Bantu Stephen Biko (1946-1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist, more famous in death than in life. In the late 1960s, he helped found the South African Students’ Organisation (SASO) and the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM), which led to the Soweto uprising in 1976. He died in police custody a year later at age 30.
By 1973 he had been banned by the government. That meant he was
“no longer allowed to speak to more than one person at a time or speak in public, had to stay in his home region, and could not write publicly or speak with the media.”
He continued to work behind the scenes as the heart of SASO.
Biko believed in nonviolence as taught by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. He said Whites saw themselves as more than human while Blacks saw themselves as less than human. Until Blacks recovered their dignity and sense of self-worth, they would never be free:
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
He saw a future South Africa where race no longer mattered, but in the meantime, because Blacks were being kept down because of their skin colour, they had to come together because of their skin colour. Unlike Nelson Mandela, he believed in all-Black political movements. White liberals said that was racist.
That bit about “had to stay in his home region” is what led to his death.
On August 18th 1977, a friend of his was driving him outside of his home region. The police stopped them and started working over his friend, trying to find out where Biko was! Biko could not take it anymore and said:
“I am Bantu Steve Biko.”
He had been in prison several times before, twice under the Terrorist Act.
A month later, the newspapers said he had died in prison of a suicide. That was later changed to dying because of a “scuffle”.
In fact, he had been tortured and beaten so badly that the prison sent him to the hospital – to a prison hospital over 1,000km away! For 12 hours he laid in the back of the police van, naked, his hands and feet in chains, without medical attention. He died the next day, September 12th.
A government inquest concluded:
“On the available evidence the death cannot be attributed to any act or omission amounting to criminal offense on the part of any person.”
At his funeral, 15,000 came, the largest public event in Black South Africa up to that time. An Anglican priest named Desmond Tutu, not yet world-famous, gave the eulogy:
“Oh, God, where are you? Oh, God, do you really care? How could you let this happen to us? … God, do you really love us?”
Tutu compared Biko to another young man who was killed by the authorities, who died so that other men might be free: Christ.
Tutu:
“We are experiencing the birth pangs of a new South Africa, where all of us, black and white, shall walk tall.”
– Abagond, 2015.
Update (December 18th 2016): Today’s Google Doodle is for Steve Biko!
Sources: Mainly The Root (2014) , “Martyrs” (1996) edited by Susan Bergman.
See also:
- Nelson Mandela
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
- The term “terrorist”
- internalized racism
- Lumumba
- Freddie Gray – death by police van
- Sandra Bland – died in police custody of a “suicide”
547
We must never forget the men and women who gave their lives in the work to make our world more just.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
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He was a true soldier for change and freedom for his people. Blood has to be shed before change and freedom take place.
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Excellent post, abagond. Thanks.
Never heard this before. A jaw-droppingly perceptive insight. For me, the most valuable part of the piece.
Thanks again.
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Another Well written excellent post ,and I’m rather glad a white commentor caused the racist uncle link to be brought up ,had not downloaded and now I have .
But this is even worse :
“An Anglican priest named Desmond Tutu, not yet world-famous, gave the eulogy:
“Oh, God, where are you? Oh, God, do you really care? How could you let this happen to us? … God, do you really love us?”
maybe because its not your god and god is an imaginary made up being
Tutu compared Biko to another young man who was killed by the authorities, who died so that other men might be free: Christ.
an imaginary and magical historic figure – figures he say such
Tutu:
“We are experiencing the birth pangs of a new South Africa, where all of us, black and white, shall walk tall.”
nope still midgets crawling if you want to metaphorize – that is a group of people who have no legal or moral right to even be in the country are still there and most of the people from there live in poverty, powerlessness and SILENCE!
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Whites dont have a legal or moral right to South Africa because it was taken by conquest. Theft is not a legitimate form of ownership. You can’t compare that to blacks residing in England. They are not claiming that they own or discovered England nor claim it’s economic resources.
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@ Mbeti
Actually Jesus Christ (Jesus of Nazareth) was a real and historically verified figure who lived during the Roman occupation of Palestine.
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Lord of Mirkwood
i think that the Dutch had (and have) a right to legally immigrate there, just as Blacks have immigrated to England, but that is with the permission and blessing of the host country.
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..@King, good points on both topics you just mentioned! Africa Belongs to Africans only (or, it should) and with all the pillaging, raping and stealing of resources that Europe as whole has done (especially the Anglos), they should be welcoming Black people from every nation, especially Africa with open arms and rolled out red velvet carpet!
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P.S. Steve Biko (R.I.P.) was such a brave and courageous man whose inspirational work for a free South Africa I hope is never, ever forgotten.
“Unlike Nelson Mandela, he believed in all-Black political movements.” I for one find this sentiment to be one of reason and sound judgment-though I am not against a multicultural society, too many whites (and some other POC) have shown time and time again that once they are allowed into a movement by Black folks things can and oftentimes get misdirected and take a turn for the Worse, not the Better..
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@Lord of Milkwood
LMAO
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@Lord of Mirkwood
Actually, they don’t.
