The Steve Biko Mixtape

Balisa: Of Steve Bantu Biko. He was restricted to the King William's Town area during his banning orders back in 1973. And as a result, the Steve Biko Center was then established in Ginsberg, in King William's Town. This morning, we cross live to our reporter who is in King William's Town, Busisiwe Gemsana. Molo, Sisi. Thank you so much for joining us. Tell us about the importance of the center where you are this morning. Indeed, Balisa. We are at the Steve Biko Center, where the life and times —of the Black Consciousness Movement leader Steve Biko is documented. At a very early age, when he went to varsity, he joined politics and became very active. That gave rise to the South African Student Organization, in which only black people would— only black students would join the organization, an indication that at a very young age, at a very tender age, Steve Biko strongly believed that black people needed to have self-love, needed —needed to love their identity, needed to have self-reliance on their blackness and not feel any inferiority during those times. A leader, indeed. And that proved to be a stepping ladder to the Black Consciousness Movement, in which he co-founded in those days. He became the voice of ordinary black people when the PAC and the ANC were banned. He became the voice. And that led to him being restricted and detained.

Renée de Hyness: Right.

Balisa: But, Palisa, no one knows the story of Steve Biko more than his son, Nkosinathi Biko. He joins us now to tell us about his father. The country lost a leader. You lost your father. You were 6 at that time. Do you remember anything about your father during that time?

Nkosinathi Biko: Well, certainly, but let me start elsewhere. Uh, I want to thank you as the SABC team for doing a wonderful job of capturing the attention of the public around the 40th anniversary. Great job this morning. Of course, I, I remember. I am a father of 3, and my daughter, the second one, is now 6, around about the age I was when my father died. And the conversations we are having with her Tell me that she is an informed little being. I have my own memories, albeit that they are memories, of course, that lasted only till I was about 6 and a half, because after that he was no more. One of my favorite ones is attending at a local school, St. Patrick's, and we were asked by our teacher to draw something that was on the board.

Tshaupe Obree Mokopane: OK.

Nkosinathi Biko: And replicate it on, you know, on paper. And I was the only one who couldn't do this assignment. It seemed to me impossible. And so I go home, and I'm upset, because everybody else has done this, and I'm being laughed at. And my father was the only one who understood that the term exact also means dimension, size, which was impossible to replicate on paper, you know? There are many, of course, father and son and stories like that, that we can tell.

Speaker 5: Right.

Balisa: And speaking of the life and times of Steve Biko, his legacy, do you think in this day and age that his legacy continues to find space in the country?

Nkosinathi Biko: His legacy continues to be relevant. There is no doubt about that. And young people are telling us so when they are on campus protesting about fees that must fall, and roads that must fall, it is to Steve Biko that they resort and find the vocabulary that goes with that. And I think that the 110,000 beneficiaries of the center here that come through every day, the young people, continue to remind us of the relevance of Steve Biko. I do think that the country is at a point where it is also trying to find itself. And I think we've come to a point where, whereas in the past there may have been political differences between parties, there is a common understanding that Steve Biko offered something that this country needs, even 23 years into democracy.

Balisa: Interesting that you should make an example of the protests that are happening in varsities, because in 1976, history tells us that Steve Biko, when learners at Forbes Grant burnt the school. He called them to say, we do not burn schools. We do not burn infrastructure. We want them to respect us. We want to find comfort in our skins. And now students are on the streets. They are burning structures. They are burning universities. What would he say? What would you say to them?

Nkosinathi Biko: Well, in 1976, it was unacceptable. And I think the thinking was that those institutions represented, if in the case of Forbes, Bantu education, and therefore an extension of the system. But nevertheless, it was unacceptable. It is certainly unacceptable in 2017 that we would resort to the destruction of community assets that are of value. We know that the country is stretched for resources, but I think that the real question is the underlying reasons why people still do that. And I think these are the things we need to attend to. The statistician general reminded us not so long ago that in excess of 50% of our South Africans live under the breadline, live in poverty. And if our constitution promises life and dignity, then it would mean, if that is indeed the case, that we are in violation of our Constitution. We are visiting atrocities on our people that defy the promise of our Constitution— dignified living.

Balisa: And would you say we need leaders like Steve Biko to lead, to, to make sure that we do not violate that same Constitution that they died for?

Nkosinathi Biko: I think that there are many leaders in South Africa that have contributed, uh, immensely to our thought, political principles. And I think that we can harvest from Steve Biko. We certainly can harvest from Robert Sobukwe and many, many of our leaders useful lessons that could give further traction to our democracy.

Balisa: And lastly, I can't say goodbye to you without going back to Black consciousness, what he stood for. Do you think Black people, years down the line, 40 years after his death, are proud of being Black and do not feel the inferiority that he fought for?

Nkosinathi Biko: Well, what he ultimately stood for was creating a link between a very strong consciousness of self and, in his case, the emancipatory program.

Speaker 6: Right.

Nkosinathi Biko: And although he was the father of Black consciousness and is referred to as such, he actually challenged even white South Africa to revisit its own consciousness and this culture of superiority. So is there relevance for that now? I think so. I think that we do— we ought to have been past the stage as a country Of having the debates that we are having between ourselves as South Africans, black and white, and within our communities as as as black people.

