34yrs after, Biko’s Philosophy of Black Consciousness resonates
By Emeka Umejei – Lagos: Sept 12, 2011 marks 34 years of triumphant demise of Steve Bantu Biko, leader of Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) under the then Apartheid leadership in South Africa. Biko’s death is triumphant in the sense that rather than eclipse the struggle for black emancipation in the then Apartheid South Africa, it gave it strength and vigour.
Steve Biko
When agents of the then repressive Apartheid government in South Africa snuffed the life out of Steve Bantu Biko 34 years ago in Port Elizabeth prison, they heaved a sigh for relief. But rather than pour champagne for removing the man they considered an impediment to entrenching White supremacy rule they succeeded in re-inventing the black man. The apartheid enforcers re-ignited in the black man through the death of Biko, the desire to protect his dignity and imbued in him the desire to stand for his convictions rather than kowtow to the suppressive tendencies of the oppressor.
Hence, in the process, they made Biko an icon of sort for the black struggle and helped in no small measure in reviving black consciousness which Biko lived and died preaching.
Though, it is 34years Biko passed on, his philosophy of black consciousness is becoming increasingly acceptable as a key to the liberation of the black Man in his quest for both economic emancipation and social identity.
Biko’s pontification on Black consciousness is both apt and far-reaching in proffering the way forward for the black man amidst his self-imposed belief that his problems are colour- associated.
The resort of the black man to see his black skin as a disadvantage rather than advantage was what Biko enunciated Black consciousness.
Biko stated this much in his published book , I Write what I like, where he emphasized that the realization at the core of e black consciousness .
Biko had admonished that, “Black consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their operation- the blackness of their skin-and to operate as a group in order to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude.”
Biko’s philosophy of black consciousness chronicles the malaise that has remained an impediment to the desire of the black man to achieve economic liberation albeit political independence.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the urge to emulate anything white at the expense of black ideologies has left the black man at the peril of imitation which breeds limitation.
Biko says it all when he emphasized that black consciousness is a “manifestation of a new realization that by seeking to run away from themselves and to emulate the white man, blacks are insulting the intelligence of whoever created them black”.
However, 34years after Biko’s demise the black man appears to still wallow in crass social ignorance and would still betray a fellow black in a bid to to garner applauds from his white masters.
It is a common place in world history that even amongst black African nations, hatred, animosity and envy reign supreme. This vicious relationship between Africans has left the African continent in crises and more impoverished.
These negative attributes were what Biko tried to correct through his philosophy of black consciousness. Though Biko is 34 years gone, it is becoming increasing acceptable that his philosophy of Black consciousness may hold the key to the liberation of the Blackman politically and otherwise.
Biko acknowledged this much when he acknowledged that liberation is at the head of black consciousness.
“Liberation therefore, is of paramount importance in the concept of black consciousness, for we cannot be conscious of ourselves and yet remain in bondage. We want to attain the envisioned self which is a free self,” Biko had pontificated.
“What black consciousness seeks to do is to produce at the output end of the process real black people who do not regard themselves as appendage to white society. The truth cannot be reversed. We do not need to apologise for this because it is true that the white systems have produced through the world a number of people who are not aware that they too are people.”
Biko argues further that the philosophy of black consciousness, therefore, expresses group pride and the determination by the blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self.
He noted that at the heart of this kind of thinking is the realization by the blacks that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
But Biko also acknowledged that due the comfort the black man enjoys in a white-made world, he has become adapted to living a lie that he is a white man
“However, tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and to accept it as normal that it alone is entitled to privilege,” Biko stated.
Though the philosophy of black consciousness has its origin in Franz Fanon and Aime Cesaire, Biko gave life to it and internationalized it through the struggle for emancipation in South Africa.
Biko’s life is an illustration of intellect and dynamism in its entirety. More intriguing is that fact that Biko died at barely 31 years of age in 1977.
Hence, for him to achieved much at such a age, makes him a hero of sort both within and without South Africa.
Though Biko’s life was cut short by the Apartheid oppressors, at death he has garnered more prominence locally and internationally.
