Memories of the Cape

Memories of a holiday to Capetown by Fermanagh born, Dr. Patrick Treacy at the end of 2006. The video from this Irish humanitarian contrasts the culture and music of the Rainbow Nation to the harsh incarceration of Nelson Mandela and the legacy of apartheid. Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island where he remained for the next eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison. On the island, he and others performed hard labour in a lime quarry. Prison conditions were very basic. Prisoners were segregated by race, with black prisoners receiving the fewest rations. Political prisoners were kept separate from ordinary criminals and received fewer privileges. Mandela describes how, as a D-group prisoner (the lowest classification) he was allowed one visitor and one letter every six months. Patrick Treacy presently lives in Dublin and continues to have strong links with Africa