South Africa elections 2009 - interview

Zuma's optimism "contagious" on Robben Island - Ebrahim Ebrahim, ANC

Article published on the 2009-04-18 Latest update 2009-04-18 19:27 TU

Supporters of ruling African National Congress (ANC) President Jacob Zuma campaign in Cape Town's Mitchells's Plain township, earlier this week
(Photo: Reuters)

In South Africa the election campaign is nearing its end and candidates are holding their final rallies. Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance is holding her rally in Mitchell Plains Saturday and Jacob Zuma, whose ANC party is set to win a landslide victory, is organising a massive rally in Johannesburg’s Coca Cola park tomorrow. It will be aired in eight other stadia across the country’s nine provinces.

Like Nelson Mandela, Jacob Zuma was incarcerated on Robben Island. He was sentenced to a ten-year jail sentence in 1963 for plotting to overthrow the governement. 

Unlike Mandela and Thabo Mbeki however, Zuma was uneducated after a poor upbringing in Kwazulu-Natal but worked his way through the ranks and learned a lot during his stay on the island.

"Zuma's family never came to visit Zuma on Robben Island", says RFI's Nick Champeaux, "because the trip from Kwazulu-Natal was too expensive".

Champeaux spoke to Zuma's then-cellmate, Ebrahim Ebrahim, who now chairs the ANC’s International Affairs Department.

 

"Because of his personality he became very popular," says Ebrahim, "he was a good singer, because we would sing freedom songs and he would lead the singing of these songs".

"He was a great storyteller, he knew all the Zulu folklore".

When dealing with prison authorities, Ebrahim says "we would send him to meet the prison officials and put forward our complaints".

Robben Island was known as the "ANC university" and Zuma made the most of his time there.

"Of course he knew how to read and write in Zulu but [...] there was an ex-teacher and he did a lot to teach him to read and write," says Ebrahim, "first of all we discussed the history of the movement in South Africa, then we discussed political philosophy and he began reading a lot".

His former cellmate says Zuma was reading Tolstoy by the time he left.

"He then also, because of his leadership qualities, began to give political lectures. He was chairman of the Political Education Committee,' says Ebrahim. 

Champeaux says Ebrahim was in charge of identifying promising inmates for the ANC and that he used to send out messages to the ANC outside Robben Island.

The message he sent concerning Jacob Zuma said "watch this man, he can be trusted to assume important responsibilities".

On France 24 TV  Out of the ghetto: the South African dream