Balisa: Nkosinathi, thank you so much for your time. Unfortunately, we're gonna have to leave it there. That was the son of the late Steve Biko, Nkosinathi Biko, saying we ought to harvest from the legacy of Steve Biko, and indeed his legacy continues to. live on in Ginsberg, where he grew up, in King William's Town, in the Eastern Cape, in the country at large. And we know that the world has joined South Africa in commemorating and celebrating a life well lived. And, Balisa, in Steve Biko's words, indeed, black is beautiful. Back to you.

Tshaupe Obree Mokopane: Oh, Biko, Biko.

Dan O'Meara: This song was written for a very brave man.

Steve Biko: We believe that in our country there shall be no minority, there shall be no majority, there shall just be people.

Dan O'Meara: A man who preached nonviolence in a state which has racism enshrined in its constitution, a man who was imprisoned, tortured and killed. This is for Steven Biko.

Balisa: Of the Black Consciousness Movement?

Speaker 9: And what would his views have been on South Africa today?

Nkosinathi Biko: Well, a close friend of Biko answered to some of these interesting questions. SABC's Renée de Hyness. I sat with Dr. Tshaupe Obree Mokopane in— as South Africa marked 40 years since the icon's death.

Renée de Hyness: At the age of 15, Dr. Mokgwaibhe was the youngest political prisoner in the country. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison in 1960, before he qualified as a medical doctor. A young Dr. Mokgwaibhe is seen here during his arrest at Orlando High School with other prominent PAC leaders. He recalls the early years of activism as medical students, before Biko founded the Black Consciousness Movement.

Tshaupe Obree Mokopane: He went spreading the message of the necessity, first, of forming a black students' organization. Secondly, what is this black student organization about? In other words, the conversation that must be held among black students. And that was the genesis of Black Consciousness. And there was overwhelming response in all the black universities. And they joined in, in the formation of SASU, which was inaugurated at that time, 1969, I think, the inauguration, of which he became the president. And him and I worked together throughout that time, refining our ideas, discussing.

Renée de Hyness: He said Biko wouldn't have approved of the current political situation.

Tshaupe Obree Mokopane: The current leadership totally deserted the cause of the revolution that so many people worked hard for, so many people laid their lives for. They're presiding over a neo-apartheid state. If we look at the condition of Black people today and compare it to what it was, it has shifted very, very little. You go to Mlazi, Malugazi, Chatsworth, you go anywhere, our people are living in almost exactly the same, the same position. The big problem is coming, the— to become a failed state. To become a dysfunctional country. And when we have— we have so much wealth in this country. We have— why can't we build houses? How much money is being stolen on a daily basis by the people that have duped us to elect them into leadership?

Renée de Hyness: Biko testified at his later trial, known as the He was brought before a limo trial in 1976, after which he was sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment on Robben Island. At this time, he warned Biko, who was still a free man, to leave the country. But Biko refused.

Tshaupe Obree Mokopane: It also demonstrated the maturity that the revolution had reached, that at that time we had reached a point when death did not matter. Matter to us. We'd reached that point where the commitment to the freedom of our people was so important that we, as ordinary agents and human beings acting in that drama of the revolution, were mere servants, and that our lives As individuals mattered, yes, but were not greater than the cause.

Renée de Hyness: Dr. Mukhwabe says South Africans have the power to challenge the current leadership and effect change, in the same way that Biko and the early activists stood up and confronted the oppressive apartheid regime. Renee Heiner, SABC News, Durban.

Steve Biko: We believe that in our country there shall be no minority, there shall be no majority, there shall just be people.

Nkosinathi Biko: The circumstances behind Steve Biko's death still remain unclear, but the Biko family is determined to find the answers. The first steps have already been taken. We're delighted, for instance, that the Timo family matter has come forth, the Hefiji matter has come forth, the Thalatha matter has come forth. We consulted with We met with representatives of the Hawks late last year, and the matter has now been referred to the regional branch here in East London. We are awaiting those investigators to come and spend time with us in our archives. And hopefully soon we can get the Biko matter also moving forward. The Biko family also believes the government is not giving the Steve Biko matter There is absolutely no doubt that our political leadership has been negligent on this matter. In fact, not just negligent; they have interfered with justice. 2 courts have pronounced on what they call political interference, the North Gauteng High Court, as well as the South Gauteng High Court have found that there were processes of the state that prevented the prosecution of about 300 cases that were referred by the TRC for prosecution. Preparations for the 21st Steve Biko Annual Memorial Lecture are also in full swing. The director of the World Health Organization, Dr. Matsidis Somuweti will deliver the keynote address virtually. Abongile Yankis, SABC News.

Steve Biko: We see a completely non-racial society. We don't believe, for instance, in the so-called guarantees for minority rights, because guaranteeing minority rights implies recognition of portions of the community on a race basis. We believe that In our country, there shall be no minority, there shall be no majority, there shall just be people. And those people will have the same status before the law, and they will have the same political rights before the law. So in a sense, it will be a completely non-racial egalitarian society.

Speaker 6: But will the vast number of blacks, after all their experiences, be able to live a life without giving vent to feelings of revenge?

