South Africa’s liberation would likely have been long delayed, had it not been for the brave leadership of Steve Bantu Biko — the struggle hero beaten to death at age 30, exactly 30 years ago this month.
It was of course “his” Black Consciousness movement that reignited resistance and fed the youth rebellion, which in turn revived the weak and exiled African National Congress in the 1970s.
But because he was not ANC as such, his contribution has never received the recognition it deserves in our post-1994 democracy.
At least, Rhodes University today announced its student union would be named after the Eastern Cape martyr.
This is, significantly, the same campus whose refusal to break the 1960s apartheid laws and accommodate visiting black students proved the catalyst Biko to break away from the white National Union of South African Students and create the black-only South African Students Organisation.
Rhodes’s gesture is overdue — and the positive symbolic significance is to be welcomed. But name changing can all too easily mean co-option rather than transformation. Or, at least, offer an excuse for dodging the tougher changes.
Perhaps the saddest comment on Biko’s legacy, however, is his forgotten identity project.
For him, skin colour was not destiny: to be “black” was a purposeful political identity. It was a state of mind, not a physical or even cultural characteristic.
To be “black” for Biko was a construction — the mirror image of the way the Pretoria regime back then successfully mobilised Afrikaners and Engelssprekende blankes into “whites”.
Today, however, the word “black” is used to refer to phenotypical features of Africans. It excludes other people of “colour” whose oppression under apartheid still echoes today. It includes many people whom Biko would have dismissed as “non-whites”, unworthy of a “black” liberatory appellation.
The point is that South Africa has neglected the project of building a new, non-racial identity. Instead, we’ve reverted to a pre-Biko reification of strains of skin colours as a central determinant. So while Biko helped to bring us freedom, we’re failing dismally to continue his creative contribution.
As a Rhodes student myself at the time of Biko’s murder, the significance of the man was not only to assist in building a black identity for liberation. In so doing, he also helped to liberate me from an upbringing that assumed white supremacy.
It is recorded on a plaque at Biko’s graveside: “It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.” His generation’s ideas deserve better than they’re getting today.
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27 Responses to “Biko’s barren legacy”
South Africans today are indeed leaning towards the ideas of the Pre-Biko era. Within society, so much is based on whether one is black or white, when we honestly believe we are living in a Rainbow nation. I hope that the efforts of Rhodes University renaming their student union is the first step for the youth of South Africa to live up to the hopes of Biko. Biko wanted freedom for all, not just the Black people and that is a widely unknown fact here in South Africa. Just because Biko was black, it does not mean he only stood for the black, he stood for each and every South African and only hoped to unite the nation as one. So as South African’s, let us make the move to live Biko-style.
I wonder what Biko would say about our culture today? Would he be happy with the name changings? And what about the increase in golbilisation and the possible loss of unique characteristics that define one tribe from another? Is it these differenes in cultural practices that are preventing the country from becoming stable? Or are these differences important in identifying a person and their roots? Is being Zulu or a white person more important than being South African? And if so, does this mean that until we get rid of individual cultural practices we will remain a divided country? Yet is it not important to remember where we come from?
He was an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. One should remember Steve Bantu Biko; a brave, intellectual, humble person, an anti-apartheid activist, and a student leader. But when you ask the younger generations of today, many won’t know his name. Although it is a very fitting gesture of Rhodes to name the Student Union after Biko, it is as important to keep the ideology alive as well as his name. This year, many Rhodes students will remember both through the activities around Biko’s commemoration. Next year, the new students will know their union as the Steve Biko Student Union. They will know the name, but not the story. And who knows. It is hoped that, many years from now, another generation of name changing will not get rid of the Biko legacy completely. It is now the responsibility of Rhodes to keep their students inspired and informed on the people who they name their buildings after.
It is amazing that until the 30th anniversary of Steve Biko’s death, I only knew his name, and not what he stood for. I know i speak for many of the younger generation when i say that. He was a leader of a purely positive force. His ideas were for the good of this country and i think that the lack of information about this South African legacy, is really bad. His ideals are all that this country needs to move forward. He would not be proud of the way things are going, and I am sure that if he had not been brutally murdered, he could have made much more of an impact, and much more of a difference. South Africa could do with more people like him.
