Long Walk to Freedom

By 1970, restrictions on Robben Island have relaxed significantly, and the prisoners have won substantive improvements to their conditions.

Christmas comes with additional privileges, including permission to stage a play. Mandela recounts playing Creon, the inflexible, hard-hearted king of Thebes, in Antigone. He and the other prisoners take political inspiration from the play, especially the character of Antigone, “who symbolized our struggle; she was, in her own way, a freedom fighter, for she defied the law on the ground that it was unjust” (456). 

That same year, a new commander, Colonel Piet Badenhorst, is transferred to Robben Island. He earned a reputation for brutality before his arrival. New, younger guards are transferred in as well. Badenhorst soon provokes Mandela into open anger and uses it as an excuse to crackdown on all the prisoners.

Humiliating treatment becomes the norm. When a panel of three judges comes to the island, Mandela provokes Badenhorst into threatening him. The judges are displeased, and Badenhorst’s brutality ends. He is transferred off the island three months after the judges’ visit and shocks Mandela by expressing his good wishes to him and the other prisoners.