Steve Biko: Yes, we believe it is the duty of the vanguard political movement which brings about change to educate people's outlooks. I mean, in the same way that blacks have never lived in a socialist economic system, they've got to live— to learn to live in one. In the same way that they've always lived in a racially divided society, they've got to learn to live in a non-racial society. I think that's a very important point.

Speaker 9: In the first interview, recorded in South Africa before his detention, Steve Biko himself talks about the development of the Black Consciousness Movement and his vision of a future South Africa. The first part of the original interview was cut off. The interviewer first asks Biko what Black Consciousness is. Biko replies, Black Consciousness is a political, cultural philosophy employed by blacks in South Africa in an effort to shake off shackles of mental oppression And to reinstate the essential humanity and pride of blacks. It was first devised by groups like SASO, the South African Students Organization, and the BPC, the Black People's Convention, in 1967-68, and has since filtered through to other organizations operating at various levels. Here the interview picks up with Biko's voice.

Steve Biko: Now, the history of it starts off after 1967. '63, '64. If you remember this era, there were many arrests in this country which stemmed from underground activity by PAC, by ANC, and this led to some kind of political emasculation of the black population especially, with the result that there was no participation by blacks in the articulation of their own aspirations. The whole opposition to what the government was doing to blacks came in effect from white organizations, mainly student groups like MUSAS, the Liberal Party, the Progressive Party. And blacks who were articulate in any sense were far few by comparison to the olden days. And they were dispersed amongst these particular organizations. Now, when I came to varsity, which was sometime in 1966, in my own analysis and that of my friends, there was some kind of anomaly in this situation where whites were in fact the main participants in our oppression and at the same time the main participants in the opposition to that oppression. It implies therefore that at no stage in this country were blacks, uh, throwing in their lot in the shift of political opinion. The arena was totally controlled by whites in what we called totality of white power at the time. So we argued that any changes which are to come can only come as a result of a program worked out by Black people. And for Black people to be able to work out a program, they need to defeat the one main element in politics which was working against them, and this was a psychological feeling of inferiority which was deliberately cultivated by the system. So equally too, the whites, in order to be able to listen to Blacks, needed to defeat the one problem which they had, which was superiority. Now, the only way to come about this, of course, was to look anew at the Black man in terms of what it is in him that is lending him to denigration so easily. So first of all, we said as Black students, we could not participate in multiracial organizations, which were by far white organizations, because in this country there is an overwhelming number of white students at university. And secondly, these organizations were concentrating mainly on problems which were affecting the white student community. And thirdly, of course, when it came to political questions, there were far more articulate than the average black students because of their superior training, and because of their numbers, they could outvote us on any one issue, which meant that NUSAS as an organization gave political opinions which were largely affected by the whiteness of that particular organization. So then in '68, we started forming what is now called SASO, the South African students organization, which was fairly based on Black consciousness, the essence of which was for the Black man to elevate his own position by positively looking at those value systems that make him distinctively a man in society. First of all, we were of the view that this particular country is almost like an island of Europe in Africa. If you go throughout the whole of Africa, you do find aspects of African life which are culturally elevated throughout the continent. But in this particular country, somehow any visitor who comes here tends to be made to believe Almost that he is in Europe. He never sees blacks except in a subservient role. And this is all because of the cultural dominance of the particular group which is now in power.

Speaker 6: To what extent have you been successful?

Steve Biko: Well, we've been successful to the extent that we have diminished the element of fear in the minds of black people. In the period, you know, '63, '64, '65, '66, black people were terribly scared of involvement in politics. The universities were putting out no useful leadership to the black people, because everybody found it more comfortable to lose himself in a particular profession to make money. But since those days, black students have seen their role as being primarily to prepare themselves for leadership roles in the various facets of the Black community. And through our political articulation of the aspirations of the Black people, many Black people have come to appreciate, in fact, the need to stand up and be counted against the system. There is far more political talk now, far more political debate, and far more condemnation of the system. —from average black people than there have ever been since possibly 1960 and before. I'm referring here to the whole oppressive education system that the students are talking about.

Speaker 9: Mm-hmm.

Steve Biko: And after complaining about this, police— in fact, the government wants to further entrench what the students are protesting about by bringing in police and saracens and dogs. And almost soldiers, so to speak. Now, the response of the students then was in terms of their pride. They were not prepared to be cowed down, even at the point of a gun. And hence, what happened happened. Some people were killed, and these riots just continued and continued, because at no stage were the young students, nor for that matter, at some stage, their parents, prepared to be scared. Now, everybody saw this as a deliberate act of oppressive measures, you know, to try and cow down the black masses. And everybody was determined equally to say to the police, to say to the government, we shall not be scared, you know, by your police, by your dogs, and by your soldiers. Now, this is the kind of, you know, lack of fear one is talking about, which I see as a very important determinant.

Speaker 6: Since last June, something like 400 young blacks were killed.

Steve Biko: 499, actually.

Speaker 6: 499. And you think that this will not be a deterrent?

Steve Biko: No, I think it has been a very useful weapon in waging the young and the old. I mean, before then, there was obviously a difference in the outlook of the old generation to the younger generation. The younger generation was moving too fast for the old generation. The old generation was torn between Bundestag politics on the one side, old allegiances which were not progressive allegiances, you know, to groups like ANC, PAC, without any result in action. And there were those who were simply too scared to move.

