IMAGINE another country
The relevance of Steve Biko, his legacy and movement
Whilst preparing for tonight, I pondered briefly why the name and image of Steve Biko
evoke such powerful emotions, that year after year, the commemoration of his life and
death causes the nation to pause, sadly and thoughtfully. Even Mandela said a few years
ago - “may we never cease celebrating his life”.
And I continue to ponder this phenomenon – does Steve Biko touch the conscience of those
who so energetically acclaim him once a year, and then they continue to ignore the very
obvious possibilities for human sustainability as represented by Steve’s life, and his
generation’s philosophy and example? But I do not ponder too long – my own learning has
convinced me that though it is important to reclaim the past and celebrate one’s heritage,
we cannot remain prisoners of history. We should not seek there for the meaning of our
destiny. We should constantly remind ourselves that the real leap consists in introducing
invention into existence.
A few years ago when Chinua Achebe came to South Africa (My Azania) to give the Steve
Biko Memorial Lecture at UCT, he was quoted as saying: “I don’t know whether anyone of
you know what Steve Biko and the black consciousness movement meant for the people of
Africa. It was a metaphysical thing. If I had been able to walk, I would have kissed the
ground when I disembarked at Johannesburg airport.” Chinua Achebe is a poet and an artist,
a member of that very sensitive and creative layer of society who has a talent for capturing
most succinctly, the core of our feelings about things. I am certainly not an academic or
intellectual, and I have regarded myself at best as a mechanic for the people – I know and
understand the business of building the capacity of the oppressed; for the sole purpose of
transforming and improving society through participation, action and reflection.
I do not intend lamenting Steve Biko’s death today. So, if I’m not talking about Steve’s
death, this then leaves me with his life – and what about his life? Do I like others try to bury
Steve even deeper into a past that should be regarded as over and concluded – a fearful
reaction, in my opinion, of those who are threatened by the mirror of Steve’s life? The
mirror of Steve’s life only reflects yourself, and the question mark that Steve places on every
assumption you have chosen for your own existence and purpose, whether it is narrow selfinterest, egotistical motives or downright mercenary exploitation of a situation that favours
thieves and robbers.
I cannot say that what others have said about Steve is wrong, and I also believe that it is a
waste of energy to have a dialogue about the merits or demerits and the impact and
meaning of Steve’s life and the black consciousness movement. We are reminded that an
inherent truth needs no further substantiation, such as whether black people are or not.
The one direct quote of Steve I am willing to use at this stage is: “As we approach our
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liberty, we should talk more about ourselves and less about others (then - whites)”. I
suppose this meant that black people cannot even begin to envision or rationalise an
alternative society without being deeply preoccupied in the dynamics of oppression and
exploitation of their own lives. I believe that we will be well-served by demythologising
Steve Biko and by illuminating the rationale and the logic of the methodologies which were
adopted by Steve and the contemporary black consciousness movement. So tonight I am
going to help switch on the lights, or as many lights that I can manage to get to. In the
course of this period of reflection we may even achieve a light to celebrate each of his 31
years of life.
Speaking of Steve Biko and the black consciousness movement, their impact and relevance
today, I’m also referring to Fanon and other related social and political philosophies that
impacted on black consciousness in South Africa (My Azania).
Since his death, the practice of Fanon’s philosophy of liberation has taken many forms. For
example, one could consider the resonance of James Cone’s Black Theology of liberation in
the USA or Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of liberation in Latin America. Each drew significantly on
Fanon as a liberation theorist. But on the African continent, Steve Biko and the black
consciousness movement were the most significant Fanonian practitioners, developing
Black Consciousness as a philosophy of liberation.
Biko and the black consciousness movement, and Fanon all believed in individual freedom
and collective liberation, grounded in the idea of social transformation towards a radically
humanist society.
Biko and the black consciousness movement underscored the centrality of mental liberation
to the freedom struggle. They were concerned with the mind of the oppressed and saw
black consciousness as a practical education, not in the sense of technique, but in the sense
of thought practised in the school of struggle, that is to say, in the process or act of
reflection on and through the experience of the struggle. This practice is therefore rooted in
the axiom that everyone can and does think – as Ashraf Cassiem from the Western Cape
Anti-Eviction Campaign put it, “we are poor, not stupid”.
So the emphasis on the liberation of the mind became essential for the new stage of revolt
against apartheid in the 1970’s. Black consciousness constituted a movement away from the
apartheid’s objectification towards Black subjectivity (the mind). Rather than simply a force
against Apartheid, this new space for subjectivity contested political spaces that refused any
compromise with, or transformation of, the status quo.
