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This is the second in Glenn Farred's Encounters with Biko. As someone from a younger generation, he engages with holders of the legacy and discusses how, often, memory work is controlled and misused for untoward ends. He uses these encounters to restate the need to go beyond the instances of gatekeeping and seek the essence of Biko's legacy: to continue to resist conditions of oppression and exploitation. By GLENN FARRED
Even the most casual observer of history will recognise that the monuments and statues built to immortalise people or events are an act of deception. Monuments and memory are not the same; they are built precisely to tell us what someone else wants us to remember and more importantly, what it is they want us to forget.
This deception is built on the quite incontestable advantage the living have: the dead cannot speak.
My first year of high school began with my history teacher initiating the study of the subject with E H Carr’s “What Is History?” Throughout those five years my assignments and exam scripts were marked, in red of course, with a recurrent admonishment: “Nothing is inevitable except death!”
The exasperation and palpable frustration cannot accurately be conveyed through the word processor on a laptop. It was scrawled, slightly slanted, ink pressed hard into the paper, underlined twice sometimes to underscore the point. Between our two divergent viewpoints we could never agree. We were making history, not merely studying it. The caution of the teacher cannot tame the courage of the pupil, no matter how wise that counsel may be. Revolution is for the young and the young will not be restrained.
And we believed that what was to be was inevitable because we were the architects of our own destiny. We would not depart the stage of history as those before us had done: defeated, exiled or imprisoned. Our historic mission would end in victory, or as the slogan said, death. We would not retreat and we would not surrender. We were young…and we were the many. When we commemorated all those historic days and events back then it held an undertone of criticism from one generation to the previous ones: their foolishness and foibles would not be ours.
But History is a cruel teacher; the lessons, if not learnt, will be taught again.
In 1987, ten years after the death of Steve Biko at the hands of Apartheid’s thugs, it was obvious that the event should be marked by some greater effort to celebrate and salute the memory of this great hero. I found myself on a student body in the portfolio of “Public Relations Officer”. In truth I thought this portfolio was some kind of ironic joke. In those days just about every organisation in resistance to the state found itself proscribed under the State of Emergency laws in force at the time.
Q: “How exactly does one publically relate the message
of a banned organisation comrades?”
A: “That’s your role. Find a way!”
Of course, one then had no choice but to “find a way”. As it happened, it was actually possible, due to a loophole the Apartheid state had not quite gotten around to closing.
You could use what was said in court, quote and speak around what was presented or petitioned in the legal representations in Apartheid’s very own unjust persecutions and trial proceedings. The opportunity of course depended on the State prosecuting people, which it naturally did with abandon, sadly for those caught in its dragnet.
This meant spending an unhealthy amount of time with lawyers and advocates, in part to coax certain statements out of them for presentation in open court and for use in the wider public domain.
Advocates Chambers; Lawyers consulting rooms; Magistrates Courts; Jail cells – these now became essential spaces of battle. Every opportunity had to be taken to craft the message, which could then be quoted, legally, with all the limitations that inherently carried. Finding that line with fastidious legal minds, such as the late Dullah Omar, could often prove difficult. Lawyers, even though they were comrades, were still lawyers, sadly.
If this sounds cynical from today’s vantage point, it has to be placed in the context of the Apartheid regimes efforts at smashing the mass movement having gone into over-drive, as the trial of Wynberg Seven,for example,showed us. It was a particularly hateful, indeed, intentionally cruel display of injustice, done with purposefulness to frighten ordinary people from resisting or showing sympathy for those who resisted. Sending children to jail, not as political prisoners, but into the general prison population was truly evil, even by the Apartheid regime's admittedly low standards. The heavily-tainted[1] FW De Klerk’s bloody fingerprints can be found all over this case, as then Apartheid Minister of Education, he could, if he chose, have intervened for clemency. If you are not familiar with this lesser-known trial, I would recommended it for your edification because of the chilling fact that those on trial were not political activists, but mere children, whose worst crime was throwing a stone or being in the vicinity of stone-throwing. Think over what taking a child to prison means and then, if you have ever doubted those who hate De Klerk, justify how he received a “peace” prize for a lifetime of such deeds!