Speaker 6: Do you condemn, uh, Pakistani leadership altogether?

Steve Biko: Yes, of course. We condemn Pakistani leaders, uh, even the best of them. Yeah.

Speaker 6: Well, just say a few words on that.

Steve Biko: Well, our attitude here is that, uh, you cannot, in pursuing the aspirations of Black people, operate from a platform which is meant for the oppression of the Black people. Now we see all these so-called platforms as being deliberate creations by the nationalist government to contain the political aspiration of the Black people and to give them pseudo-political platforms to direct their attention to. Now, men like Gachagua, Matanzima, Mangope, and so on are all participants in the white man's game of holding the aspirations of the black people. Now, we do not feel it is possible in any way to turn such a platform to useful work. We believe the first principal step by any black political leader is to destroy such a platform, and destroy it without giving it any form of respectability. So once you step in it, once you participate in it, whether you are in the governing party or the opposition, you are in fact giving sanctity to it. You are giving respectability to it. So in essence, people like Gachagua Chilesi, like Matanzima, and like Mangope are participants in a white man's game, and they are participants at the expense of the black man. And they are leading black people to a divided struggle, to speak as Zulus, to speak as Xhosas, to speak as Which is a completely new feature in political life of black people in this country. We speak as one combined whole, directing ourselves to a common enemy, and we reject anyone who wishes to destroy that unity. Yeah, we are, as I was saying, of the view that we should operate as one united whole towards attainment of an egalitarian society. For the whole of Azania. And therefore, any entrenchment of tribalistic, racialistic or any form of sectional outlooks is abhorred by us. We hate it, and we seek to destroy it. And it is for this reason, therefore, that we cannot see any form of coalition with any of the Bantu leaders, even the so-called best of them, like Thabo Mbeki.

Speaker 6: Thank you.

Steve Biko: Because they destroy themselves by virtue of the kind of argument that one has put up.

Speaker 6: Well, the government, of course, as you know, says that all this unrest really is due to communist agitation. Are you a communist?

Steve Biko: We are by no means communists. Neither do I believe for a moment that the unrest is due to communist agitation. I do know for a fact that there has been participation in the appeal here anyway from science by a lot of people in the unrest. But the primary reason behind the unrest is simple lack of patience by the young folk with a government which is refusing to change, refusing to change in the educational sphere, which is where they were directing themselves, and also refusing to change in a broader political situation. Now, when this young church started with their protest, they were talking about Afrikaans, they were talking about Bantu education, and they meant that. But the government responded in a high-handed fashion, assuming, as they've always done, that they are in a situation of total power. But here, for once, they met a student group which was not prepared to be thrown around all the time. They decided to flex their muscle, and of course the The whole country responded, simply because— I'm just saying that there are lessons to be gleaned from this whole unrest situation of last year. In the first instance, I think blacks have flexed their muscle a bit, and they now know the degree of dedication that they can find amongst their own members when they are called to action. And they now know the kind of response they will get from the various segments of the population, the youth, the oldies, and so on. And the second lesson, of course, is the response from the government and the white population at large. The government responded in one way, and the white population also in another way. One doesn't want to get into details here, but, you know, reading these newspapers, newspapers, you get some kind of idea of the extent of fear that was prevalent in white society at a particular time, especially just after the first onslaught in Soweto, where there was a real fear throughout the community, throughout the country. Nobody knew just where something would happen next.

Speaker 6: So how will these verses express themselves in the future?

Steve Biko: I'm of the view that any recurrence of disturbances of that nature can only result in more careful planning and better calculation, thereby achieving the desired results to a greater extent than the spontaneous situation we had last year, for instance.

Speaker 6: I'm wondering, though, if you think that the And you believe that by these means you will bring about a real change of the society?

Steve Biko: I see this as only an expression, one form of an expression of discontent inside. I'm of the view that the whole change process is going to be a protracted one in this country. It depends entirely on the degree to which the nationalist government is prepared to hold on to power, and my own analysis is that that they are wanting to hold on to power and fight with their backs to the wall. Now, conflict could only be avoidable if they were prepared to avoid it. Those who are at the seeking end, that is, those who want justice, who want an egalitarian society, uh, can only pursue their aspirations according to the resistance offered by the opposition. And if the opposition is prepared to fight with their back to the wall, conflict can't be avoidable. Now, we as BPC— I am a member of the Black Consciousness Movement. I was a member of BPC before I was banned. And now I have been— I'm told appointed as honorary president of BPC. Now, the line that BPC adopts is to explore as much as possible, uh, nonviolent means within the country. And that is why we exist. But there are people, and there are many people, who have despaired of the efficacy of nonviolence as a method. They are of the view that the present nationalist government can only be unseated by people operating A military win. I don't know if this is the final answer. I think in the end there is going to be a totality of effect of a number of change agencies, you know, operating in South Africa. I personally would like to see less groups. I'd like to see groups like ANC, PAC, and the Black Consciousness Movement deciding. to form one liberation group. And it is only, I think, when Black people are so dedicated and so united in their cause that we can effect the greatest results.

Renée de Hyness: OK.