This implies that liberation depended not on “objective” forces, but on the will of the
people. This conception indicates how in post-apartheid South Africa (My Azania), it is not
enough to blame the betrayal of the idea of liberation on “objective forces”, such as the
global economy or the Washington Consensus. It becomes clear that for the governing party
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the central issue in the “transition” from apartheid was not the question of the most useful
economic paradigm, but rather the managerial determination to discipline and control mass
movements. So post-apartheid was reduced to an elite project of capturing the state and
the means of governance, in contrast to creating an expansive and inclusive democracy
based on the activity of the mass movements. And critical voices within the ANC (as well as
those outside the organisation, including Azapo) were outmanoeuvred, co-opted, told to
keep quiet or expelled into the political wilderness. The intellectual elites and movements
such as the civic movements mostly toed the line or fell silent.
Post Apartheid South Africa (My Azania) has made apartheid’s policies illegal and has
reorganised the political geography, but it has not fundamentally restructured the nation.
As Richard Ballard argues, “the change from segregation to assimilation is not necessarily a
weakening of the White social agenda but a shrewd move that ensures the sustainability of
White social control”.
Born during the high period of neo-liberal globalisation, the post-apartheid government
silenced more radical alternatives by trading on its struggle credentials as the “party of
liberation”.
The result was that since 1994 the masses of our people have been left in misery, waiting
for their Nirvana, waiting at the closed gates, while the land and its wealth continued to be
exploited for the benefit of a few.
The theme of black solidarity was one important element in the reconstitution of the black
psyche. In the climate of the repressive and fearful atmosphere of the 60’s and 70’s and the
complete subjugation of the ANC and PAC during that time, the black consciousness
adherents developed a counter hegemony to that of the dominant discourse, including the
myth of race and colour. Or more simply demonstrated, how resistance to oppression could
move from its everyday and ineffectual forms at that stage, into a social force capable of
transforming the system. Building on a history of rich resistance culture, this was further
developed in the course of struggle, in its coherence and critical awareness and thus
constituted for itself a counter-hegemony. This process of change involves as a necessary
stage the “imagining of the impossible” beyond the immediate situation and working out
critically how the “impossible” can be made “possible”.
The “Black Consciousness is an attitude of mind and a way of life”- theme takes us further
into how the various aspects of human existence are integrated into a holistic stream of
incremental liberation through action and reflection. No area of the black experience was
left untouched and unorganised – whether the arts, writing, music, youth, voluntary and
cooperative endeavour, religion, education or history. The ideas that were propagated were
based on developing a critical awareness and understanding of the self, of the community,
and of the world, through dialogue or critical reflection.
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Fanon tells us that the conviction of the poor and oppressed that they must fight for their
liberation is not a gift bestowed by the revolutionary leadership, but the result of their own
conscientization. Committed intellectuals (organic and otherwise) must realise that their
own conviction of the need for struggle (which in turn arises from revolutionary wisdom)
was not given to them by anyone else – if it is authentic. This conviction cannot be packaged
and sold; it is reached by the totality of reflection and action. In any event, only the leaders’
own involvement in reality, within a historical situation, led them to criticise this situation
and to wish to change it.
Likewise, the oppressed (who do not commit themselves unless they are convinced) must
reach this conviction as subjects, not as objects. They also must intervene critically in the
situation which surrounds them and marks them: propaganda cannot achieve this. To
substitute monologue, slogans and communiqués for dialogue is to try and liberate the
oppressed with the instruments of domestication. Attempting to liberate the oppressed
without their reflective participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects which
must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into the populist pitfalls and
transform them into masses which can be manipulated.
The insistence that the oppressed engage in reflection on their concrete situation is not a
call to armchair revolution. On the contrary, reflection – true reflection – leads to action. To
achieve this authentic critical reflectiveness, it is necessary to trust in the oppressed and in
their ability to reason. Whoever lacks this trust will fail to bring about (or will abandon)
dialogue, reflection and communication, and will fall into using slogans, communiqués,
monologues and instructions. Superficial conversions to the cause of liberation carry this
danger.
This attitude of mind and way of life then gives us a sense of the authenticity and
confidence that Steve Biko and the black consciousness movement had in the people. I
remember during my SASO days, the University students were encouraged to become
engaged in communities where they lived and also to spend part of their holidays helping in
various community projects some of which were initiated by the Black Community
Programmes, and to become acquainted with the people and their needs. The impact of
some of the methodologies that were tentatively started and experimented with at the
time, can only be understood with the benefit of hindsight – every aspect of integrated
development thinking in South Africa (My Azania) today, has its roots in black consciousness
thinking and experimentation with new concepts, at that time. Fanon again says that our
purpose therefore is to ensure through struggle that the hands of the poor and powerless –
whether of individuals or entire peoples – need be extended less and less in supplication, so
that more and more they become human hands which work and, by working, transform the
world.
