Learning from Steve Biko

I have just read an article from you or one of the people that write on your publication (on the internet) which talks about why Steve Biko would not vote . Also about the racism which continues in this country from pre-1994 to now.

You mention an interview of Biko in 1972 where he summarises his mode on Socialism and I happened to have read that also just now. What I find interesting in the document is how Biko on page 41 clearly states that the reason the capitalism in this country then was not working is because they had not perfected it where if a middle class of black people were used as a cushion between the system and the general black masses they could perfect the system. The coincidence between the society that Biko talks about in that document and the society that we have right now is uncanny.

I personally believe that the major problem we have as black people is the ‘fantasy’ that even the most liberated amongst us possess. What I mean by that is that we somehow want to keep some of things that white people have, be it material or otherwise because they look attractive to us. And if we want true liberation we must let go of the ‘fantasy’. I’m talking about everything from their education to their religion, from their justice systems to strictly everything that is them. Politics themselves in the form of political parties and ideologies have their origins from white peoples’ culture – that of trying to recruit many people to our ideas so that we can be many and be heard (whether the idea is wrong or right) which is not who we are.

The question then becomes who are we? People need to take themselves back to pre-colonialisation and find themselves. The reason why we do not want to go back is precisely because we do not believe that we had anything prior our colonization by Europeans hence we have to use their education systems, justice systems, religions etc. that do not work for us. The only time we as black people will be truly liberated is when we liberate ourselves mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually and in unity, unity that is something white people don’t understand that is why they have always won us through divide and rule.

Steve Biko is my true hero and he has done everything he needed to do in his lifetime up to his death. We need to learn from him, take from where he left off and move on.