Biko and Daswa – some parallels

Much evil results from people uncritically following the herd, not taking a stand for what is right

IT WAS a day after South Africa commemorated the martyrdom of Steve Biko when the Catholic Church beatified a Limpopo teacher and layman, Benedict Daswa, making him South Africa’s first “Blessed”.

Daswa was stoned and hacked to death in his village in Limpopo because he refused to contribute the required R5 to a common purse to be given to a diviner who would in turn reveal to the villagers the person bewitching them and behind all their misery.

In time, Daswa may become a saint if certain provisions are met now that he has been beatified.

Regardless of whether he does become a saint or not, Daswa’s is an example that even secular society can follow. He is a man who stood for something in a world that has made herd mentality an article of faith.

There is hardly an area of life where people tend to follow a practice for no other reason than that “everybody else is doing it”.

Parking aside the religious reasons – important as they are – Daswa met his particularly grim end because he refused to do what everybody else was doing. He took a stand. For that he had to die.

As Biko’s own end showed, taking a stand can be a lonely and fatal choice.

But unlike Biko, Daswa was just an ordinary man. If he recorded his thoughts on paper, nobody has seen them deserving to be entered into canon of faith or thought.

That is what I think makes him remarkable and a role model for a country and a world such as ours where too many of us believe we are too small and our actions too insignificant to count.

Too many of us have accepted that we have no option but to join “everybody” in the wrongs that happen around us.

Parents are willing to allow for their sports-talented children to lie about their age because “everybody” is doing it; athletes use what they know to be banned performance-enhancing substances because “everybody” is doing it.

Those in power abuse their office for personal wealth; employers of the most vulnerable knowingly exploit their staff for no other reason than that “everybody” does the same.

Before you can die for something, you first have to live and stand for something.

I am not suggesting that a course becomes noble just because someone has died for it. There are too many examples of people dying for a dishonourable cause. Think of those who died defending Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa.

But unless individual South Africans are willing to take a stance in their own small spaces and refuse to accept what they know is wrong, we will forever tinker towards being a failed state.

When this happens we will, like Daswa’s villagers, blame our misfortunes on others when it was all of our own doing.

Even if we do not end up stoned and hacked to death like Daswa, we must accept that there will be some sort of price we face for taking

Those in power abuse their office for personal wealth; employers knowingly exploit their staff

the stand.

The talented boy who together with his parents refuses to give himself an age discount will probably never turn professional; the athlete who did not dope might not go to the Olympics, and the business that was not willing to give kickbacks will probably not get the tender. The traffic fine will be higher than the “cooldrink” you would have bought the officer issuing the fine.

And nobody will call you “Blessed”. You are more likely to be laughed at and be called a bloody fool.

Daswa was not a man who had his head in the clouds reciting the Rosary every minute of the day. He was out in the community teaching and encouraging youngsters to aspire to greater things than the limitations of their village life.

At home he took on patriarchy head-on. He is said to have washed his children’s nappies and thus endured the ridicule of his kinsmen who regarded the chore as a “woman’s job” let alone one for the respectable school principal Daswa was.

Daswa’s example is that we do not need to be as articulate as Biko nor walk on water like Jesus to make a difference in how those around us see their role in bringing society from the brink of despair and disaster.

It is as simple as looking around you and deciding to take a stance and be willing to face the consequences.

I am under no illusion that even among those who will say they are inspired by Daswa, few will try to emulate him. As the song goes, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.