The book might have been used as a promptbook at end-of-year performances, when prisoners were permitted to put on small dramatic readings, but he couldn’t swear to it. It was all a long time ago.
So the Bible hadn’t been a bible, not really, nor had it been smuggled or widely read. After the colourful accounts I had read of its significance – and of the wider significance of Shakespeare on the island – it was dismaying to hear that Sonny’s actual engagement with the book had been so slight.
It was a relief that the signatures in it were indisputably authentic. In late 1977, as he was approaching the end of his sentence and preparing to be transferred back to the mainland, Venkatrathnam had passed it around fellow occupants of the leadership section, asking them each to choose a passage and sign their name – Mandela, most famously, being one.
But even here the book was not quite what it seemed. Though some prisoners had gone through the text with great precision, carefully identifying a passage or poem that seemed appropriate to their situation, others had been far more cursory, scribbling a signature in the approximate location of a relevant passage or simply choosing a well-known line. It had taken Sonny months to get the book to all thirty-four men. Some inmates had held on to the book for days or weeks; others had barely flipped through. It wasn’t clear how many of them had laboured over or discussed their choices, or simply scribbled their names as a favour to a friend. Whatever else it testified to, the Bible didn’t reflect what the British Museum curator described as ‘a constant reference for debating the moral issues of the day’.
Perhaps some of this ambiguity accounted for a curious news story, ignored by the British press, that had appeared a few days after the British Museum put the Robben Island Bible on display. It appeared on the website of the Toronto Star and was headlined ‘ANC Disputes “Iconic” Status of Robben Island Bible’. The paper quoted the ANC national spokesman saying that the book was ‘iconic to those who want to make it iconic. To us, it is not.’ He went on: ‘We know so many other documents that are iconic in the ANC’s eyes. We didn’t know anything called the Robben Island Bible.’
What did Sonny think lay behind this story?
He hit the heel of his hand on the glass tabletop, making the ashtray jump. ‘Well, I think they are ashamed. If you go through the passages that the leadership has chosen, many of them, you’d be ashamed what they chose and what they did.’
Taken aback by the ferocity of his reply, I wasn’t sure I understood – he was saying that the corruption and political scandals that had mired the ANC were somehow a denigration of Shakespeare? That this was why they were keen to distance themselves from the book?
He nodded curtly. ‘Sometimes I tell my children that I am ashamed that I call them comrades.’
I suspected the reason was simpler, and sadder: that the book had a smaller significance in the story of the struggle than had been made out. While the Bible had experienced growing fame all over the world – Britain, the United States, elsewhere – here in South Africa it was neglected. The book had never been displayed publicly; the Robben Island Museum had made approaches, but Sonny wasn’t convinced they would take care of it. He was in two minds about whether to sell it – not for the money, more to make sure that it could be kept on display. He was considering donating it to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Wouldn’t that be a tragedy, I said, for it to leave South Africa?
He brushed away his hand once again. ‘I don’t see that much interest in South Africa.’
I asked if I could take a quick peek for myself; I’d seen the book, but only behind glass, in front of the blank gaze of a security guard. I’d heard he normally kept it beneath his bed.
Sonny looked stricken. ‘Andrew, I’m so sorry. It’s gone to Washington in America. Library called the Folger? They’re putting it on display, a big new exhibition. You just missed it by days.’
Perplexed by what my conversation with Venkatrathnam had thrown up, I arranged to speak to another man who’d been imprisoned alongside him, and who had also signed the book. I was hopeful he might help me get nearer the truth about the Robben Island Bible – or at least some version of the truth. His name was Ahmed Kathrada.
A member of the Indian Congress party and one of the activists sentenced at the notorious Rivonia trial of 1963–64, when an entire swath of the ANC leadership were imprisoned, Kathrada had been a friend and colleague of Mandela, Sisulu and others from the 1940s. He had served a gruelling twenty-six years and three months in prison, eighteen of them on Robben Island, afterwards becoming Mandela’s parliamentary counsellor. One of the handful of senior figures from the early days who were still alive, he had kept a dignified distance from the scandals that had tainted many in the post-1994 leadership.
