Biko and ‘that politicising thing’
I decided to quietly commemorate Steve Biko’s murder by the apartheid security police 42 years ago by rereading his testimony to the Saso trial in 1976. I’m so glad I did.
I knew him a bit and seeing his replies to the questions of the prosecution in the trial, and to the judge, was like listening to him all over again.
Steve died on September 12 1977, but he was already a dead man by about 7.30am on September 7 after what police called a scuffle initiated by him, their prisoner, at the time after his arrest the month before. That was always a lie. They had begun to interrogate him just after 7am.
One of them would have hit him. He would have hit back.
The interrogators (always more than one) would then have assaulted him with brute force.
The sham inquest decided he had died of a “head injury with associated extensive brain injury, followed by contusion of the blood circulation, disseminated intravascular coagulation as well as renal failure with uraemia ... the available evidence does not prove that the death was brought about by any act of omission involving or amounting to an offence on the part of any person”.
Sir David Napley, a past president of the UK Law Society, invited to attend the inquest, declared afterwards: “I was left in no doubt that Mr Biko died as a result of brain injury inflicted on him by one or more unidentified members of the security police at some time prior and reasonably proximate to 0715 hours on the seventh.”
If you have not yet read Millard Arnold’s wonderful recounting of this in The Testimony of Steve Biko, do yourself a favour and get it now.
It’s a fantastic and lively history lesson.
Biko’s testimony at the trial of his friends is riveting, covering all our issues today – land expropriation (he favoured paying for it but not market rates) to the role of foreign investment, the absence of an African story in our culture and our education.
He broke his banning orders all the time and could light up a room just by quietly stepping into it.
I have many memories but one came back to me while I was reading his testimony.
We were at Donald and Wendy Woods’s home one evening in East London. Wendy was my sister. There was lots of smoke in the air, someone playing the piano, chatter and laughter, and out of the blue in walked Steve, grinning from ear to ear.
He stayed for an hour, smoked, drank, spoke to Donald, and was gone.
It was always business, the smile notwithstanding.
His disdain for the “system” was boundless.
And he knew how he would die.
Arnold records a conversation Steve had with an American businessman shortly before he was detained for the last time.
“Your method of death can be a politicising thing – I only understand one form of dealing with police, and that’s to be as unhelpful as possible.
“So I button up. And I told them this: ‘It’s up to you’. We had a boxing match the first day I was arrested. Some guy tried to clout me with a club. I went into him like a bull.
“I think he was under instructions to take it so far and no further, and using open hands so that he doesn’t leave any marks on my face.
“And of course he said what you were saying just now: ‘I will kill you’. He meant to intimidate. And my answer was: ‘How long is it going to take you?’”
I couldn’t help comparing his courage – especially because, when it was required, there would never be anyone there to tell the world of it – with EFF leader Julius Malema this past week banning journalists from Daily Maverick and ama Bhungane attending his press conferences, calling them enemies of the revolution.
Steve may well have approved of aspects of what the EFF stands for, but I doubt he would have admired Malema’s preening in public.
Fortunately, ban or not, our swaggering dandy has all but peaked politically.
Reporters will be able to see him in court.
Because of the implied threat of violence in the term enemy, Daily Maverick brought out a strong editorial promising to continue covering Julius, and ama Bhungane called the ban a threat to democracy.
But it may be just the opposite.
Another threat against the media may be that politicising thing that Steve Biko called being attacked by the security police.
If you’re strong enough, once a cop hits you, he loses his power over you.
South Africans know Malema well enough by now to know who is the enemy and who is not.