The University of Cape town, South Africa instituted an annual commemorative lecture in his honour usually delivered on the anniversary of his death.
To show the relevance of Biko in Africa and the world at large, Many great African leaders and scholars have featured as speakers at Biko’s anniversary lecture, including Professor Chinua Achebe(2002), Ngugu Wa Thiongo(2003), Nelson Mandela(2004),Thambo Mbeki(2007) and Desmond Tutu(2006) to mention a few.
In 2004, Nelson Mandela who was the guest speaker acknowledged that Biko forged unity through his black consciousness philosophy.
“The driving trust of Black consciousness was to forge pride and unity amongst all the oppressed to foil the strategy of divide-and-rule, to engender pride amongst the mass of our people and confidence in their ability to throw off their oppression,” Mandela said.
“As we now increasingly speak of and work for an African Renaissance ,the life ,work, words ,thoughts and example of steve Biko assume a relevance and resonance as strong as in the time that he lived.”
More apt is the description Archbishop Emeritus, Reverend Desmond Tutu who was guest speaker at the 2008 anniversary and had presided at Biko’s funeral in 1977.
“ I was privileged to preach at his mammoth funeral attended by diplomats and people from all corners of South Africa. My wife Leah and several of her friends tried to come from Soweto and were assaulted by the police and prevented from coming. Perhaps it was just as well. King Williams Town would have found it difficult to hold so many mourners. That was funeral of a national hero, not a non-entity,”Tutu said.
“There is a statue erected in his honour in East London unveiled by Madiba; there was the cry freedom film and now this series of lectures at this great University. These are not things you do for a non-entity. What about those who tortured and killed him? And those doctors who colluded with them? They have been consigned to the scrap of history , mere flotsam and jetsam. Right and goodness have triumphed, even if we still do not have the whole, the true story of how Steve died.”
Also, at his 2007 anniversary lecture, former President of South Africa who was the guest speaker stated the obvious when he acknowledged that Biko’s death resonated with heroism.
“As it must ,our commemoration of the death of Steve Biko resonates with heroism, a steely human resolve and a remarkable vision for human freedom, the antithesis of the intolerable racism in our country which the whole world came to characterize as crime against humanity,” Mbeki had said.
However that is not all that Biko had garnered at death; he has been widely celebrated all over the world for what he stood for-heroism .
The main Student Union buildings of the University of Cape Town are named in his honour; the University of Manchester’s student union, the Steve Biko Building, on the Oxford road campus, is named in his honour; Ruskin College, Oxford has a Biko House student accommodation; The Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative has a house named after Steve Biko; A street in Hounslow, West London, is named Steve Biko Way and at the University of California, Santa Cruz, there is a section of dormitories named Biko House located in the Oakes College Multicultural Theme Housing.
Also, the Steve Biko Institute was founded in Salvador, Brazil to support the education and pride of Black Brazilians; the Pretoria Academic Hospital was renamed the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in 2008 and Durban University of Technology has acknowledged Steve Biko’s contribution to South African Society by naming its largest campus after him.
It became evident that Biko’s path will clash with the South African Police when he received a banning order in 1973 . Two years later, precisely in 1975, he was arrested and imprisoned for four months without charge or trial. The following year in 1976, he was held for over 3months .In 1977,he was held in March, then again in July and finally he was arrested at a roadblock and imprisoned in Port Elizabeth. He was held for twenty –four days naked and manacled in his cell and was severely beaten. In his state of unconsciousness, he was carried in the back of a truck to Pretoria about 1200km to take him to a prison with hospital facilities. However, he was nearly dead owing to the previous injuries. He died shortly after arrival at Pretoria prison, on 12 September,1977.
Stephen Bantu Biko was born in Tylden, Cape Province on December 18 1946.
He received primary and secondary education locally before proceeding to Lovedale Institution, Alice. He later entered the medical school at the end of 1965, of the then white university of natal, non-European section , Durban at the beginning of 1966. He was active at first in NUSAS (National Union of South African students). He late broke with them in 1968 to form SASO (South African Students’ Organisation),of which he was elected first president in July 1969 and in July 1970 was appointed publicity secretary