But it wasn’t just his CV that made me keen to speak to Kathrada; it was his relationship with Shakespeare. He studied for four degrees during his incarceration, in politics, history, criminology and library science, and for a time had been Robben Island’s librarian. His letters to family made reference to the plays, and he filled notebooks with quotations from Shakespeare and others. If anyone could help me understand more about how Shakespeare was read and understood on the island, it was surely Kathrada.
Over email he gave me an address back in Johannesburg, an apartment in the well-to-do neighbourhood of Killarney. It was elegant and homely, crammed with books and mementoes of the struggle. Kathrada was in his mid-eighties but as active as ever, trim in a green Robben Island-branded polo shirt. He was polite and deliberate, but it was clear why he commanded such respect. His dark eyes were on me throughout as we talked.
I’d had a hard time persuading him to speak: he was faintly sick of the whole thing, it transpired. In fact, seeing as I was here, he had a few things to get off his chest. First, it was a myth that Shakespeare had been banned on the island – and he should know, because when he had arrived in June 1964, among one of the earliest batches of ‘politicals’, there were two books among his belongings, Arthur Quiller-Couch’s much-reprinted The Oxford Book of English Verse (a book Mandela also owned) and his own copy of Shakespeare’s complete works. The books had come with him from Pretoria jail, and remained in his possession until he was discharged.
They were on his shelf right now, in fact; did I want to see?
He padded into the next room and returned with two stout tomes, patched and worn – one bound in Oxford blue, the other in faded bottle-green. On the flyleaf of the Shakespeare (the same Alexander edition as Venkatrathnam’s) was the sales label of a Johannesburg bookshop and a flourishing signature in blue biro. ‘Pretoria Jail – 1964’ and ‘Robben Island – Aug 1964’ were inscribed beneath.
‘Now I don’t want to contradict anybody,’ Kathrada announced carefully, placing the books on the coffee table between us. ‘This is my own experience, but Robben Island had absolutely no problem with books, even though I was not yet registered to study. We only registered in 1965. But they allowed me to keep both these books.’
The other myth was that Shakespeare loomed large in prison life. Again he could only speak to his experience, but he could not remember a single detailed discussion about Shakespeare on the island. Some prisoners had studied the plays for school certificates or degrees, sure, but the idea that Shakespeare had been a major subject of debate – still less formed a constant point of reference – was, in his view, far-fetched. He had studied Macbeth, but only because it was a set text.
How about his degree in library science?
A ruse, he replied: a double major with African Politics, it had allowed him to get around the regulations concerning books that were banned, those that contained controversial historical or political material.
He smiled thinly. ‘I had no interest in library science, none whatsoever. Everything I did in my studies was with an ulterior motive. What subject can I register for, which books can I get?’
So why had he brought Shakespeare with him in the fir
st place?
He shrugged: something to read. ‘I can never claim to be well informed about Shakespeare. I don’t read Shakespeare as an academic book. I enjoy it while I am reading it, and if you have a discussion a week after, I won’t be able to …’ He paused. ‘Well, it’s that type of book. But it was interesting. I had to while away the time. And as for the Oxford poetry book, there were particular poems that I was very fond of, from school days.’
This wasn’t to say that Shakespeare had been irrelevant; it was clear, talking to him, that he had read among the plays widely. But this had been a solitary experience, something private and personal – a retreat, like note-taking, a way of communing with himself.
With his permission, I picked up his complete works. The pages fell open at Othello, with neat, precise pencil marginalia on the page. I noticed he’d drawn a line next to Brabantio’s flagrantly racist words to Othello, expressing his disbelief that Desdemona would ever have ‘run … to the sooty bosom | Of such a thing as thou’.
Why had he marked those lines – did he remember?
