To Live and Die in South Africa

What does our Students’ Union represent to you? For many it is a shop, a bar, a music venue. But there is more to it than that. The Steve Biko building was named after one of the most important people in modern South African history. Biko was a medical student who dropped out of his degree to pursue student politics in apartheid South Africa. Writing in student papers under the pseudonym Frank Talk, he would espouse the radical politics of black consciousness. He founded the first black students’ organisation, the South African Students Organisation (SASO), of which he became the first president at the age of 22.

Steve described the apartheid system in South Africa as ‘the obviously evil…arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.’ He felt that the only way to combat this unjust system was to raise black consciousness, or pride, as a means of ‘fighting against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.’

Throughout his time as a student and activist Steve suffered constant harassment at the hands of the security services. He was habitually spied upon and frequently arrested under the terrorism act. On one occasion Steve was kept in solitary confinement for 101 days without charge. At the age of 26 Biko was ‘banned’, meaning he had to return to his home town and was not allowed to publish any more writings.

This did not stop Steve from continuing community work and being a key organiser of the Soweto uprising of June 1976, where protesting primary school children were gunned down by the police, with as many as two hundred being killed. This event marked a shift in national and international opinion on apartheid South Africa and the beginning of the end for white domination in the country. In just over 15 years Mandela would be the first black president of South Africa, but unfortunately Steve did not live to see this, as he died at the hands of the police in 1977, beaten, shackled and naked in the back of a police van.

The Soweto uprising and massacre had a huge impact across the world, by illustrating the moral bankruptcy of the Apartheid system which made second class citizens of 85% of the population of South Africa, with the murder of Steve Biko would further enraging public opinion. After these two definitive events the UN, with the hard won support of the USA, finally imposed sanctions on South Africa.

The response to these events was not limited to national diplomacy. Here in Manchester, in 1978, a general meeting in the students’ union would pass a policy of agitating for disinvestment in apartheid South Africa. One company that was targeted was Barclays Bank. The records of the meeting described Barclays as ‘not the only major investor in South Africa, it is however, the most notorious’. The campaign was a success, with Barclays completely disinvesting from South Africa. This campaign was followed by a proposal to rename the union in honour of Steve Biko. A plaque was unveiled in the lobby of the union, which remains to this day.

Steve Biko was a student activist who died for his beliefs. His actions and writings shaped political discourse in South Africa and his bravery was inspiration to the oppressed people of the townships. His leadership of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) would prove decisive in challenging the apartheid system in South Africa. Steve’s rallying cry of ‘Black man, you are on your own’ marked a distinct ideological shift from that of Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC).

Whereas the ANC’s approach of non-violent civil disobedience could be traced back to the teachings of Ghandi, Steve’s approach was more akin to that of Malcolm X. Perhaps it is no coincidence that Denzel Washington played Biko in The Richard Attenborough film ‘Cry Freedom’ as well as playing Malcom X in Spike Lee’s film of the same name.

From its onset, the BCM aggressively launched an attack on traditional white values, especially the ‘condescending’ values of whites liberal opinion. They refused to engage White Liberal opinion on the benefits and drawbacks of Black Consciousness, and emphasized the rejection of white monopoly on truth as a central tenet of their movement.

While this philosophy at first generated some heat amongst black anti-apartheid activists within South Africa, it was generally adopted as a positive development. As a result, there emerged a greater cohesiveness and solidarity amongst black groups in general, which in turned propelled Black Consciousness to the forefront of the anti-apartheid struggle within South Africa.

Steve was an immensely brave and articulate man. He was tried in court in 1975 for his anti-apartheid writings. The judge asked him “Why do you call yourself black, when your skin is brown?” to which he shot back “Why do you call yourself white, when you are actually pink?” At a time when oppression of the majority stifled any free speech, reportage of the court exchanges would prove politically explosive throughout the country.

The BCM’s policy of perpetually challenging the dialectic of apartheid South Africa as a means of developing black pride brought it into direct conflict with the full force of the security apparatus of the apartheid regime. It eventually sparked a confrontation on June 16th 1976 in Soweto, when at least 200 people were killed by the South African Security Forces as students marched to protest the use of the Afrikaans language in African Schools. Unrest spread like wildfire throughout the country. The revolution in South Africa had begun.

However, although it successfully implemented a system of comprehensive local committees to facilitate organized resistance, the BCM itself was decimated by security action taken against its leaders and social programs. In 1977 all BCM related organizations were banned and confined to remote rural districts, many of its leaders arrested, and their social programs dismantled under provisions of the newly implemented Internal Security Amendment Act. In September 1977, its banned National Leader, Steve Biko, was murdered while in the custody of the South African Security Police.

After his death, priest and spiritual mentor to Biko, Aelred Stubbs went out of his way to collect Biko's writings and keep them safe. He edited this collection in the widely published book, I Write What I Like. Stubbs recalled of Biko ‘I remember so well the physical presence of Stephen at that time. Tall and big in proportion, he brought to any gathering a sense of expectancy, a more than physical vitality and power... but his soul was in his eyes, which were brown, liquid and infinitely expressive.’

Former president Nelson Mandela delivered an address 10 years ago at the 20th anniversary of Biko's death. He quoted Biko, saying ‘His hope in life, and his life of hope, are captured by his resounding words 'In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.'’