Biko also said: “One must immediately dispel the thought that black consciousness is merely
a methodology or a means to an end. What black consciousness seeks to do is to produce at
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the output end of the process real black people who do not regard themselves as
appendages to white society”.
Refusing to think in stages - that is, of black consciousness as a passing stage – Steve Biko
resisted spelling out a future society, but he argued: “If South Africa (My Azania) is to be a
land where black and white live together in harmony it cannot be without offering a strong
counterpoint to the white groups that permeate our society so effectively”.
The relevance of black consciousness can be seen in the bipolarity of post-apartheid SA. On
the one hand it represents itself as a successful, free and open democracy, a rainbow
nation, where everyone can prosper from freewheeling capitalist markets (Afro-optimism),
whilst on the other hand we have images of poverty and xenophobic violence, reinforcing
the world’s view of it as a permanent conflicted and suffering “tribal” nation (Afropessimism). Black consciousness as relevant today is almost a plea to create another world.
Viewing Fanon’s/Black consciousness philosophy as actional and engaged, rather than
detached and autonomous, this philosophy is then used to amplify the voices of new
movements amongst the poor, and to challenge committed intellectuals (both inside and
outside of the movements) to search for and listen to the people, and develop new
concepts.
The new social movements, most of which are sporadic and crisis driven, and which express
the frustrations of millions of ordinary people, have begun in myriad ways to question the
“incomplete” liberation in post-apartheid SA. The revolution in listening to them is premised
on a radical mutation in consciousness that takes place when a grassroots movement
politically asserts itself. To be faithful to the movements’ self-activity means to take a
theoretical position vis-a-vis agency. This necessitates that one breaks with the idea that
what the movement needs is a self-appointed leader/spokesperson, or “public intellectual”
to speak for it. Successful action, reflection and interaction, depends on a return to the idea
and practice of “becoming human”. So these movements require organisation, not of the
vanguard type, but a practice of self-organisation intimately connected to the organisation
of thought in the most open and democratic sense, proving that the opening up of space for
this thinking is the precondition from which new subjectivities can and do emerge.
I now look at three case studies to illustrate the relevance of committed intellectuals to
interactively work with communities.
Case 1: The Shack Dwellers’ Movement – (Abahlali baseMjondolo)
Every South African (My Azania) city’s vision of becoming a world class city corresponds to
notions of the global city, as a fully networked financial centre, as places that hold
spectacular events with spaces designed for tourists, thus mixing Africa’s premier sporting
capitals with a little bit of Europe. It is an expression of neoliberal South Africa (My Azania),
in the sense that the vision justifies, for internal consumption, the financial, tourist and
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global business sectors as the city’s reason for existence. It is a vision that represents a
fundamental ethical shift away even from the Freedom Charter’s notion of the public good.
The world class city is a strategy that cannot, and does not, support or accommodate the
poor – especially those who live in shack settlements, close to middle-class residences, and
are considered a threat to security, health and hygiene. Where the real-estate market fails
to reinforce class lines and exclusions, the state intervenes, often with illegal removals and
intimidations, couched in the rhetoric of “development”. Because this kind of
“development” spells the destruction of poor people’s communities, people like the shack
dwellers’ movement (like Abahlali), argue in a Fanonian way, for real human alternatives,
namely a humanist development based in life, with the belief that such alternatives can be
created.
Thus the fact of “shackness”, or landlessness, or rural livelihoods, begins from the
perspective of this common struggle that has to be founded on a consciousness of postapartheid’s broken promises. It means that “shack” dwellers, and the other poor and
destitute must become agents of their own liberation, and struggle against what has so far
been an unfinished liberation project. A liberation only for the privileged. This struggle is
fought everyday under conditions of crisis – these communities are excluded by the new
masters as “other”.
Abahlali, next to Clare Estate in Durban, grew out of the struggles of the Kennedy Road
settlements and where a very democratic decision making body the Kennedy Road
Development Committee, was established. These settlements and the committee got
national attention when in March 2005 they protested against the imminent bulldozing of
their areas. The people acted, blockading Umgeni Road with burning tyres and mattresses,
bringing traffic and business to a halt. The police, taken by surprise called for support. They
attacked with dogs, punching protestors. Four hours later 14 of the 750 protestors were
arrested, including 2 teenage students. Two days later, 1200 people demonstrated,
demanding that the local police release the 14 people or arrest the whole community. The
people themselves had begun to self-consciously mobilise for their own rights; they were
finally beginning to press the state to be accountable. For more than a decade, the people’s
anger had been rising steadily. The shack dwellers had understood that changes promised
by government would be slow and that they needed to take responsibility for their own
welfare; but by 2005, it had become crystal clear that their interests weren’t being
considered at all. As one shack dweller put it, they had become “tired of living and walking
in shit”. After many promises, all of them broken, they saw through the empty rhetoric of
the local authorities. Enough was enough. They had become the new reality of the nation,
declaring the shack dwellers movement a university where they think their own struggle –
the poor were taking matters into their own hands, seeing themselves as the force and
reason for their own liberation.