Steve Biko: And whether this is going to be through the form of conflict or not will be dictated by the future. I don't believe for a moment that we are going to willingly drop our belief in the nonviolent stance. As of now. But I can't predict what will happen in the future, inasmuch as I can't predict what the enemy is going to do in the future.

Speaker 6: Can you guess at all at the number of years the change might take?

Steve Biko: That's a very difficult exercise. I don't want to get involved in that kind of exercise. Some people say 5 years, others say 10 years. I think we are not at a stage yet where it is possible to fix a precise timetable.

Speaker 6: When you speak of an egalitarian society, do you mean a socialist one?

Steve Biko: Yes, I think there is no running away from the fact now that in South Africa there is such an ill distribution of wealth that any form of political freedom which does not touch on the distribution of, uh, proper distribution of wealth will be meaningless. Uh, the whites have locked up within a small minority of themselves the greater proportion of the country's wealth. And if we have a mere change of face of those in governing positions, what is likely to happen is that black people will continue to be poor, and you will get a few blacks filtering through into the so-called bourgeoisie, and our society will be run almost as of yesterday. So that for meaningful change to occur, there needs to be an attempt at reorganizing the whole economic pattern and economic policies within this particular country. Uh, PPC believes in a judicious blending of private enterprise, which is highly diminished, and state participation in industry. Industry and commerce, especially on industries like mining, uh, gold, diamond, asbestos, and so on, like forestry, and of course complete ownership of land. Now, in that kind of judicious blending of the 2 systems, we hope to arrive at a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Speaker 6: Yeah, but you see a country— so clearly you see A country in which black and white can live amicably on equal terms together.

Steve Biko: That is correct. We see a completely non-racial society. We don't believe, for instance, in the so-called guarantees for minority rights, because guaranteeing minority rights implies the recognition of portions of the community on a race basis. We believe that in our country there shall be no minority, there shall be no majority. There shall just be people. And those people will have the same status before the law, and they will have the same political rights before the law. So in essence, it will be a completely non-racial egalitarian society.

Speaker 6: But will the vast number of blacks, after all their experiences, be able to live a life without giving vent to feelings of revenge, of—

Steve Biko: Yes, we believe it is the duty of the vanguard political movement which brings about change, to educate people's outlooks. I mean, in the same way that Blacks have never lived in a socialist economic system, they've got to live— to learn to live in one. In the same way that they've always lived in a racially divided society, they've got to learn to live in a non-racial society. They've got many things to learn, and all this must be brought to them and explained to the people by the vanguard movement, which is leading the revolution. So that I've got no doubt in my mind that people— and I know people in terms of my own background where I stay— are not necessarily revengeful, you know, are they sadistic in outlook? Now, the black man has got no ill intentions for the white man. The black man is only incensed at the white man to the To the extent that he wants to entrench himself in a position of power to exploit the black man. But beyond that, nothing more. And we don't need any artificial majorities, any artificial laws to entrench ourselves in power, because we believe once we come into power, our sheer numbers will maintain us there. So we do not have the same fear that the minority white government has been having all along. I think that's a very important point. Which has led to these many laws, you know, designed to keep them there.

Speaker 6: As you know, the main argument of the government is always the black man just isn't on a civilizational level at present to pull his full weight politically.

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Speaker 6: And now, do you think of a one-man, one-vote franchise?

Steve Biko: Yes, we do think so, entirely. Entirely one-man, one-vote, no qualification whatsoever except the normal ones which you find throughout the world.

Speaker 6: And you think that That the black man in fact is perfectly well able.

Steve Biko: The black man is well able and the white man knows it. I mean, the irony of that kind of situation is that when the white government negotiates so-called independence for the so-called Transkei, they don't speak in terms of a qualified franchise. And the Transkei— every Transkeian votes, you see. And you get white nationalist politicians arguing that this is a system which is going to work for the trans guys. But somehow when it comes to the broader country, the blacks may not vote because they don't understand the sophisticated, you know, economic patterns out here. They understand nothing. So they, they need to operate at a different sort of level. Now this is all nonsense. It is meant to entrench the white man in the position in which he finds himself today. We'll do away with it altogether. There will be a completely non-racial Racial franchise, and black and white will vote as individuals in our society.

Speaker 6: Well, this is all fascinating. As an outsider visitor, I can only say that my feeling is that this is bound to be a very long and probably very bloody road.

Steve Biko: There is that possibility. There is that possibility. But as I said earlier on, It will be dictated, you know, purely by the response of the Nationalist Party. If they've been able to see that in Rhodesia Smith must negotiate with the leaders of the black people in Rhodesia— Yeah, I think conflict is unavoidable given the predictable response from the present system. And this conflict can be pretty generalized and extensive and protracted. My worst fear is that working on the present analysis, conflict can only be on a generalized basis between black and white. We don't have sufficient groups who can form coalition with blacks, that is, groups from the whites at the present moment. But the more such groups come up, the better.

Speaker 5: September 12th represents the 40th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko. Steve Biko was a famous South African militant activist. Well, I'll let Dan O'Meara, also of South African origin and a person about the same age and generation as Steve Biko, explain to you why it was important and why it was significant that we remember the contribution of Steve Biko, both at that moment in time and its lasting effect. Dan, how did you know? How did you get to meet Steve Biko?

