Bantu Steve Biko - His story touched my life!
Bantu Steve Biko - Even in death, he has touched my life, and I can never be the same person again.
Steve Biko – most people I know have heard his name. They remember him because he was killed by the police while in custody, and they remember that he was one of the ‘bad’ blacks. And that is the sum total of what they know. I too, was once one of those who just listened to what was on radio, on the news and what I read in the newspapers and because it did not touch my life personally, it was just another person in trouble or just another person who died in detention.
Now why would I start reading about Steve Biko’s life? Because someone very close to me was in the cell next to him when he heard Steve’s head banging down the steps of the police station as he was moved from his cell to the prison van for his trip to Pretoria. We all know he died from police brutality, but whether he was already dead before he was loaded naked into the back of that police van or whether he died on the way … these things we may probably never know. Another reason that I read I write what I like is because I am trying to understand the politics of this country I was born in; where we came from and how we got to where we are today.
I am writing this from memory – from reading the book, so if I have taken liberties in my understanding of Steve Biko and what he stood for, forgive me. It is my understanding of the man and what he stood for. There is no writer who does not leave part of his spirit and his soul in his writing. By reading what he wrote in his own words, calling himself Frank Speak to the South African Students Association newspapers, gives me a small glimpse into the enormity of this man’s heart. For me this makes it all the more tragic that his life was taken so brutally from him at a point in his life when he could have made such a valuable contribution to this country. I would not call him a liberation veteran … I would rather call him a man with great understanding of the South African situation with regard to the problems facing the blacks and the whites, and a man of great vision.
Bantu Steve Biko said that whites and blacks could never live happily together until the Black people changed their view of themselves as being inferior to whites. (As I write this I wonder if I should use a capital letter in front of the word Black and in front of the word White, but I will forgo that ridiculous politically correct crap that the white liberals try to push onto us). That was basically his Black Consciousness Movement. And he said that being afraid of whites would keep them in an inferior position. Why should black people have categorised themselves as being less than, or inferior to white people? Because the whites behaved in a superior manner and treated black people as inferior. Where in the world would someone put up with being called “Hey, boy, clean the garden” when the person spoken to was an adult male? Just another one of many injustices to keep the black people feeling inferior! And in church … blacks sit at the back, only whites can sit up front and then the coloureds … well they could sit to separate the white from the black.
Surely it made so much sense that if the black people of our country saw themselves as being equal to whites, the stigma of being black would have been eradicated and with it the “hate” between the white and black people. Whites would have had to see blacks as equal partners in this country. He did not want the liberal do-gooders leading them in what they thought was best for blacks. He believed that they could do it for themselves. And once they saw themselves as equals, only then would we all be able to live together as equal partners in this, our South Africa. In an interview, Steve Biko was asked, “Do you see a country in which black and white can live amicably on equal terms together?” he answered, “…We believe that in our country there shall be no minority, there shall be no majority, just the people…”. Oh, how I wish that were true today. Steve Biko, in my opinion, should have taken over the presidency from Nelson Mandela. I blame the National Party for the dismal Presidents we have had after Nelson Mandela. They killed the best of them.
Reading between the lines of his “I write what I like”, it is obvious that he did not feel any fear of the white man and considering this, it does not take a scientist or psychologist to figure out how his lack of fear of the white policemen would have driven them to the point that they would use severe violence against him, leading to his death. Imagine that Afrikaner who had been brought up to believe that he was superior to a black man, and here was Steve Biko, showing no fear and speaking as an equal to that Afrikaner. It must have driven those men past the point of rationality and they become murderers. I can only imagine the “Swart Gevaar” fear that was indoctrinated into the policemen’s mentality that could take a young man who showed no fear and beat him to death.
In my humble opinion, Steve Biko would have been a fine leader after Mandela … a younger man with a great vision for our country and one that would probably have given us a country that is less racist and much more of a rainbow nation, respecting one another and living amicably next to those who are our equals. Bantu (love of people) Steve Biko did not advocate the eradication of whites, he only wanted his own people to take control of their own destinies and to see themselves as equals. To him the liberal whites were part of the problem. They were still whites who wanted to tell them how to deal with the problem of the whites. In his letter to Sen. Dick Clark, Steve Biko stated, “The interests of black and white politically have been made diametrically opposed to each other. America’s choice is narrowed down to either entrenching the existing minority white regime or alternatively assisting in a very definite way, the attainment of the aspirations of millions of the black population as well as those of whites of goodwill. (My italics) I am sure that this would have been a better approach to our land and its problems that have come about with the Julius Malema’s and the anti-white sentiments that are bandied about so willy-nilly by our politicians.
In his words”, Black people under the Smuts government were oppressed, but they were still men…but the type of black man we have today has lost his manhood. Reduced to an obliging shell, he looks with awe at the white power structure and accepts what he regards as the “inevitable position”. Note that these words were written years before the ANC took power. He goes on to say, “All in all the black man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity. This IS the first truth … but before we can start on any programme designed to change the status quo, we have to acknowledge this. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. This is what we mean by an inward-looking process.” This is the definition of Black Consciousness. What a mad world we lived in, not that it is that much better now. We have still such a long way to go towards becoming the country we all would like to live in and in my own way, I believe that Bantu Steve Biko would have helped us get there faster.
