Present-day SA must reflect the spirit of Biko
More than 41 years ago a young man, who many accept must have been a prophet, was murdered in police custody.
He was brutally tortured to the extent that his brain was damaged, and transported 1,200km from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria after being loaded in to a police van without a medical doctor.
His name is Steve Bantu Biko. Though he died on September 12 1977, to their surprise, he lives on. Biko lives because the Black Consciousness (BC) philosophy he espoused, and for which he was killed, could never die because it is “a way of life and an attitude of mind”.
Biko proudly asserted that “it is better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die”.
BC has inspired many to question the political settlement concluded by those who were in haste to board the gravy train at the expense of the economic development of the black majority.
The idea lives because young black students who were not born at the time of Biko’s death were inspired by Black Consciousness and Biko to bring things to a halt in their demand for free education. It lives be- cause our people are beginning to realise that those whom they thought were genuine leaders, and who posited themselves as the “liberators” of the people, are now exposed to the bolts and nuts of the very system that is still oppressing the poor.
Biko lives due mainly to the unflinching efforts of a group of patriots who, after the banning in 1977 of the organisations Biko founded, moved with speed to reconstitute the banned BC organisations into the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) to keep Biko’s legacy alive. Azapo members who defended and advanced Biko’s legacy were attacked, sometimes necklaced, their homes set alight. The younger ones were denied study grants.
The older ones still struggle to get employment in state departments, let alone business from state institutions.
Sadly, there is a commotion around the name of Biko. This manifests in all sorts of activities, including memorial lectures, by all sorts of organisations and individuals.
Instead of reflecting on Biko and his teachings and celebrating his movement, the commotion digresses to contest and distort Biko. A ruthless attempt is made to strip Biko of his revolutionary content and remove him from Azapo.
Biko was dubbed a CIA agent by some who now grudgingly pay homage to him.
It was this dislodging of Azapo from Biko that had Muntu ka Myeza warning that “renegades “are seldom the best advocates of a cause they have deserted”.
President Cyril Ramaphosa should do some introspection with regard to Myeza’s warning.
He needs to be reminded Biko deliberately conceptualised and developed BC – not any nebulous “human consciousness”.
Nothing is as preposterous as the claim that Biko was devoid of an organisation, but was just an anti-apartheid activist.
It was a conscious decision by Biko not to join the ANC, or the PAC. Instead, he introduced a new philosophy and political line upon the basis of which he established a plethora of sectoral organisations.
The ploy is evident through malicious questions being bandied about such as: “Would Biko be a member of Azapo if he were alive today?”
Interestingly, we don't hear such questions about the leaders of other political move- ments. Biko’s ideas remain relevant because Biko based his examination of the Black Condition on truth.
This is why he warned us more than 40 years ago that: “I think there is no running away from the fact that in South Africa there is such an ill-distribution of wealth that any form of political freedom which does not touch on the proper distribution of wealth will be meaningless.”
How should we pay tribute to Biko today? We must revive his belief in selfless service by fearlessly fighting against the looting of our national wealth.
Related to this is our duty to fight against the backward practice of appointing the most mediocre to key positions in public institutions.
We must pay tribute to Biko by fighting the monumental mess in our public education system that manifests in incidents of children as young as five dying in pit toilets and the recent murder of a teacher by a pupil.
Biko would expect us to take full control of the education of our children by actively participating in all aspects of the education of the black child.
Black people are subjected to brutality in the workplace, including being killed with impunity by white farmers.
Biko would expect us to urgently establish or strengthen uncompromising industry-specific bodies.
Some unions, especially those aligned to the ruling party, are severely compromised and cannot be entrusted with anything.
There are many other critical areas such as health, youth development, crime and business that necessitate a return to the black community type programmes pioneered by Biko and his Black People’s Convention. Perhaps most importantly, the struggle for wealth redistribution and land reconquest remains incomplete.
Biko would expect all the revolutionary political and social movements that regard land repossession as fundamental to the “quest for humanity” to coalesce around a common political programme to unapologetically intensify the struggle for land repossession.
We must revive his belief in service by fighting against the looting of our national wealth