(The life of Steve Biko as authored by the Steve Biko Foun...)
The life of Steve Biko as authored by the Steve Biko Foundation and aimed at a teen and pre-teen audience
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NGUFQ6Y/?tag=2022091-20
("The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is ...)
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Like all of Steve Biko's writings, those words testify to the passion, courage and keen insight that made him one of the most powerful figures in South Africa's struggle against apartheid. They also reflect his conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness movement that he helped found. This Spanish translation of the English-language book "I Write What I Like" contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Students' Organization, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. The collection also includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness movement; and a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Biko's writings will inspire and educate anyone concerned with issues of racism, postcolonialism and black nationalism. Steve Biko (1946-78) is regarded as the father of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa and a key figure in bringing about the end of apartheid. He was murdered while in police detention in 1978.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00480P634/?tag=2022091-20
(The annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture is given by Africa...)
The annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture is given by Africa's foremost scholars and artists, as well as religious and political leaders. Each lecture is a resuscitative moment in which the enduring legacy and leadership of Steve Biko are explored in a contemporary context. Issues crucial to Biko, such as the inextricable link between the individual and society, as well as the challenges and opportunities facing many developing nations are examined in order to further define the mandate for the current generation of leaders. This book is published in commemoration and celebration of the life and legacy of Steve Biko, in the hope that it will contribute to realising the purpose for which he lived and died: restoring people to their true humanity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1770101632/?tag=2022091-20
( "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor i...)
"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed." Like all of Steve Biko's writings, those words testify to the passion, courage, and keen insight that made him one of the most powerful figures in South Africa's struggle against apartheid. They also reflect his conviction that black people in South Africa could not be liberated until they united to break their chains of servitude, a key tenet of the Black Consciousness movement that he helped found. I Write What I Like contains a selection of Biko's writings from 1969, when he became the president of the South African Students' Organization, to 1972, when he was prohibited from publishing. The collection also includes a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu; an introduction by Malusi and Thoko Mpumlwana, who were both involved with Biko in the Black Consciousness movement; a memoir of Biko by Father Aelred Stubbs, his longtime pastor and friend; and a new foreword by Professor Lewis Gordon. Biko's writings will inspire and educate anyone concerned with issues of racism, postcolonialism, and black nationalism.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226048977/?tag=2022091-20
Stephen Bantu Biko (a. k. a. Bantu Stephen Biko) was born in King Williamstown, Cape Province, South Africa, on December 18, 1946. He was the second son (third child) of Mzimgayi Biko. Biko's father died when he was four years old. His mother courageously supported her son's activities, welcomed him home during the years of restriction, helped protect him from the inquiring eyes of government security forces, and provided a Christian (Anglican) home environment for his children.
Raised and educated in a Christian home, Biko eventually became a student at Wentworth, a White medical school in Durban. There in 1968 he formed SASO (South African Students' Organization), an activist group seeking equal rights for South African black people. Expelled from Wentworth in 1972 (the stated cause being poor academic performance), Biko devoted his time to activist activities.
His concept of black consciousness continued to develop as he next went to work for BCP (Black Community Programmes). By 1973 his political activities had caused him to be banned from Durban and restricted to his hometown. Back in King Williamstown, undaunted, he set up a new branch of BCP-only to have it banned there as well Still, Biko continued to work for black consciousness. This led to repeated detentions and caused him to be placed in security over and over again. Yet he was never charged. In 1977 he became honorary president of the Black People's Convention he had founded in 1972. His appointment was to be for a period of five years, but nine months later he died of brain damage after being beaten by police officers while in detention. Biko's short 30-year life was consumed with the development of an acute awareness of the evils of apartheid, the social system under which non-Whites lived in South Africa. Apartheid is based on the idea of institutionalized separate development for blacks and whites. To paraphrase Biko, he was able to outgrow the things the system had taught him. One of his unique characteristics may be summed up in the title of an edited collection of his writings, I Write What I Like (1978, Aelred Stubbs, ed. ) . Much of what Biko "liked to write, " not surprisingly, dealt with the definition of black consciousness and setting it out as an approach to combatting White racism in South Africa. Indeed the very phrase "I write what I like" was boldly used as a heading to begin many of his political essays. One such essay was accompanied by the by-line "Frank Talk, " an aptly chosen pseudonym. When the couple had been restricted to King Williamstown, Ntsiki commuted to work at an Anglican mission 35 miles away in order to earn money to keep the family together. Biko's death echoed around the world-an irony, given the repeated attempts made to silence him while he lived. As a leader of South African blacks, Biko is likened in importance to others such as Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe who preceded him. Like Biko, their influence was during the post-1948 years-that is, after the African National Congress began to gain support throughout the nation in the interest of black liberation. Mandela and Sobukwe, too, were repeatedly banned