Not everything could be left to “legal loopholes” and every opportunity had to be taken to resist, mobilise and organise, regardless of the security apparatus or the fear the Apartheid state wished to spread amongst the people to crush their spirit and isolate activists. The tenth anniversary of Biko’s death was an event, no matter the repression, which had to be marked and marked publicly – cowering behind closed doors would be to give the regime exactly what it wanted and needed. If they could crush this wave of resistance, as they had before, they could gain a temporary but significant advantage over the mass movement. They could set the terms of negotiations from a position of strength; no more nor less than the terms of our surrender would be demanded, which they would be happy to negotiate. To hold out, even for a stalemate, was enough to give the masses a fighting chance in the battles which lay ahead. All this we understood; all this we knew required sacrifice.
In that moment, I encountered the typical individual which all great struggles give rise to: Those-Famous-By-Association! This is a by-product of struggle: people who are present when great moments or events happen; they are not the architects but the supporting cast. They gain fame and stature disproportionate to their actual role in events, they gain prestige by association. Once it is safe and the great storms and tribulations have passed, they claim the mantle and speak in the voice of the dead. We called these people opportunists, living off the reflected glory of another’s sacrifice. Today we give them titles and positions and public acclaim.
In preparing the Biko 10th Anniversary event, two people stood out as potential speakers to give testimony about Biko, the man and person. The political messaging from them was not important - that’s what the comrades on the podium would do. But for the sake of completeness, surely personal reflections would add value and insight? Why not bring flesh and bone to memory of the martyr? Each of these personal associates of Biko were contacted and in a manner of speaking, encountered.
In an informal setting I met PC Jones. He was warm, quite open and approachable. If a person can be “happily scarred” then PC Jones struck me as being exactly that, and in that contentment, it seemed both unkind and unnecessary to invite him onto a public stage, with all the potential danger that entailed, to relive his time with Biko. It seemed wiser to let those on their path of healing to proceed without public spotlighting. Not every trauma needs public scrutiny and personal reminiscences are sometimes best left in private spaces.
The other option was far more high profile, not above gratuitous name-dropping, reminding all and sundry of her association with Biko. None of this must be taken as an insult to this person, her personal history, achievements or contributions. She should, as we all must, be judged on her own merit. It was striking how different her engagement was and is with the life and legacy of Steve Bantu Biko. Haughty, self-important and arrogant, the encounter was marked from the off by hostility:
“Who are you? …Do you know who I am? ... What kind of
event is this? … I am far too busy!”
Unfortunately, my generation lacks the kind of reverence for accidental and incidental people, heroes and giants of their own imaginings. Attempts at rhetoric will be met with logic. If you ask a question, expect an answer, exposition and argumentation. You will not escape reason by fanciful declarations of self-importance. Many veterans, returning exiles and Robben Islanders found themselves shocked by the impertinence of young people who would not be silenced by the mere mention of names or recitations of “struggle credentials”. In those days, we still believed in accountability, actual accountability, not in words but deeds.
My failed attempt focused attention on the power of black consciousness and the power of appropriation. This narrative of the self-made, liberated black achiever is not Black Consciousness, as those who proclaim it believe. It represents a fault-line, a chasm, between black consciousness as personal mantra, and Black Consciousness as political movement. The very notion of “self-liberation” equating to “my liberation” betrays an anti-Black consciousness.
Because the dead cannot speak, the masquerading cast of supporting characters continues to impersonate the real thing. If you believe that Biko intended you to enrich yourself, attain personal wealth and pronounce on the sorry state of our people's morals you are quite are quite entitled to do so. What you are not entitled to, what you must be called out on, is the meaning and intent of Black Liberation - and your position and role in the achievement or hindrance of it.
This assumed moral superiority displays a complete disregard for the material conditions of oppression and exploitation black people endure while you have taken the money and comfort white people give you. Don’t quibble – if you gained anything by your efforts you gained those rewards from someone! Who hands out those rewards? And what did they gain in return?
Don’t presume to teach us morals or tell us how to resist. We do not need “psychological” liberation and lectures on our “dependency on hand-outs”. We exist and resist, despite, not because of you. You are either part of the problem or you are part of the solution.
As the poet said:
“When you are sick
And tired
Of being sick
And tired
Remind the living
That the
Dead
No longer
Remember”
We Speak For Dead Because We Demand The Right To Live!
Biko Lives!
[1] The De Klerk regime was indeed bloody. The TRC was scathing in its
denunciation of the state-sponsored violence of the early 90s. The TRC heard
how the state was associated with train killings, chemical warfare as well as chemical attacks on Frelimo, and how
reports by Gen Pierre Steyn were never acted on. (See https://tinyurl.com/bdfkpz5y).
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