Just four miles off the Cape Town coast Robben Island looks like a flat little putting green from the top of Table Mountain. It is a remarkable little island with a remarkable history. The reason that we all go there now is that the recent history of apartheid and Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment has made it one of the most infamous little islands in the world. We go to see the prison and Mandela’s cell. Yet, before him it was the place where the mainland cast out their lepers, insane and convicts to. The sadness of humanity therefore has mingled with the beauty of penguins and boks and stunning views of Table Mountain for centuries.
What you learn about the recent history is the cruel inhumanity of the apartheid regime and how they didn’t hold their prisoners from their freedom but how they attempted in every way to wear them down and demoralise them. Then your attention turns to the most amazing and gracious political leader of the twentieth century and you wonder how Nelson Mandela came out of 27 years imprisonment, 14 of them here without bitterness, rage or revenge. Somehow the attempts of the apartheid regime to destroy this man’s soul failed so miserably that all you can end up calling Robben Island is a factory of magnificent souls.
I wrote the most of this poem on one tour of the island. It featured in my book Eyes Open, Open Wide and Joanne Hogg, the vocalist in Iona came across it. She phoned me, coincidently while I was in Cape Town, and asked for another verse. I told her I would be on the island the very next day and would add some lines. The song appeared first on their live DVD Iona: Live In London before being recorded for The Circling Hour.
FACTORY OF MAGNIFICENT SOULS
Thought of you on this island of the leper
Thought of you on this island of the mad
Thought of you on this island of the outcast
Thought of you on this island on the sick and the sad
Thought this island had a tragic holiness
Thought this island had a painful grace
Thought this island had the ugliest history
Thought this island was the most beautiful place.
And no one ever asked questions
With marks as sharp as these
They pierced the veins of Jesus
Who was one of the least of these.
Thought of you on this island of the limestone
And the pain of dust filled eyes
Thought of you on this island of the convict
Toiling under the bluest skies
Thought of you on this island of redemption
And the sign of a stone carved cross
Thought of you on the island of the reconciled
And wondered at what freedom had cost.
And no one ever gave an answer
With as gentle a word as this
You took the most violent indignation
And killed it with a political kiss.
I saw the altar of this world’s cruelty
I saw the stadium of the devil’s goals
I saw a man duck and weave the most evil punches
I saw a factory of magnificent souls.
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