ABSTRACT
On the front page of the Cape Times of Thursday 11 July 2002, is the picture of
a former inmate of Robben Island locked in a prison cell.1 Standing inside the cell
in a pensive mood, with his hands behind his back, the man is engaged in a
protest performance that he knows carries a dense historical significance and
symbolic meaning in the social imaginary of contemporary South Africa (Figure
9.1). Its symbolic import is such that it conditions much of the discourse of the
new post-apartheid nation and, knowing this, he deploys all the signs that
enhance the efficacy of this performance. Though the hands are simply held
behind his back, we can imagine them being in handcuffs; behind the bars, he
exudes the quiet determination that narratives of Robben Island have circulated
with such consistency about the courage of the political prisoners of the
apartheid years. Outside – in front of the bars of the cell – is an aluminium plate
and an aluminium cup representing, presumably, the kind that the prisoners’
food and water used to be served in. Only his clothes and his shoes tell us that
this performance is being enacted in another ‘time’ and ‘place’, a time that is
both the now and not-now, and a place that is both here and not-here. In this
coeval time and place, the plate and cup are both empty, speaking of deprivation
and – if we may extend the analogy – signifying also the ‘empty artefacts’ that
every museum displays, awaiting the fullness of narrative. For it is narrative that
gives ‘voice’ to the artifacts that museums display.
