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Each year in September, South Africans find themselves in Biko Month. At such times, argues Glenn Farred, we should be vigilant, ready to spot the ritualized solemnity and the empty platitudes designed to hijack Biko's immense legacy by the very ones who trample on that legacy through their greed. and arrogance. Farred, a civil society leader and a constant voice for active citizenship, is a guest contributor to this blog. By GLENN FARRED
As a young activist, barely a teenager really, I had a strange encounter with a dead person. It was memorable for being discordant and in harmony, as the truth often is.
My generation was brought into active political life during the period of the tri-cameral Parliament; the formation of the United Democratic Front in 1983; the uprisings of 1985; culminating in the release of Mandela in 1990.
Often referred to as a “lost generation”, it was distinct from previous generations, even from the generation of ’76 or ‘81. So, for us, the leaders of the 1950s and ‘60s were ancient, somewhat mythical people who belonged in the history books which we would write. Victory, always certain, would be ours!
Our impatience was tempered by the reality that we were still led by old people on podiums, in hiding, in exile and on “the Island”. Part of that process was the often enduring lectures delivered, it appeared, completely randomly. Leaders seemed prone to nostalgia and reminiscences and telling stories that could border on sentimentalism and hero worship. Parables to teach the young the deeds and the days of long-dead men or men longing not to be forgotten - we endured these digressions as kindly as we could.
Quite literally, sitting at their feet, in a backyard, or a cramped room, or worst of all, a car, held captive until the lesson ended. On one such occasion, I was taken to a specific spot in my township, the central point of transport and what passed for commerce, with shops and even a bioscope. With reverential silence, a spot was pointed out to me and we stood there as if gazing upon some giant monument to a great glory or historic event. As far as I could tell it was merely a piece of concrete, like any other around it.
But no! Here, I was told, was the precise spot where Steven Bantu Biko had stood, his last contact with this place, before he stepped into a vehicle with his fellow traveller and companion, Peter Cyril Jones, as they left Cape Town on that fateful trip which would end, via murderous assault, in the back of a police van with Biko manacled, chained, naked… and dead!
A hushed but steady torrent of words followed, and the face which told the story was animated by something I had never really seen before: a kind of rapture, inner joy, etched with pain and anger intermingled with cold determination and unquestioning certainty of every word which it brought forth.
This was, without doubt, a place of greatness – the last spot where a giant had stood!
What was one to make of this story? Whether it was apocryphal or not didn’t really matter. The message was clear: we stand there because of Biko! Learn this; know this; feel this; remember this!
This in itself was powerful but it was stranger given its context. Politics in this township was dominated by two camps: Stalinist and Nationalist. That is to say, they were Congress, divided only on matters of tactics and personality, not programme or strategy. So the lesson came as a shock, as everyone knew Biko was not Congress, and being wary of traps set for the uninitiated, it had to be treated as a potential trick to get the unsuspecting to reveal ‘tendencies’ against ‘the movement’.
The deliverer of the lecture was no gentle philosopher but a hard man in possession of an arms cache; a soldier and fighter. A man to be feared as those weapons could just as easily be pointed at comrades as they could ‘the system’. Treading carefully around volatile people with guns was not paranoia but a necessary survival tool. But it wasn’t a trick. Here was a Congress die-hard who was completely enthralled and inspired – against all his own political training and interests – by one man who for and to whom nothing but the greatest respect was demanded and given!
This was a voice from the generation of ’76 called into opposition to the Apartheid system as part of our first truly national uprising, inspired to resist, not only in body and soul, but with the most potent weapon forged in the history of struggle: the consciousness of the oppressed!
The Gospel According to Biko - this was the lesson! Death does not kill an idea. Death cannot even kill a man. Biko Lives!
There is a poem, or a fragment of a poem, recalled:
“If we seek to free
Yet fear to die
Let us honour those
Who serve
And ask not
Why”
All who wish to attain freedom must liberate themselves from the shackles of mental oppression and slavery. Many in the ANC sort then, as they do now, to erase, diminish or co-opt Biko in order to obscure his vision and his power. When we learn, again, to say with poetic beauty and rage - “What’s in this black shit”[1] - we begin to see ourselves as we truly are and will be.
When we tell the powerful to fuck off; when we rely on only our own strength; when control our leaders and are not be controlled by them; when we free ourselves from the farcical theatre and melodramas they stage to distract us; when see our real enemies – only then can we be truly free.
To a great extent, those who have misdirected us have succeeded, in part because of the impotence of those who attempt to stake their claim over Biko’s legacy, as if exercising exclusive rights to its meaning and purpose. Meanwhile, the hypocrites, the ignorant, the anti-black opportunists, the liars and scoundrels prosper and pretend to rule: a collective of arrogant, insatiable parasites infesting every facet of public life, every institution and all spheres of social discourse. Their greed and villainy is matched only by their cowardice and fear.
The wicked will gather in ritualised solemnity to mock Biko once again this year. If you listen carefully and look upon them with critical eyes you will see that behind their masks the shadow of fear is creeping, for they know he is not dead and their time grows short.
Biko’s legacy does not belong to them… It belongs to us!
Biko Lives!
[1] A reference to the
title of a famous Mongane Serote poem, “What’s in this Back Shit”. See
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