Behind Chapter 3

In Episode 3: we discuss the treatment of people in prison and consider the experience of Nelson Mandela and the length of time he was restrained in a top security prison at Robben Island.  We discuss my visit to that prison and the introduction to the conditions and experience by a member of the staff who was also a prisoner called Derick Bossen.  We discuss the hypocrisy of the different churches who condoned Apartheid and who appeared to close their eyes and ears to what was going on and the way that the prisoners were treated.  We discuss then the importance of letters and how they were smuggled out to give revelations of the conditions inside the prison and to maintain momentum for the black people in South Africa to continue to strive for  their franchise to vote in elections to have self determination in their State.  We also discover how the term ‘learners’ struck a chord when Derick Bossen referred to a group of girls, in the room with us, who were on a school trip from Zimbabwe, as ‘the learners’...  It struck me at the time as being a really interesting word which has been adopted for the group of young people in the Book.