The Afrikaner’s claim to South Africa is about as strong as the white Australian’s claim to Australia or the white American’s claim to North America. That tends to happen when the land you claim as yours had to be acquired through theft and subterfuge.
Which is why I couldn’t shed too many tears for white ex-Rhodesians when they lost “their” lands. The closest analogy to that is a classic car that was stolen, then legally bought by someone else who didn’t know it was stolen and has to give it up to the rightful owner when it’s finally found years later.
You mind clarifying this for me? Seems you’re angling for the Africans to simply forgive and forget while leaving the whites right where they are, with ill-gotten gains intact.
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@king
did he rise from the dead,walk on water ,etc bs etc??
@one of the resident white persons we have to deal with because this is a public blog…
the nonwhite and nonenglish who come to england do so peacefully and generally abide by englands laws and customs etc
as apposed to the many europeans who invaded and robbed raped and killed and setup dictatorships – but the white person already knows this and so do most visitors to this blog – but lets have yet another pointless and futile internet/blog argument and act like we’re doing something.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
On this thread and the structural racism one, it seems like you are making Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa, American Southerners and conservatives into Racist Uncles. As if there is some kind of Manichaean difference between them and White liberal New Englanders, like yourself and Bernie Sanders.
@ Jefe
I think the time has come for that post, “Black people: The White Liberal User’s Guide”.
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you know who I prefer ,as a historical figure during roman times (but not around palstine) spartacus – and when they came for him ,many said his name and would have taken his place on the cross.
Until Blacks recovered their dignity and sense of self-worth, they would never be free:
“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
Bantu Stephen Biko (1946-1977)
unfortunately while eloquent and to the point – its a massive fail for most black people world wide.
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…did he rise from the dead,walk on water ,etc bs etc??”
He existed as a person… Going farther than that gets us into both religion and the paranormal. Interesting ideas, but we’ll quickly end up far afield from the topic. of Steven Biko.
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“You mind clarifying this for me? Seems you’re angling for the Africans to simply forgive and forget while leaving the whites right where they are, with ill-gotten gains intact.” @Mack Lyons-THIS!!!!!!!!!
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“Biko believed in nonviolence as taught by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.”
That fact would explain his lionization in death. Funny how the struggle against racism is always ‘nonviolent’ when the victims of the carnage are overwhelmingly black.
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The growing activism of the black labor force soon came to be felt in the government’s tightly controlled public education system. Black schools were the most deprived institutions of the state, and yet the only ones that offered any prospects-no matter how bleak-for students and their parents to break the cycle of poverty. With the ANC leadership in exile or in prison, the leadership of the agitated students was taken up by the South African Students Organization which was founded in 1968 by a twenty-two year old student named Steve Biko (1946-1977). Biko was an advocate of Black Consciousness, which he defined in his 1971 book I Write What I Like:
Black Consciousness is an attitude of mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with is brothers around the cause of their oppression- the blackness of their skin -and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude. It is based on a self-examination which has ultimately led them to believe that by seeking to run away from themselves and emulate the white man, they are insulting the intelligence of whoever created them black. The philosophy of Black Consciousness therefore expresses group pride and the determination of the black to rise and attain the envisaged self.
Black consciousness soon permeated into the urban schools where it was eagerly adopted by black students. On June 16,1976 thousands of black schoolchildren in Soweto demonstrated against instruction in Afrikaans, a language they viewed as a tool of their subjugation. The student protests swept through the nation, only to be brutally suppressed. By February 1977 nearly 575 Africans had been killed, 137 under the age of eighteen. Steve Biko was arrested and subsequently murdered by the police. Reference: A History of Sub-Saharan Africa. RobertO. Collins and James M. Burns.
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Hey, ABAGOND, there’s some racist Youtuber named “Super Ghoul Warrior” who’s trying to justify the Dylann Roof incident by talking about white South Africans being murdered. What’s your take on the so called “white genocide in South Africa”? Don’t blacks make up most of the murder victims in South Africa? And how many of the black on white murders in that Country have actual evidence of racial motivation? You should do an article on that.
“Super Ghoul Warrior” posted a racist comment somewhere under this video: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uV2uebhnqOw) But go on his google.plus account…
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Denzel Washington playing Stephen Bantu Biko
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZrJZA0D74k)
Speech sounds familiar eh?
Like last week’s headlines???
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@Uh Oh Bro
Whatever take you can have on the so called “white genocide in South Africa”, it is idiotic to justify the murder of people by pointing to other people in South Africa, about 8,000 miles from the place of the murder, without any connection to the victims whatsoever.
But that is just my opinion.
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That all past migrations – violent or not – should be a reversed, is a disastrous idea. It doesn’t become better if somebody wants to do it in the name of historical justice rather than blood and soil like Bobby M. The Afrikaners are South Africans, they haven’t been Dutch/German for 300 years, and they deserve the protection of the law just as much as every other South African citizen.
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“and they deserve the protection of the law just as much as every other South African citizen.” I agree with that in principle. But if their ever was a white genocide I’d jot that up as the unintended consequences of conquest.