Steve Biko died for our liberation. He had a dream of setting the oppressed free, he had a vision to make South Africa a better place to live in. But are South Africans aware of what Biko did? Do we know the agony he underwent for the struggle to eradicate oppression and apartheid? Are we following on his footsteps not to let skin colour divide our nation? Is skin colour more important than being a human being? Why are we using skin colour to separate human beings? Has South Africa acknowledged the deeds that Biko did? Let us not be afraid, the struggle must continue. We as South African stop being shy, we must engage ourselves in whatever that happens in our country.
“His generation’s ideas deserve better than they’re getting today.”…I absolutely agree. I am ashamed to be part of the generation who reaps the benefits of “the struggle” yet fails to truely recognise and appreciate the efforts, by Steve Biko and alike, that made South Africa the democratic country it is today. I recently wrote an assignment which required research into Steve Biko’s work and while doing this I often found myself speaking of Biko in casual conversations with friends. Although all of these friends happened to be in university - and i mention this because you would expect students to take some interest in their countries history - on mentioning the name Steve Biko I was interupted with comments like “Biko…he works for the government right?” or “oh ya!THAT ANC guy!” Most students dont know who Steve Biko actually is let alone what he died for! Maybe the government should take some of that name changing money and direct it at well needed national history education through the media!
It is good to see that years after his death people are still praising Biko for all that he did for South Africa. It is also makes me proud as a current Rhodes student to see the lengths that the university is going to in order to remember this man.
The legacy of Steve Biko is indeed barren. The biggest proof of this, personally, is the fact that I have grown up with access to newspapers, television and a good education, and yet I only learnt of Steve Biko in University. It seems that only now, when 30 is so pretty an anniversary and a new gesture is called for that anyone has made any real effort to commemorate him.
Peta Lucille Daniel on October 8th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Steve Biko to most students my age is just another ‘cool random face on t-shirts’. I doubt most of us actually understand his legacy and what he fought for yet everyday we reap the fruits of his sacrifices.In the mist of our busyness we fail to acknowledge the people that made what we are today possible. Biko laid a foundation for all black people to step up and equally face any oppressive counterparts that deny us the rights to participation and identity. With due time I hope Biko’s legacy is not that told by t-shirts, but visible in South Africa as a whole.
I strongly agree with what Mr. Berger is saying and it is good to see that people still take an interest in what happend, all those years ago. Even though i was not around in those times, i can understand what happend and why it happend. Steve Biko was a legend and in a way, was successfull in what he had been trying to do. I still think that his legacy will live on forever.
Having recently attended numerous assignments/lectures etc. on the life and legacy of Steve, I realize its a shame that we are not tought about such South African heroes more extensively at school, and why they should ALL be celebrated. There’s no doubting that Steve was a great man, but one wonders how many other freedom fighters of his era died (or lived, forced into hiding/exile) without their efforts and work ever being recognized and appreciated? Its for this reason I believe we should celebrate the fight of Steve’s generation, rather than his individual efforts.
And does renaming our Student Union mean all that much? With all the street and city renaming taking place around the country at the moment, this seems like more of a publicity stunt or a requirement than a celebration of a man’s life.
But thats just my opinion.
As a youth of South Africa I have been tought and retought the history of our country. The implications of Apartheid and racist prejudices involved in it. Everyone is very clued up about how it adversely affected our country and oppressed the “black” races. Why then is a situation reminiscent of that era still occuring in South Africa today? Often you are chosen for a job or sport team not because of your qualifications or skills but because of the appropriate colour of your skin. University and school bursaries sometimes apply only to people of a certain skin colour. Have we forgot what Steve Biko was fighting for? Have the very people he was struggling for manipulated his ideasand aims and molded them as to better their own ends? We all need to accept that Apartheid happened and leave it where it belongs, in the past. The youth of today are not to be blamed for what the older generations did. We should not still have to suffer the consequences. The leaders of tomorrow must encourage the people of today and yesterday to accept each other and become completely colour blind.
I find it quite disappointing that today Steve Biko is treated as a hero every time his death comes around, but his ideas are neglected. On the 30th anniversary of Biko’s death there were commemorations and ceremonies and speeches. The ANC praised Biko’s legacy, yet in reality they do not really support Biko’s ideals. Back during apartheid the ANC were at odds with Biko because they saw his Black Consciousness Movement as excluding whites against apartheid. (Although Biko’s definition of ‘black’ was a state of mind - anyone could have an independent, proud black mind). When apartheid ended Biko was suddenly treated as a hero by the ANC, which even used his photo for election posters. Yet although the ANC praise Biko, his legacy has been ignored. And this legacy was of ubuntu and pride in African identity. Today we live in an individualist capitalist world. Today we shame Biko by being more like Americans than Africans.
