- Remembering Steve Biko (d. 12 September 1977) -
#322105 - 13/09/05 04:53 PM
I've always considered "I Write What I Like" as the greatest book that was never written. Now and then I page through the book just to regain perspective.
Today this paragraph tugged something in me:
Quote:
The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. That is what we mean by an inward-looking process. This is the definition of "Black Consciousness".
... and then I read in today's paper this d**ning indictment of the New South Africans and what we have done to Biko's dream.
- Rampant accumulation betrays Bikos legacy -
- Vukani Mde
YESTERDAY marked the 28th commemoration of the brutal death of Bantu Steven Biko. Such a morbid anniversary allows us to reassess not only Bikos legacy, but where we are today. It is my sad duty to report that the picture is not pretty.
Black people and that is unashamedly what Biko concerned himself with have yet to live up to the lofty standards he defined more than a generation ago. There are many reasons for concluding that blacks have not merely stagnated in the post-1994 order, but may have even gone backwards.
This harsh assessment is based on more than just the usual yardstick, which is to point out that blacks are still poor and whites still rich. That well-worn complaint no longer even describes the totality of our reality. We have very rich blacks in our midst, but no sense that things have changed fundamentally.
Eleven years into our brave new democracy, I have concluded that SA has roundly rejected the ethos in the writings and actions of Biko, while its new black elite glibly appropriates and debases his image and philosophy.
Who is Biko, beyond a powerful, hip image on a T-shirt from fashion house Stoned Cherrie? And did he really tell us that pride in blackness equated to racial solidarity even in the face of clear and embarrassing black failure?
Biko, like Che Guevara, Karl Marx and Lenin, has become immortalised in popular iconography, injecting new commercial life into his image. But, like his fellow revolutionaries, he suffers the indignity that only the privileged and moneyed classes have access to his posthumous popularity. It is the black bourgeoisie that has turned the image of these men into commercial property and fashion statements.
There may be nothing wrong with that on its own. No social group exemplifies the betrayal of Bikos legacy more than the new black middle class. Deracialising capitalism is one thing, rampant accumulation and conspicuous consumption are something else.
Biko was not a Marxist, but he was alive to the nexus that binds poverty to race. He developed his ideas about black affirmation hand in hand with programmes to deal with the grinding reality of poverty in black communities. He never spoke of blackness and pride in abstract terms, removed from the social reality of the people he theorised about.
Todays black pride crowd, fed on a diet of government tenders and cushy empowerment deals, cannot be what he had in mind for the future. They have forgotten everything he said about self-reliance. They confuse solidarity with patronage. They do not know what it is to apply their own standards of self-evaluation. They think black affirmation means unfettered access to wealth and opportunity, with no reference to ones ability to do for oneself.
I can already hear the tired riposte: Whats your problem? When whites behave this way you dont complain? Why dont you ask whites to give back?
The argument holds no water. Frankly, I dont care what whites do with their wealth. Black people owe their allegiance and are accountable to ideals far greater than themselves as individuals. This is a result of our shared history of deprivation and exclusion.
None of this is meant to deny the ancient presence of class and other fissures within black society. But todays divisions are too stark, and are the result of a deliberate project to breed a black elite, suckled on patronage and sycophancy. Without fear of exaggeration, I say the new black elite and its narrow class interests represent the biggest danger to SAs democratic order.
If there is any one public statement that illustrates this, and captures the failure of their project, it is: I did not struggle to be poor. It is a mark of how far weve gone astray that the converse of that is not heard: I did not struggle to be rich.
For me this explains the new orders seeming antipathy to Biko, which is clear in its refusal officially to acknowledge his place in our history. I have often wondered why the University of KwaZulu-Natals medical school, where Biko studied, is called the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine. Mandela studied law. In Johannesburg.
Not that todays ragtag bunch of self-professed black consciousness adherents serves Bikos memory any better. They are race-reductionist to the point of racism, and have crafted a cosy understanding with the ruling party. The most powerful have morphed into President Thabo Mbekis favourite battering rams against communists and labour.
It is clear that Bikos legacy cannot be defended by latter-day elites, nor moribund organisations. He will only be honoured by gradual, yet tangible, change in the lived reality of SAs poor, for whom he gave his life.
Mde is political correspondent.
www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A90889
--------------------
"I write what I like" - Steve Biko (August 1970)
forum.mg.co.za/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=nartsf&Number=3221 05
www.rsa-overseas.com/mboard_dir/480.shtml
#322105 - 13/09/05 04:53 PM
I've always considered "I Write What I Like" as the greatest book that was never written. Now and then I page through the book just to regain perspective.
