EDITORIAL COMMENT :

YESTERDAY was the 40th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko, and the city’s Nelson Mandela University presented its Bantu Stephen Biko memorial lecture to mark this tragic date.

Visiting academic from Temple University in the US Prof Molefi Kete Asante delivered the address under the title, The Afrocentric Vision of Bantu Stephen Biko.

The obvious question to ask concerning his life and legacy is: how much of his Afrocentric vision has been fulfilled?

Indeed, political pundits have been asking over the past few days how the late black consciousness (BC) leader would view the country if he were still alive today.

Had he lived Biko would be 70, not much younger than President Jacob Zuma and no doubt still active in politics.

Many have died in the fight for a better South Africa and it is important to remember the contribution of struggle icons like Chris Hani, Fort Calata and Matthew Goniwe, killed for their beliefs.

Apart from Nelson Mandela, there may be no other South African whose face is as often printed on T-shirts and posters, or summoned up as rebellious reference as Biko. He is in a way our Che Guevara.

Zuma recognised the power of the Biko name when he laid a wreath in the cell in which he died in Pretoria yesterday. However, the publicity around the 40th anniversary of his death stretches farther than wreath-laying, a slogan on a T-shirt or a black power salute.

Biko’s legacy cuts to the core of what it means to be black in South Africa today. He fought a black inferiority complex with perhaps his most famous quote being “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”.

Here we are, 40 years on, and yet there still is a massive gap between the self-esteem of the races. Only when we are all proud to be known as Africans will that gap be meaningfully closed.