I have to agree with what Berger is saying. This is because I am part of the youth of today, but I am old enough to know what is happening in my country politically. What Berger noted about South Africa neglecting what Biko really stood for is easy to believe. This is because Biko didn’t fight for a reverse of the system, with White oppression and Black supremacy. He stood for all races not being judged by skin-colour, but as people and as South Africa as a whole. White unity, Black unity…South African unity.
However, is South Africa really a new country? Was Biko’s and other activist’ efforts and deaths in vein? In 2007, 30 years after Biko, 13 years after Mandela’s inauguration, South Africa continues to face many social and political crises, many of which are crucial to the principles of Biko and other activists which linger unsettled; divisions within the ANC, corruption, inequality, capitalist individualism, raging crime rates, HIV and AIDS, poverty and of course racism, to name only a few. Too many South African citizens are suffering in order to live and only to suffer more. Not only is this year a time of commemoration and celebration for how far South Africa has come, but also a time to contemplate the future of this country and to realise and begin to actualise the journey of how far South Africa still needs to go to become true rainbow nation, a true democracy and a truly new South Africa.
Katherine Robinson on October 9th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
People are inevitably shaped by how they look. In a culture that praises a streamline figure and looks down upon rather well-rounded individuals, it is natural that such a societal attitude will affect the way people see themselves and act. But surely one does not need to overlook ones own skin colour (white or black, or anything else) as a blemish, but rather celebrate our diversity. Instead of forgetting that I am white and you are black, let it be a part of our identity. “Black is beautiful” and “white is beautiful” too. It is true that there was a negative stigma attached to being black, but I don’t think Steve Biko necessarily wanted us to forget that we had a skin colour at all. Black people should be proud of being black. That’s why I think the slogan said “Black is beautiful”, and not “no matter what skin colour, we are all beautiful”.
Biko fought hard for the bit of freedom that we have today,I say a bit because yes we may be free and have opportunities we did not have back then. But most of us our fello South Africans are still undr oppression. The government that was voted in by the the people, for the people. The government has got a new policy of corruption among it’s members and the people that are supposed to be looking after the peole of this country. Coming back to Biko’s barren Legacy, i strongly believe that a lot has been done to show that this great man’s legacy lives on. A lot of people now know that such a man existed and did great things all in the name of black consciousness. He was prepared to even die for his beliefs and ideas which is one thing I admire the most about Biko. I strongly belive that if he was alive today, he would have been proud and fighting another struggle of courruption among the MP’s of this country.
Being a Rhodes Journalism Student, we recently attended a compulsary lecture that announced the re-naming of the Student Union in honour of Steve Bantu Biko. In the lecture it was apparent that many young white students were seemingly bored and uninterested because they were “unaffected” by Biko’s efforts. Being a white student myself, I am so happy to read your comment on how Steve Biko affected your life: “he also helped to liberate me from an upbringing that assumed white supremacy”. I find it sad that this, one of the most important changes Steve Biko made, is not realized by so many. I think more emphasis needs to be placed on how Steve Biko helped changed white perspective as well as the non-white social status.
I have to agree with you. We recently had to write an opinion piece on Steve Biko and only after writing about him did I know who he was and what he had done. It seems like many youths in South Africa don’t know who he was and how he has changed history. I think this is very unfortunate for he was indeed a great man whoc achieved many things! Despite the many name changes currently taking place in South Africa - many of which are completely unnecessary - changing the Rhodes University Student Union after Steve Biko is a name change I fully support. Maybe then will students make the effort to learn more about this iconic figure.
It is without a doubt that Steve Biko changed the way in which black people saw the struggle for liberation during Apartheid. He can be said to be the reason why black people,like myself, are able to make use of all the opportunities that are now made available to us. With this liberation from oppression,I fear that the youth no longer have anything for which to fight. I doubt that Biko’s intention was to help in the facilitation of a passive generation. His legacy and influence are there to reimnd us, that things could have been very different for all black South Africans if he too, chose to be passive rather than active.