Today this paragraph tugged something in me:
Quote:
The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. That is what we mean by an inward-looking process. This is the definition of "Black Consciousness".
... and then I read in today's paper this d**ning indictment of the New South Africans and what we have done to Biko's dream.
- Rampant accumulation betrays Bikos legacy -
- Vukani Mde
YESTERDAY marked the 28th commemoration of the brutal death of Bantu Steven Biko. Such a morbid anniversary allows us to reassess not only Bikos legacy, but where we are today. It is my sad duty to report that the picture is not pretty.
Black people and that is unashamedly what Biko concerned himself with have yet to live up to the lofty standards he defined more than a generation ago. There are many reasons for concluding that blacks have not merely stagnated in the post-1994 order, but may have even gone backwards.
This harsh assessment is based on more than just the usual yardstick, which is to point out that blacks are still poor and whites still rich. That well-worn complaint no longer even describes the totality of our reality. We have very rich blacks in our midst, but no sense that things have changed fundamentally.
Eleven years into our brave new democracy, I have concluded that SA has roundly rejected the ethos in the writings and actions of Biko, while its new black elite glibly appropriates and debases his image and philosophy.
Who is Biko, beyond a powerful, hip image on a T-shirt from fashion house Stoned Cherrie? And did he really tell us that pride in blackness equated to racial solidarity even in the face of clear and embarrassing black failure?
Biko, like Che Guevara, Karl Marx and Lenin, has become immortalised in popular iconography, injecting new commercial life into his image. But, like his fellow revolutionaries, he suffers the indignity that only the privileged and moneyed classes have access to his posthumous popularity. It is the black bourgeoisie that has turned the image of these men into commercial property and fashion statements.
There may be nothing wrong with that on its own. No social group exemplifies the betrayal of Bikos legacy more than the new black middle class. Deracialising capitalism is one thing, rampant accumulation and conspicuous consumption are something else.
Biko was not a Marxist, but he was alive to the nexus that binds poverty to race. He developed his ideas about black affirmation hand in hand with programmes to deal with the grinding reality of poverty in black communities. He never spoke of blackness and pride in abstract terms, removed from the social reality of the people he theorised about.
Todays black pride crowd, fed on a diet of government tenders and cushy empowerment deals, cannot be what he had in mind for the future. They have forgotten everything he said about self-reliance. They confuse solidarity with patronage. They do not know what it is to apply their own standards of self-evaluation. They think black affirmation means unfettered access to wealth and opportunity, with no reference to ones ability to do for oneself.
I can already hear the tired riposte: Whats your problem? When whites behave this way you dont complain? Why dont you ask whites to give back?
The argument holds no water. Frankly, I dont care what whites do with their wealth. Black people owe their allegiance and are accountable to ideals far greater than themselves as individuals. This is a result of our shared history of deprivation and exclusion.
None of this is meant to deny the ancient presence of class and other fissures within black society. But todays divisions are too stark, and are the result of a deliberate project to breed a black elite, suckled on patronage and sycophancy. Without fear of exaggeration, I say the new black elite and its narrow class interests represent the biggest danger to SAs democratic order.
If there is any one public statement that illustrates this, and captures the failure of their project, it is: I did not struggle to be poor. It is a mark of how far weve gone astray that the converse of that is not heard: I did not struggle to be rich.
For me this explains the new orders seeming antipathy to Biko, which is clear in its refusal officially to acknowledge his place in our history. I have often wondered why the University of KwaZulu-Natals medical school, where Biko studied, is called the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine. Mandela studied law. In Johannesburg.
Not that todays ragtag bunch of self-professed black consciousness adherents serves Bikos memory any better. They are race-reductionist to the point of racism, and have crafted a cosy understanding with the ruling party. The most powerful have morphed into President Thabo Mbekis favourite battering rams against communists and labour.
It is clear that Bikos legacy cannot be defended by latter-day elites, nor moribund organisations. He will only be honoured by gradual, yet tangible, change in the lived reality of SAs poor, for whom he gave his life.
Mde is political correspondent.
www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A90889
--------------------
"I write what I like" - Steve Biko (August 1970)
forum.mg.co.za/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=nartsf&Number=3221 05
www.rsa-overseas.com/mboard_dir/480.shtml