Dan O'Meara: Purely by chance. I had the great luck and even greater privilege to meet him at the 1968 annual conference of what was then the National Union of South African Students, a multiracial organization. Congress was held on the campus where I was I was a student, and I was a delegate. And I was in a commission at the Congress called the Freedom and Justice Commission. This was just after the South African state had adopted the Terrorism Act, which was then the worst of its piece of legislation in its arsenal that allowed it to imprison anybody indefinitely without access to anything at all.

Speaker 5: And I was in that commission.

Dan O'Meara: And the chairman of the commission opened proceedings by saying, can you define— can we define freedom? And a 19-year-old student, I spoke up and regurgitated what I'd learned in my political science course the previous year, that freedom was always relative, in the sense that my freedom depended on everybody else's freedom. If I— if nobody— if one person wasn't free, nobody was free.

Steve Biko: Right.

Dan O'Meara: was free. And this provoked some discussion. And after the discussion, this tall, very striking Black student came up to me, Black delegate, whom I'd seen in the plenary sessions. And he said, hi, my name is Steve Biko. Can we talk about what you said? And I ended up spending most of 4 days in his company. And I can say without any shadow of doubt that even though I have met almost every one of the important figures in the Southern African liberation movements, except for Nelson Mandela, nobody has ever impressed me like Steve Biko did.

Speaker 5: Well, what was it about him?

Dan O'Meara: It was an intangible thing. I mean, the word charisma is overused, but he had that in spades. I mean, first of all, he was an immensely striking-looking man. He was tall. He was unbelievably good-looking. But he had this dynamism, this energy, this vibrancy, this humanism. I mean, he just was— joie de vivre emanated from all of his pores. He was scared of nobody and nothing. And, you know, he was only 21 months, I found later, 20 months older than I was, and he seemed to me to be generations more mature than I was at the time. And he took my pathetic liberal worldview, my little white liberal guilt about, oh, my God, how can I ever atone for the crimes of who I am? And how am I going to deal with this? And what is my guilt? And he just looked at me, and he said, I don't want to hear that bullshit. He said, everybody in this country has to make one decision. Are you part of the problem, or are you part of the solution? And liberal guilt is part of the problem. And it— you know, it just— I learned other things from him, but that just brought the world into focus.

Speaker 5: Oh, boy. That was a shocker for you.

Dan O'Meara: I was 19. You know, and desperately trying to find my way in this vile, obscene system called apartheid. And this was the first person who'd ever provided a real focus. You know, that was it. You have to decide if you were on the part of the oppressed or the part of the oppressors. And clearly, given my class and racial background, I was born into privilege.

Speaker 5: It's interesting that you found him. His character is so powerful, but he was also very well-founded on an ideological basis, too, eh?

Balisa: He was.

Dan O'Meara: Well, you know, the luck that I had in the time that I met him, it was at just that conference, that Congress of NUSAS, the National Union of South African Students, that Biko and his colleagues from the Black university in Durban, the Black Medical College, were beginning to formulate the ideas that would lead them To— the year later, to form the first Black consciousness organization, SASO, the South African Students Organization. And Biko was very well-read, although he was a medical student. He'd read Frantz Fanon. He'd read Sartre. He was at an intellectual level way beyond most white students. And he had formulated the essence already then. And he explained it to me. And he said, you know, He didn't call it this at the time, but he had formulated the essence of what was later labeled Black consciousness, what he labeled Black consciousness, which was the idea that— there were about 2 or 3 principal ideas. The first idea, and the most important idea, and the one that provoked the most outrage amongst white liberals, was the notion that Blacks participating in anti-apartheid and anti-apartheid white organizations were, in fact, their participation was counterproductive. And it was a stumbling block to Black liberation. Why? Because in such multiracial organizations, such as NUSAS, which was the last remaining one left in South Africa, the last semi-legal one left— all the others have been banned— Because Blacks were, first of all, a minority in such organizations of primary intellectuals, given the whole racial structure of education in South Africa, and secondly, because whites had this ingrained sense of superiority, superior education and a sense of entitlement, that the white students always took the lead. They always spoke up more articulately. And blacks tended to efface themselves, and whites tended to think of themselves superior. So willy-nilly, even though the organization was formally against apartheid, it ended up reproducing in black students' minds the sense that they were inferior, and in white students' minds the sense that they were superior, and this kind of sense of paternalism among white liberals. Aren't we great people? You know, despite our privilege, we're bringing enlightenment to these poor black people. Oppressed masses. And Biko said, first idea, no, no more of that. The message was, Black man, you are on your own. You know, we can talk about the gendered character of that, but it was Black people have to find their own path to liberation, and it doesn't come through collaborating with whites. That was the first idea. And it provoked outrage because they were immediately condemned by the white liberal establishment. Judgment as racist, which nothing could be further from the truth. There was not a shred of racism in Biko's makeup. But the notion was that Black people had to free themselves psychologically from white people. That was his principal method— message. And he summed it up, and this was his second lesson. It was an incredibly pithy saying: The strongest weapon in the hands of the oppressor Is the mind of the oppressed.

Speaker 5: Oh, boy.

Dan O'Meara: And Biko's principal method— principal message was to— principal task was to work to free Black people from this sense of psychological oppression.