What maintains supremacy in South Africa as well as the rest of the continent is the Eurocentric justice system. The Eurocentric judicial system is one of the hall marks of a “developed country” within the matrix of white supremacy.
The one tradition that’s unique to the entire continent of Africa is customary law that existed before colonialism and can be found from South Africa to Nigeria and all the way to the horn of Africa. Customary laws reflects John Locks natural law but predates John Lock by about a 1000 years.
Their is this idea that Africa was a “lawless place” and that whites brought “civilization”. Yet words like freedom, liberty, justice, jury, law, judges and contracts are indigenous to African languages and shows that these ideas are not uniquely Western. Their are six different words in Swahili for the word “contract” but the word democracy (demokrasia) is clearly a Western import.
In South Africa whites went about banning parts of customary law and then applied a western style penal code to the rest of customary law. This system along with the laws of Apartheid were used to destroy South African identity and maintain control of the population.
Biko’s quote “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” .
Whites went about “civilizing” blacks by banning parts of their legal cultural as well as introducing Christianity as a replacement. My slave owning ancestors didn’t teach their slaves to read or write but they did have them memorize the Catechism. Calvinism teaches that God chose before the creation who would be saved and who would not. Who would be kings and who be paupers. That a persons calling and place in life was determined before that person was born. So a good Christian slave never questioned his master nor the position in life that he/she was born into. Many non whites are influenced by internalized racism which is result of the constant white centric narrative.
“Unlike Nelson Mandela, he believed in all-Black political movements. White liberals said that was racist.”
Their is the only position that will make a difference and that’s black empowerment organized by black people. I have read some works on structural and institutional racism and the emphasis isn’t black empowerment but rather “diversity” and “multiculturalism” as bench marks of an egalitarian society. Its my opinion that its not how a society voluntarily organizes itself that determines an egalitarian society but rather a legal system where the equality of law is applied equally to all individuals regardless of race and class. Our judicial systems view people through the lens of race and class and can be bought if you have the influence and money. The Eurocentric legal systems around the world are not blind.
It is this blind spot that white liberals have. Its similar as to why white men don’t marry more blacks. They don’t want black children. Whites don’t want economically empowered cities composed of black people. So they shift the goal to “diversity”. Whenever whites get involved with civil rights it is about controlling the conversation, redirection and deflecting racist history.
Where I live in L.A. the city of Glendale used to be a sun down town and a center for Klan like people. Today it home of the Armenian diaspora. The wealth of that town has increased four fold since the whites left. Similarly Monterey park used to be white/Hispanic but now is majority Chines and its wealth has quadrupled as well. Some of the priciest real estate is in Arcadia where many Chinese live. Do white Liberals think these communities are racist? They were successful because white supremacy didn’t target their communities. .
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@MJB, all of what you said and then some-from the need for all-Black empowerment organizations (and why), from the racist history of Glendale, CA., to the beautifully thriving city of Arcadia you spoke nothing but knowledgeable, informed truths!
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Rest in peace Steven Biko.
You are still remembered.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSTQoQ-urRw)
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In the film “Cry freedom” Steve Biko said that he was against the teaching of afrikaans. But I can’t find this quotation.
Could someone help me ?
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It was on the 12th of September 1977 that Steve Biko was murdered by the apartheid police.
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The whites murdered him on this day in 1977, through torture, by the organs of the apartheid state.
A Black Man and a Black Woman loving themselves and thinking for themselves are the most dangerous people to whites.
Andile Mngxitama said : “Mandela: ‘Let us fight,’ and they put him in jail for 27 years. Biko said, ‘Let us think,’ and they murdered him.”
Biko ideas still lives on!
Biko had understood the value of thinking (and thinking for oneself) and had been able to think beyond his own death: “It’s better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die.”
Although he did not originate it, it was Steve Biko who had popularized “BLACK IS BEAUTIFFUL”
In the miscarriage/abortion of our revolution, it is Steve Biko’s whose ideas still lives on. In the ashes of Nelson Mandela’s compromise, and the ascendancy of (my) Black rage, Biko lives on. And in this rage and deep betrayal, Black Consciousness is on the rise again.
Nelson Mandela’s dream is our revolution deferred. But 21 years after the ANC being Black managers for white privilege and capital, its ideas of ‘non-racialism’ and reconciliation without justice, the condition of Black people has not fundamentally improved. Nelson Mandela’s magnanimity through reconciliation and forgiveness of our oppressors was the wrong prescription to birth a country free of racism and massive suffering from one of the most racist and brutal systems in history.
Racism ( white is tautological) is, was and always had been the main problem, where Black people still continue to live in bondage and misery in the midst of obscene abundance enjoyed by white settlers/invaders on African Land.
Steve Biko had warned about this misdiagnosis.
May (I) we stand of the the shoulders of our Promethean giants of truth.
Long live, Biko.
Biko lives on.
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Steve Biko is the Google doodle today.
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Steve Biko would have been 70 years old today.
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@ Mary
Yes! I added it to the post.Thanks.
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