Mapodile Mkhabela on October 10th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
It is indeed a sad truth that South Africa is spending more time and money on name-changing than the real social, political, racial and cultural issus that underlie the need to do this in the first place. Whilst I fully support the renaming of the Student Union Builiding and believe it is a significant tribute to the legacy of Steve Bantu Biko; I agree with Professor Berger in that a far greater tribute would be one which strives to achieve the ideals that Biko fought for. However, this is pertinent particularly for the government, who seem to use name-changing as a way of appeasing people and distracting them from the real issues that remain unsolved. Such transformation begins personally - each of us should examine our own ideas and prejudices and assess whether or not these strive for a non-racial societal identity.
Many South African’s today are failing to follow Steve Biko’s lead in terms of non-racial identity. I believe this could be due to Biko not receiving the recognition or exposure due to him. Being a Rhodes student myself I am lucky to have experienced an integrated multi-racial tertiary education facility such as Rhodes University that accepts all cultures. This has given me a new perspective on a rainbow nation and indeed Rhodes University is using Biko’s ideology. It’s pleasing to see Rhodes University changing the name of the Student Union in remembrance and acknowledgement of Steve Biko and this makes me proud to be a Rhodes Student as this is another step forward in the right direction.
Vincent Masefield on October 10th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
30 years after the death of (what is generally known as) a national hero, I find myself wondering what it was that he died for? It’s a fact that he was murdered by the SAPD and that the minister of security said : “Dit laat my koud” (I don’t care), but a few people actually remember who he was and what he stood for… If the Rhodes student union is to be renamed the Steve Biko student union, then we will all know who he was, and (hopefully) what he stood for. I believe it is time for us to remember our past and more importantly look forward to our future so we can build a better tomorrow.
In context to the fact that the word black now excludes other people of colour, is not because we,as black people, are denying their efforts towards the liberation of South Africa, but it has more to do with identifying with a colour that is not always seen in the pure sense, because most things that are black are deemed to be evil. The second reason is that Asians and coloured people favour more their white attributes,e.g. texture of the hair, eye colour etc, more than their black attributes e.g. skin colour and so when refering to black one assumes you are talking about africans. Asians and coloured people are in themselves finding their own individual identities and therefore culture. However their efforts to the liberation movement is looked over because the people who remember the struggle and celebrate it is predomina ntly Africans.
Steve Bikos Legacy has been honoured as it should, a man who was tragically killed for what he beleived, that we are all of cordless human beings regardless of colour that no one is inferior or superior to anyone else. It was good to know that Rhodes university has honoured his legacy, that many yunger generation South Africans know little about by renaming the union buildings after this anti apartheid hero.
I think Rhodes University has done an excellent thing by honouring Steve Biko, especially by naming the Student Union Building after him. In doing so, it will inspire students to look at him and remember what a great student leader he was in his struggle to give us all the little bit of freedom that we have today.
Ouch!! Daniel Lemmer says people are “inevitably shaped by how they look”, and says we should not overlook skin colour in defining our identity. Hey, I for one do not want to be determined by something given by nature, and that has no intrinsic meaning in terms of what a person is really like.
Judy also wants to fix racial features in history, saying that “Asians and coloured people are in themselves finding their own individual identities and therefore culture”. Surely, we want to free ourselves of a history when race was destiny? Of course we are coloured (sic) by the social construction of race, but history always moves on (even if sometimes backward!). We don’t have to keep race as a relevant thing forever.
I for one am quite happy to accept certain elements from African, Asian, European, etc. culture in terms of my identity (and equally happy to discard others). People, let’s not reify race. It has a history, but let’s look to a non-racial future.
Biko stood for an ultimately society in which skin colour would be neither here nor there. That’s freedom and let’s keep that quest alive.
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Guy Berger is a media academic/activist. He writes a fortnightly column at www.mg.co.za/converse and is active in the South African National Editors' Forum. He also blogs about teaching journalism and new media. Find his research online. and micro-blogging from conferences at http://www.twitter.com/guyberger
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South Africans today are indeed leaning towards the ideas of the Pre-Biko era. Within society, so much is based on whether one is black or white, when we honestly believe we are living in a Rainbow nation. I hope that the efforts of Rhodes University renaming their student union is the first step for the youth of South Africa to live up to the hopes of Biko. Biko wanted freedom for all, not just the Black people and that is a widely unknown fact here in South Africa. Just because Biko was black, it does not mean he only stood for the black, he stood for each and every South African and only hoped to unite the nation as one. So as South African’s, let us make the move to live Biko-style.
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