Steven Biko was instrumental in many community projects that promoted a spirit of self-reliance, without the help of liberal whites. It is instructive to compare the consistent integrity of all his writings and attitudes on this issue of working within the system with the utterances over a comparable period of time of any other black politician. He dismissed the Bantustan leaders witheringly as he believed they played right into the National Party’s “separate development” policy.
There was a rigour about the Black Consciousness movement, but it was not a fanatical group. A member of the Communist Party would not have felt at home with them. And herein lay the weakness of the movement. It was a movement of an idea and not an organised force. But its weakness became its strength because the movement of an idea or mood is particularly infectious. People could be banned, detained but the spread of this new mood of inner freedom refused to acknowledge the rule of a minority group. The tyranny of a Calvinist tribe was rendered powerless. The discipline in the movement was forgiving and understanding. It was accepted that many would break under interrogation and make statements; that was OK. But you could not stand by your statements once in court. It was better to go to jail for perjury. But a student who made a statement not under duress was out and could no longer be trusted. In other words, that person was excommunicated from the movement.
Steve also had a good sense of humour – he was often heard stating that the ‘system’ was in many ways extremely stupid and the really effective programmes escaped their attention for a long period of time. Reading his thoughts on the ‘system’s’ (National government) stupidity brought a smile to my face, even though reading about his life has made me angry, frustrated, powerless, and has brought tears to my eyes many times.
What I have found incredibly interesting is a memorandum that Steve sent to Father David Russell in 1974, which sets forth his basic ideas about God, the Church and Christ. It was in response to a document which Father David Russell sent to Steve. The last page and a half of Steve’s memorandum is a criticism of Father David’s thoughts on obedience. Steve’s words are in italics. Obedience to God in the sense that I have accepted it (i.e. in the belief that God reveals himself in his laws inscribed in our conscience) is in fact at the heart of the conviction of most selfless revolutionaries. It is a call to men of conscience to offer themselves and sometimes their lives for the eradication of an evil. To a revolutionary, State evil is a major evil for out of it flow countless other subsidiary evils that engulf the lives of both the oppressors and the oppressed. The revolutionary sees his task all too often as liberation not only of the oppressed but also of the oppressor. Happiness can never truly exist in a state of tension, if the tension is only of conscience. Hence in a stratified society like ours, those who have placed themselves upon a pedestal spend far too much time on the lookout for disturbances and hence can never have peace of mind. The South African society abounds with fear and is constantly in a state of frenzy. The revolutionary seeks to restore faith in life amongst all citizens of his country, to remove imaginary fears and to heighten concern for the plight of the people.
Dr Kaunda illustrated a point that deserves some thought. “The Westerner has an aggressive mentality. When he sees a problem he will not rest until he has formulated some solution to it…and he is vigorously scientific in rejecting solutions for which there is no basis in logic. He draws a sharp line between the natural and the supernatural, the rational and non-rational as superstition… African being a pre-scientific people do not recognise any conceptual cleavage between the natural and the supernatural. They allow the rational and non-rational elements to make an impact upon them, and any action they may take could be described more as a response of the total personality to the situation than the result of some mental exercise”.
As Steve Biko says, the black people live in a community that is prepared to accept that nature will have its enigmas which are beyond our powers to solve. Many people have interpreted this attitude as lack of initiative and drive, and yet in spite of Steve’s need for scientific experimentation, he could not help feeling that more time should be spent in teaching man and man to live together and that perhaps the African personality with its attitude of laying less stress on power and more stress on man would do well in solving confrontation problems with whites.
Another point that Steve Biko made was the subject of religion and I have to agree wholeheartedly with him, having studied and received a degree in religious philosophy. All people are agreed that Africans are a deeply religious race. They had accepted without doubt the existence of a God. They had their own community of saints. And they felt a communication with God could only be through these people. They never knew anything about hell – they did not believe that God could create people only to punish them eternally after a short period on Earth. They also did not believe that religion could be featured as a separate part of their existence. It was manifest in their daily lives. They thanked God through their ancestors before they did anything and would have obviously found it artificial to create special occasions for worship. It also did not seem logical to have a particular building in which all worship would be conducted. God was always in communication with them and therefore merited attention everywhere and anywhere. Then the missionaries came and confused the people with their new religion: Strange logic that argued that theirs was a scientific religion and the black religion was mere superstition; in spite of the biological discrepancies so obvious in the basis of their religion. They preached a theology of the existence of hell, scaring our parents with stories of burning in eternal flames. This cold cruel religion was strange but our fore-fathers were sufficiently scared of the unknown impending anger to believe it was worth a try. “And down went our cultural values!”
I particularly like this statement of Steve’s, “The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face”.
In a private letter to Father Stubbs CR, when Steve was under banning orders, a very human part of Steve showed itself. He says, “You know I am (so I think) a reasonably strong person but quite often I find the going tough under the present restrictions…I am nowhere near despair and frustration but can understand only too well why some of our guys are”. While he was living under such intense restrictions, he showed his vulnerability but at the same time, he thought of others who would be having a harder time than himself. Now, that to me is a real human being – and it was a human being that the police killed that night either in Port Elizabeth or on the way to Pretoria.
Bantu Steve Biko died a selfless revolutionary. He should not be forgotten. He was well named … Bantu!
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