‘That was 1965, I think. I had quickly read through and come to the foolish conclusion that Shakespeare was a racist. Othello, Shylock … It was a very quick reading. Neville Alexander and Dennis Brutus, who were inmates too, they were academics, and I made the foolish mistake of confronting them, saying that Shakespeare was a racist.’ There was a flicker of a smile. ‘They shot me down.’
So they did discuss Shakespeare occasionally?
‘Maybe once or twice.’
What was more surprising was that he had no clear memory of signing Sonny Venkatrathnam’s copy. I’d seen a photograph of the page, with Kathrada’s signature crammed next to the famous speech from Henry V, ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’, and the date December 1977, the same month that Mandela had signed. Kathrada’s choice of speech had exercised the interpretative powers of several critics: was he saluting his experience in the military wing of the ANC? Rallying the troops? Quietly hinting at the costs of war?
Honestly, he couldn’t say why he had chosen those words. ‘It’s possible Sonny was a bit nervous to get this thing signed before he finished his sentence, so that he didn’t miss people. In my case, I did not necessarily choose my favourite passage. What I chose, I chose on the spur of the moment, so much so that I can’t even remember now what I chose. It must have been done in a great hurry.’
Why did he think the book had been autographed by so many prisoners? Because of their abiding respect for William Shakespeare?
He shrugged. ‘I think it was of great sentimental value – like if you go to a book launch, people want to have the book signed. That’s just a natural thing. But from there it just took a momentum of its own, various people got involved, professors started writing about it. I remember shortly before Neville Alexander died, I happened to raise this with him, and he just laughed.’
His fellow prisoner laughed because the story of Shakespeare on Robben Island had become overblown?
He slipped off his bifocals and held them up against the light. ‘Yes, there were too many claims made.’
It was one of the many costs of being a survivor, he explained: you became a symbol, but you had little control over what you symbolised. Particularly anything that touched Mandela.
He shook his head in irritation. ‘One chap went on television to say that he spent eighteen or twenty years next to Mandela. He lies; he was never even in that section. Now that Mandela is not well, people have come out with all sorts of things – “I know Mandela the longest, he’s been a friend.” People take advantage of that.’ He sighed wearily. ‘I am used to people making claims, all sorts of claims. It’s one of those things.’
So he didn’t feel that Shakespeare had something unique to offer in South Africa?
His smile was steady and patient. ‘If you take the whole of Shakespeare,’ he said slowly, ‘you will find relevance to every country.’
As I left the flat, slowly walking down the stairs and out on to the bright street, I tried to measure my feelings. After all I’d heard and read about the Robben Island Bible and its totemic significance, it was impossible not to feel despondent about what seemed to be the realities: the fact that the book hadn’t really been read, even by its owner or those who had signed it; the fact that Shakespeare had barely been discussed, even among those prisoners who had an interest.
But then again, was any of this surprising? Was it really plausible that prisoners in one of the most inhumane penitentiaries in the world had devoted enormous amounts of time to the hermeneutics of Shakespeare? If you were given the opportunity to improve your education – and wanted to put it to use in the struggle – would you choose Elizabethan drama over law or politics? After nearly two weeks here, I was slowly realising the truth behind something I’d been told on the first day I arrived: when it came to making sense of the recent South African past, everything was less straightforward than it seemed.
None of this was Sonny’s fault. He could have made a great deal of money out of his experiences – like many of his former colleagues, now high on the hog – and I very much doubted he had. Nor had he claimed anything about the Bible that wasn’t true. The exaggerations and embroiderings were all other people’s.
But then of course, I thought gloomily, he hadn’t needed to: desperate to believe that Shakespeare played a pivotal role in the defining human-rights struggle of the twentieth century, the rest of us had done it for him.
YET MAYBE THERE WAS A DIFFERENT STORY to be told about the connection between Shakespeare and apartheid: not in prison cells on Robben Island, necessarily, but in university seminar rooms and theatres across South Africa.
