shakespearean. That is because it was.
Sonny Venkatrathnam, who was imprisoned with Mandela, delivered the reading on Friday at a celebration to mark Mandela Day, in a city where Mandela was honoured in 1981 while still an apartheid prisoner and regarded as a “terrorist” by Margaret Thatcher’s British government.
Venkatrathnam said that when he was jailed for 12 years on the island, he was allowed only one book.
In a moment of inspiration, he chose the collected works of William Shakespeare.
The book was shared among prisoners, including Mandela and Govan Mbeki, who signed their names next THE PLAY’S THE THING: Sonny Venkatrathnam and the Robben Island ’bible’ to their favourite quotations.
Mandela’s favourite came from Julius Caesar: “A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.”
Venkatrathnam said he was with prisoners in the “terrorist section” where they were denied pen and paper. His wife, Theresa, had agitated on his behalf to get reading material.
“I was a lecturer in English and books meant a lot to me, a source of survival in my life. Eventually, she succeeded in getting them to relent and allow me one book. I had 12 years to spend on Robben Island. One book? What book am I going to spend 12 years reading? Then it struck me: the collected works of Shakespeare. I can live with that for 12 years.
“We had such fun. That was the only book in that cell. There were 15 of us in that cell and we used to read to inmates who could not read or write.”
Two months later, the book was confiscated when the prisoners agitated for better conditions. But Venkatrathnam managed to get it back after persuading a warder that it was the Bible. He decorated the book with Diwali cards bearing Hindu religious figures sent to him by his parents.
“All the years I was on the island they would not touch it. I’d say ‘That’s my Bible’,” said Venkatrathnam.
Also at the celebrations in Glasgow was Mandela’s granddaughter, Tukwini Mandela, whose mother is his eldest child, Makaziwe.
“It is a bitter-sweet moment for all of us,” she said. “We haven’t had a chance to mourn my grandfather’s passing properly. I don’t think that we ever will, but you know we’re just heartened and warmed by all the beautiful messages and love and support we’ve received.”