and imprisoned. In fact, it was while they were in detention in the 1960s that Biko formed SASO to fill the "vacuum in South African politics" that they had left. Biko's "Black Consciousness" was a call to black young people to dissociate white control and black fear in South Africa and to adopt an attitude of psychological self-reliance in the struggle for liberation from white rule. The proponents of Black Consciousness urged blacks to withdraw from multiracial organizations. The resulting formation of the all-black SASO alienated some white liberal students-particularly those who belonged to NUSA (National Union of South African Students). These students' idealism was given a jolt by SASO's assertion of an independent black struggle. The concept of Black Consciousness has been preserved in Biko's writings and in transcripts taken in the BPC-SASO trial at which Biko was called to testify, allowing him to break a three-year imposed silence. This trial was the only opportunity Biko had to speak out after 1973 when his travel, public speaking, and writing for publication had been banned. The trial also turned out to be the last time Biko was heard from before his death in Port Elizabeth on September 12, 1977. The South African government disclaimed any responsibility in Biko's death, and official pronouncements about its circumstances revolve around talk of a hunger strike while others cite evidence of beatings. Twenty years later, in 1997, five former police officers acknowledged responsibility for his death of a brain hemorrhage. The officers made their confession to South Africa's Truth Commission, which has the power to grant amnesty to individuals willing to reveal their role in the violence against anti-apartheid activists. The effect of Biko's death, seen by many as symbolic of black South Africa suffering under apartheid and the most widely publicized dramatization of the apartheid system in operation, added impetus to Black Consciousness-the very movement that repeated bannings and restrictions by government officials sought to quell. Many hoped Biko's dream would become reality when apartheid was disbanded and in 1994, ANC leader Nelson Mandela was elected president of the country.
(Biko's testimony at the trial of his nine colleagues in t...)
(The annual Steve Biko Memorial Lecture is given by Africa...)
(The life of Steve Biko as authored by the Steve Biko Foun...)
("The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is ...)
( "The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor i...)
The idea of Black Consciousness is thought by many to have uplifted and inspired South African black people and to have given direction to their lives. To Biko, black psychological self-reliance was the path to social equality. His vision of the future for South African blacks was one "looking forward to a nonracial, just and egalitarian society in which color, creed, and race shall form no point of reference. "
Quotations:
“The greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. ”
“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die”
“Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression. ”
“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior. ”
“At the time of his death, Biko had a wife and three children for which he left a letter that stated in one part: “I've devoted my life to see equality for blacks, and at the same time, I've denied the needs of my family. Please understand that I take these actions, not out of selfishness or arrogance, but to preserve a South Africa worth living in for blacks and whites. ”
“The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”
“Instead of involving themselves in an all-out attempt to stamp out racism from their white society, liberals waste a lot of time trying to prove to as many blacks as they can find that they are liberal. ”
“Double consciousness is knowing the particularity of the white world in the face of its enforced claim to universality. Double consciousness is knowing the history offered up to black people—its many interpretations and echoes of white superiority and black inferiority, of white heroism and black cowardice, and even the temporal and geographical location of history’s beginning as a step off of the African continent—is a falsehood that blacks are forced to treat as truth in so many countless ways. Double consciousness, in other words, is knowing a lie while living its contradiction. ”
“I would like to remind the black ministry, and indeed all black people, that God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people’s problems on earth. ”
“A game at which the liberals have become masters is that of deliberate evasiveness. The question often comes up 'what can you do?'. If you ask him to do something like stopping to use segregated facilities or dropping out of varsity to work at menial jobs like all blacks or defying and denouncing all provisions that make him privileged, you always get the answer - 'but that's unrealistic!' While this may be true, it only serves to illustrate the fact that mo matter what a white man does, the colour of his skin - his passport to privilege- will always put him miles ahead of the black men. Thus in the ultimate analysis, no white person can escape being part of the oppressor camp. ”
“What Black Consciousness seeks to do is to produce real black people who do not regard themselves as appendages to white society. We do not need to apologise for this because it is true that the white systems have produced through the world a number of people who are not aware that they too are people. ”
“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die. ”
“The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of the liberal ideology must be cracked because it makes people believe that something is being achieved when in reality the artificially integrated circles are a soporific to the blacks while salving the consciences of the few guilt-stricken whites. ”
A magnetic, eloquent, tall, and large-proportioned person, Biko inspired love and loyalty.
In 1970 he married Ntsiki Mashalaba. They had two children together: Nkosinathi, born in 1971, and Samora, born in 1975. Biko's wife chose the name Nkosinathi ("The Lord is with us"), and Biko named their second child after the Mozambican revolutionary leader Samora Machel. Angered by her husband's serial adultery, Mashalaba ultimately moved out of their home, and by the time of his death, she had begun divorce proceedings. Biko had also begun an extra-marital relationship with Mamphela Ramphele. In 1974, she bore him a daughter, Lerato, who died after two months. A son, Hlumelo, was born to Ramphele in 1978, after Biko's death. Biko was also in a relationship with Lorrain Tabane, who bore him a child named Motlatsi in 1977.