Browsing one lunchtime in a second-hand bookshop, I came across a slim lilac paperback. Its title was Shakespeare Against Apartheid, and it was by Martin Orkin, an academic who’d taught at Wits. It had been published in 1987, a period when revolts against the hard-line P. W. Botha administration were at their height and yet another nationwide state of emergency had been declared. Many feared South Africa might tumble into outright civil war.
Various people had told me about Shakespeare Against Apartheid. Over lunch, I read it. The book was absorbing, hectoring, optimistic, doom-mongering and persuasive by turns. It was aimed at (predominantly white) South African undergraduates who had passed through an apartheid education system still dominated by the teachings of liberal humanists such as A. C. Bradley and the New Critics of the 1940s and 1950s. Its aim was insurrection by stealth.
Orkin argued that it wasn’t true (as those critics had claimed) that the Almighty Bard was above the rough-and-tumble of contemporary politics; to believe so was to close one’s eyes to the injustices and violence raging all around. Instead, Shakespeare could – should – be employed in the here and now. American new historicists and Marxist-influenced British cultural materialists had become increasingly fascinated by the political contradictions and pressures that shaped Shakespeare’s working life: intrigues at court, of censorship, the devastating divisions of the Reformation. Orkin argued that it was high time South African teachers did the same.
Leading by example, Orkin attempted to introduce Shakespeare to the pressure cooker of 1980s South Africa: a pariah state of suspicious deaths and torture in custody, a racist judiciary, an army flagrantly out of control. An essay on Hamlet linked King Claudius’s attempts to dispose of the hero – sending him to England in the company of assassins, then arranging a suicidal duel with Laertes – with the death in September 1977 of the black activist Steve Biko, who had been stripped and beaten in a police cell. Instead of dwelling on hoary debates such as why Hamlet delays his revenge (Bradley diagnosed a case of ‘profound melancholy’), Orkin suggested the Prince was already manning the township barricades:
The young men and women in Soweto and elsewhere in South Africa, who know they are living in a system which is less than just, despite its official claims, will recognise many aspects of the situa
tion depicted in Hamlet … Not all such men and women may be interested in Shakespeare, but the experience of Hamlet is in their blood.
Later in the book, I was caught by the presence of a play that Ahmed Kathrada had mentioned, and which I felt had been eluding me until now: Othello. Taking his cue from Solomon Plaatje’s suggestion that ‘Shakespeare’s dramas … show that nobility and valour, like depravity and cowardice, are not the monopoly of any one colour’, Orkin outlined the hypocrisy of denying that the play’s essential subject was race. In contemporary South Africa, it could not be about anything else. Furthermore, he bore down on a long and dishonourable line of white critics who had sought to resolve the ‘problem’ of how a black African Othello married a white woman in the first place. Samuel Taylor Coleridge had notoriously asserted that ‘it would be something monstrous to conceive this beautiful Venetian girl with a veritable negro’, but this was merely the start. Squadrons of commentators had been drawn to the issue, attempting to reconcile their own deep-held prejudices about people of colour with the issues thrown up by the play.
When it came out, Shakespeare Against Apartheid was pungently controversial, decried as well as worshipped, but it did something crucial – insist that Shakespeare might indeed have something to say about how things really were in South Africa.
I thought back to Solomon Plaatje’s renaming of Shakespeare as ‘William Shake-the-Sword’. At the time, it had struck me as an erudite, slightly ironic joke. Maybe it was also a call to arms.
Othello had played its own highly particular role in the politics of race in South Africa. The tragedy had a long history in these parts – perhaps, I was surprised to learn, the longest of any Shakespeare play on the African continent. The first recorded performance dated back to the early nineteenth century, less than two decades after any of Shakespeare’s work had first been acted in Africa and only twenty-four years after British forces seized the Cape from the Dutch. A hardy band of ‘a gentleman and three ladies from the Theatre Royal Liverpool’ arrived in the garrison of Cape Town in the spring of 1818 and quickly joined forces with a local amateur stock company.
Worlds Elsewhere Page 41