Speaker 5: Hence, Black Consciousness Movement.

Dan O'Meara: Black Consciousness Movement. Now, you cannot forget the context. This was in the mid-'90s, mid to late '90s. I was going to ask you.

Speaker 5: So the ANC has been banned. Most of the leadership has been taken away.

Dan O'Meara: ANC, the Communist Party, Pan-Africanist Congress, even the small Unity Movement in the Cape, they've all been smashed. They're not just banned, they're smashed to smithereens. Their militants are in prison, they're dead, or they're so cowed by the state that there is absolutely nothing going on. This is what would later become called the so-called, ironically, Golden Age of Apartheid.

Speaker 5: The regime And hence, a vacuum for the Black liberation—

Dan O'Meara: Total vacuum.

Speaker 5: —that he could move into and—

Dan O'Meara: Total vacuum. And, you know, it's also important to remember that it's not just a vacuum for Black liberation. There is despair in the Black population.

Speaker 5: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Dan O'Meara: You know, all their leaders are in prison or dead. And the sense that the white state is absolutely triumphant, there is nothing on the horizon. And suddenly comes this movement. Biko is the beacon of hope. And through his charisma, through his organizational skills, through his writing, and through his personal courage— I mean, this cannot be stated strongly enough.

Steve Biko: Oh, for sure.

Dan O'Meara: The man used to say frequently, even after he's banned and he was prohibited from traveling, he used to say, this is my country. I will go where I like. He just— he He behaved as if apartheid didn't exist. He got me one day, one evening a year later, I happened to bump into him on the Wits campus. He asked me to drive him to where he was staying. And where he was staying, it was in Soweto. And I had never been to Soweto at that stage.

Speaker 5: Oh, boy.

Dan O'Meara: I'm driving my mother's car, and it's 10 o'clock at night. You know, and I never figured out whether Biko was testing me or not. And I dropped him off at Soweto, and I got totally lost because there was no electricity. It was a warren.

Tshaupe Obree Mokopane: Oh, wow.

Dan O'Meara: And for like an hour, I was lost in Soweto, terrified. And Biko was just this guy, you know, we all have to behave as if apartheid doesn't exist. And there was a white man like him, too, who also had a huge impact, and that was Rick Turner, who was a professor of political science in Durban, whom I also had the great fortune to work with, and like Steve Biko, was murdered by the South African police. So Biko was this man who Mandela himself said he was the spark that lit the feldfire. It was without Biko, I'm convinced, that the collapse of apartheid would have taken another 20 years.

Speaker 5: And it was also at a time when there were a lot of other Black intellectuals ready and open, and not just intellectuals, young people, academics.

Dan O'Meara: Well, it was the time of the 1960s. You know, this is very important, because part of the inspiration came from Fanon and Sartre and all of that, but the other came from the Black Power movement in the U.S.

Speaker 5: Malcolm X.

Dan O'Meara: It was a moment of assertion.

Speaker 5: That's right.

Dan O'Meara: Colonized people were asserting themselves. The war in Vietnam was hugely important. You know, resistance intellectuals were seeing that you could fight back against the man, in inverted commas, as you would call And, you know, that this would help liberate the country. So, yes, there was an enormous ferment. And to some extent, the destruction of the old networks, the destruction of the ANC, the Communist Party, the Pan-Africanist Congress meant that you could start anew. You could start from zero. You could build something anew. And that's what Biko did. And for something like 10 years, this was far and away the most important current in Black politics. It led directly to the Soweto uprising, which was the— you know, the word uprising is used, but was in fact a massacre where the South African police mowed down something like 800 Black students, schoolchildren, who were protesting the use of— or the imposition of Afrikaans Now, that's—

Speaker 5: Soweto itself was June 16th, 1976.

Dan O'Meara: So that was almost a decade later. But Biko was the inspiration for this. Biko had been banned by this stage. But, you know, I think it's important what we're doing is acknowledging the vast importance of Biko and the Black consciousness.

Speaker 5: Exactly.

Dan O'Meara: But— there is a but— it also made huge mistakes. And its principal mistake, and I think the reason why it was eventually eclipsed, ironically, by the ANC, which was nowhere when WECO started organizing, and it was nowhere, let it be said, when the Soweto uprising happened. You know, the ANC— this is what, 15 years after the ANC had so-called adopted the armed struggle? It could do nothing. Right. Not, it could not defend the people at all. It was powerless. It was totally inept. It was an exile movement. And I say this, someone who was a member of the ANC at that stage, the ANC was nothing. And suddenly, within four years, it was the dominant movement. How? And I think here Biko and his colleagues made a major mistake, and they could have done something. That they didn't do. They could have organized Black workers into trade unions. There was a crying need in the beginning of the 1970s. There was a crying need for Black trade unions, and Black workers were ready to be organized. And Biko refused consistently to adopt a class perspective. He used to say to white radicals who would say to him, well, you know, it's not just about race— race is crucially important, but there are also important class issues— he would be contemptuous, and he would say, that's an attempt to divide us. You white intellectuals are trying to divide us. And by refusing to go into the organization of Black workers— Black workers— he left the door open for a bunch of white radicals and The former activists who were coming off Robben Island, the former South African Congress, this sort of mini alliance that began to flourish in Durban and led to the 1973 strikes, and then eventually became this massive trade union movement. And whereas Biko could have been at the head of that, he let it go.

