Steve Biko and the envisioned self

Unusually, he was critical of Mandela. While he recognised the sacrifice he made and the achievement of freedom he facilitated, he felt Mandiba did not follow through after 1994 in inspiring people to have confidence in themselves and hold their new rulers accountable. He looked back to Steve Biko, killed by the regime in 1977, as one who had devoted all his powers to developing a sense of who they are in black people.

Passing through Durban’s King Shaka airport, BIKO’s name stared at me from a book stand and I purchased a 40th anniversary edition of his I Write What I Want. I remember the excitement at the time when Biko’s affirmation of ‘black consciousness’ first came to our attention. It took time to understand what he was saying and even today, 47 years later, we still don’t tease out the hidden strength contained in his teaching.

Basically, Biko held that far worse than the physical restraints and humiliations of apartheid was the psychological imprisonment of which blacks were often unaware. He analysed the ways in which blacks unconsciously measured themselves against white standards and acted as though white was right. He applied his lens to society, culture and religion and found each of them encroaching on black self-understanding and warping it. South African society is still divided today though differently than fifty years ago. Here are his words:

Once the various groups within a given community have asserted themselves to the point that mutual respect has to be shown then you have the ingredients of a true and meaningful integration. At the heart of true integration is the provision for each man, each group to rise and attain the envisioned self. Each group must be able to attain its style of existence without encroaching on or being thwarted by another. Out of the mutual respect for each other and complete freedom of self-determination there will obviously arise a genuine fusion of life-style of the various groups. This is true integration. (p. 22)

Biko was deeply affected by the society he found himself in at university and, in effect, abandoned his medical studies to devote his energy to working out what it was that caused his unease. He had the courage to follow through on his reflections, share them with others and refine them – and eventually die for them. At first the regime thought he was on its side by his emphasis affirming blacks and so seemingly separating black and white, but they soon came to realise he was doing this to strengthen blacks so that they could, in time, confront the white takeover of their country.