Andile M'Afrika | Celebrating the legacy of Steve Biko
Through his writings and his speeches, Steve Biko built strong links within the black family and, for the first time, blacks were working together again.
VOICES
In the 1960s, the apartheid state, while managing a project of black division, was creating tribal states called Homelands. The Eastern Cape was divided into two states of AmaXhosa people. These were given names, Transkei and Ciskei, twins held on the side by a river called Kei.
Pseudo institutions were being set up in both territories to prepare for independence that would be granted in 1976 and 1981 regarding both Transkei and Ciskei, with a ceremony on a piece of ground called Independence Stadium, in the same style on both sides of the Kei.
On the wings were other smaller territories that were to be cut away from white South Africa, and that would be designed along tribal lines with requisite political toys, such as tribal parties, tribal elections and territorial political figures, and that would accordingly receive their granted independence on their Independence Stadium.
At last, the native problem was solved, as white rulers believed. Budgets were made available to build hostile territorial armies and police forces, and no other political activism would be tolerated in the territories, except the Pretoria-sponsored discourse.
Unknown to the Pretoria planners of control of blacks, there existed a school of thought that was led by warriors of the Land of Blacks, a land that stretches from the Limpopo River in the north to the Cape Peninsula in the south, from the Kosi River in the east to Alexander Bay in the west.
The warriors of the Land of Blacks were not funded, but they were well motivated in their sense of national unity. They relied on the power of their idea of freedom and their belief that Azania is one unitary state that belongs to One People.
READ: Simphiwe Sesanti | A love letter to Steve Biko
In line with creating pseudo-freedoms, such as that of the so-called Homelands, a section of black people was being weeded out of black townships in order to be settled in exclusive areas. These people were being made to view themselves as possessing a superior social status than the rest of blacks, at the same time, they were constantly reminded that they could never be equal to whites.
The removal of the so-called coloured people was not as ruthless as that of blacks, who were being removed from so-called white areas. It was carried out to inculcate a particular mentality that said, "hate your fellow black brothers and sisters; enjoy your new privileges and opportunities that are denied blacks".
It was a process of human division and a systematic weakening of African people through the political power in the hands of white rulers. The warriors of the Land of Blacks were not asleep.
They were uniting the people across tribal lines. Their minds were freed from the constraints of tribalism. They were battling the state-propelled tensions and suspicions through the use of thoughts, words and actions. And, the warriors were winning the game.
Peter Jones, an adherent of Black Consciousness who was very clear about himself, left Cape Town and came to my community in the Eastern Cape to work with Bantu Biko.
READ: Mosibudi Mangena | ‘Black people must talk’
Jones was part of a long tradition of poets, teachers, activist sports people, researchers, writers and lawyers who were classified as not being black and, at the same time, as not being white.
The ‘official’ categorisation at the time was that they were coloured people. As to why they were more coloured when everybody is coloured, was and is still not clear. What was very clear then and now was that the unity of the black family was under attack and it was not only here in South Africa. It was happening in many parts of Africa.
Biko’s Black Consciousness was the only political approach that dealt with the coloured question truthfully and honestly. Not only was Biko smashing the idea of Bantustans and Coloured Councils that were meant to lead to a Coloured Parliament. Through his writings and his speeches, he built strong links within the black family and, for the first time, blacks were working together again.
After 46 years since Biko was murdered, the black family continues to drift apart. Their heritage and the indigenous ideology of Black Consciousness have either been ignored or simply forgotten.
Their long history of proud human advances has lost the strength it once possessed. The black family seems to not know what should be done or how it should be done. They no longer know their service to future generations. Besides not knowing their weaknesses as people, they cannot plan how to become powerful again. They seem to be giving credence to the stereotype that they are weak people, who are intrinsically inferior and who are child-like creatures.
This low position of a once powerful people shines a light on the need for an empowering philosophy such as that of Bantu Biko. In other words, Biko’s death 46 years ago is a death that refuses to die. He may have been hunted down when he lived among us, finally captured and killed, but his spirit continues to rise and make its presence in every generation, a deathless death.
* Dr. Andile M-Afrika will launch the Dr. M-Afrika Conversations and his four books titled The Black Consciousness Project in Makhanda during this year’s Biko Day on Sept 12.