Speaker 5: Nonetheless, the '76 uprising, as it's come known, Led to hundreds of young South Africans fleeing South Africa as well. And it changed the reality for ANC outside.

Dan O'Meara: It changed their reality, absolutely. And most of them, almost all of them, were Black Consciousness.

Speaker 5: Absolutely.

Dan O'Meara: You know, I was there in Tanzania when they started coming in. And these kids, because they were kids, you know, excuse me, they were young, you know, some of them were as young as 12 years old. All they wanted was a gun to go back and kill white people.

Speaker 5: Absolutely.

Dan O'Meara: Understandably. And the way the mechanism of it worked, most of them ended up in the ANC, not because they were of any ideological affinity with the ANC, simply because when they arrived in the neighboring countries, and principally Botswana, the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, gave them a choice. He said, you know, we have no ability to take care of you. You have to join one of the South African liberation movements. You can join the PAC, the Pan-Africanist Congress, and you can join the ANC, the African National Congress. And it just so happened that because of its ties to the Soviet Union, the ANC had more resources. So it could offer more scholarships. It could take more people. It could take more people. It could feed more people. It was better organized in exile. And for that reason, most of these people ended up in the ANC, these young militants, these people who had seen their comrades shot down. And they didn't want to know about the— about ANC politics, but they were under the aegis of the ANC. And here, it must be said, to the credit of the ANC, it worked slowly with these people. Right. It worked slowly with these new recruits, and I actually saw many of them being transformed. I mean, I was in meetings where they just said, give us guns and bombs, we want to go back and kill white people. And slowly they learned that the politics of non-racialism was the politics of the ANC, and many of them became to be the most fervent advocates of this. So that was the positive impact of the ANC, but it was only because of these Young recruits, the ANC was rejuvenated.

Speaker 5: Oh, absolutely.

Dan O'Meara: You know, anyway, the transformation was radical. You must have seen it. You were in Lusaka at the time. Yeah.

Speaker 5: It was incredible. I got there 2 weeks before June 16th.

Dan O'Meara: Yeah.

Speaker 5: Given all that, what if Steve Biko came to South Africa today?

Dan O'Meara: He would be outraged. Well, I like to think Let let me rephrase that. The South Africa of today, this corrupt crony capitalism that the current Zuma-led government is running, is a gazillion years away from everything we fought for, everything that Biko fought for. We can never tell what would have happened to Biko. I have been personally astonished, appalled. I'm appalled by how some of the people I really believed in have themselves become appalled, have become corrupt, starting with Zuma himself. I would never have believed that Zuma would have been like this.

Speaker 5: Become part of the problem.

Dan O'Meara: No, I wouldn't. And not just Zuma. I mean, so many of them. So, one can never say what would have happened to Biko, but certainly the Biko that I knew and the Biko who built Black Consciousness Movement. This was not what he was fighting for. He was fighting for the oppressed masses of South Africa, not to create a corrupt little elite which would live as privileged lives as the white elite and feed off the savings, the earnings, the suffering of the black majority. This was not what Biko was about. It certainly was not what the ANC was about in those days. I think he would be appalled. I think he would also acknowledge that he made mistakes. You know, some of his erstwhile comrades, many of them ended up, as I said, in the ANC. Barney Pityana, who was his number 2 and took over from him as president of the South African Students Organization, joined the ANC. And Mamphela Nomphela, who had his child, has written in her own autobiography, she has acknowledged The principal mistakes, ideological mistakes, of the Black Consciousness Movement— there were 2— was not to take class, the issue of class, seriously enough, and not to take gender seriously enough.

Steve Biko: Right.

Dan O'Meara: But nobody was taking gender seriously in those days, you know?

Steve Biko: Right.

Dan O'Meara: And nobody in— let me reformulate that. None of the liberation movements were. And the women who courageously spoke up on gender issues, Were laughed at and were told that this was Western feminism and there was no place for it.

Speaker 5: They were marginalized.

Dan O'Meara: They were marginalized. But those were the mistakes of the time. It's easy to see in retrospect. You know, I like to believe, because Steve Biko was such a great man, that he would have seen some of this. We can never know. But that, to answer your question And again, the South Africa of today is light-years away from the South Africa that he dreamed of. And when— you know, his inspiration was Frantz Fanon. And Fanon warned of exactly this phenomenon, of an elite in the liberation movement who, once the country was, quote, independent, would turn on their— the mass base that had brought them to power, and would behave as corruptly and as and would engage in exactly the same kind of exploitation as the white oppressors, which is not to suggest that the South Africa of today is as bad as the South Africa of apartheid. You know, I think I usually sum this up by saying the great tragedy of South Africa is that the government that is in power today and has been in power since Since 1996, for all of its myriad faults, its corruption, its moral, political, and economic corruption, it's far and away the best government the country's ever had. You know, but it's not what we fought for.

Speaker 5: I would call that an adequate conclusion, unless you have something more to add. Thank you very much, Dan. Thank you.

Tshaupe Obree Mokopane: Okay.

Speaker 5: Eloquent.