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It is now history that despite very negative reactions from government and the ANC
labelling them as a third force, the movement responded in a typical Fanonian manner by
taking up the challenge and turning it in their favour. They announced that they were
indeed a third force, the first being the struggle against apartheid, the second being the
betrayal by the ANC, and the fourth being a vision of an egalitarian society. They eventually
won a constitutional court battle against the attempts to move them away to a distant area.
The movement now has a few affiliates across the country, and it is hoped that they
continue growing in a positive direction. They offer all of us many lessons.
Case 2: Subsistence Fisher Communities (Masifundise Development Organisation)
Masifundise was established in the aftermath of the October 1977 banning of 19 BLACK
CONSCIOUSNESS organisations, as a resource for black students, granting bursaries and
study support. Led by Nontobeko Moletsane, Masifundise’s office moved from King Williams
Town with her when she moved to Cape Town in the early 80’s. During the ‘90’s, it became
involved in the struggles for access rights of the subsistence fisher folk of the coastal
communities of the Western Cape. In the course of time a movement called Coastal Links
was started as the organisational and development project with Masifundise providing
support and resources. Coastal Links fights for the restoration of the customary rights of
communities to fish resources. It consists of organised town or village based groups.
Eventually, after very antagonistic reactions from the Marine and Coastal Management Unit
of the Department of Fisheries (under the leadership of Minister Kortbroek, and his DG),
government was taken to court together with a range of protest actions. Government
claimed that communities were already catered for through the provisions for small scale
fishers, but this argument was eventually thrown out of court and an agreement was
eventually signed that access for subsistence fisherfolk had to be developed in conjunction
with these communities and their representatives. By then things had changed for the
better in the department and Masifundise was promptly requested to assist in the drafting
of new legislation, together with Coastal links. For the last number of years these
communities were given yearly “Interim Relief” allocations to catch a variety of fish on a
daily basis, whilst the necessary amendments to the law have now been adopted earlier this
year and will hopefully be implemented later this year.
Masifundise has in the meantime become a national organisation with operations in all
coastal provinces, and is the driving force to organise subsistence fisher folk across Africa. It
is part of a Pan African Programme to assist the AU to formulate an environmentally
sustainable fisheries policy. It has also been able to address the United Nations food forum,
and is the convenor this year of the next World Subsistence Fishers’ Forum.
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Case 3: An Integrated Village Renewal Programme (Is’Baya Development Trust)
Herbert Vilakazi says that the economists advising our leaders have turned their gaze away
from the immense possibilities that a comprehensive development of millions of the poor
together with the transformation of the countryside can achieve. It is only through an
agricultural revolution, focussed firstly on small-scale production, and rural development in
general, that the crises of South African (My Azania) society can be averted. Our failure to
eliminate the underdevelopment and poverty of black rural communities is now the heavy
drag that is pulling down the entire economy of the nation. This is the real roadblock to
economic development in the country and the primary cause of stagnation in the economy.
The crisis of poverty is forcing millions of blacks to move to towns and cities – the problem,
however, is that this is urbanization without industrialisation, and therefore without
prospects of work; and therefore many of these millions simply hustle for existence. A sense
of insecurity penetrates deep inside the minds and hearts of these millions of men, women
and youth. The cities and towns do not have the appropriate infrastructure of housing,
hospitals and employment to absorb these millions of people. The so-called informal
housing emerges, and crime and diseases and all sorts of social pathologies become
manifest. In the whole western world, industrialisation was achieved based on a permanent
agricultural revolution and “they continue to take as much care of the agricultural sector of
their economies the way one takes care of the apple of one’s eye.
It is within this context then that Is’Baya was established in 1999 and was formally
registered as a Trust in 2001. Focusing on the improvement of agricultural production in the
former Transkei and introducing high value crops like fruit trees and herbs for essential oils,
it managed to do a feasibility study with the help of the Agricultural Research Council, the
ARC in 1999. The study confirmed the suitability of the area for a range of tropical and subtropical crops, including citrus. Since then the two lead partners continued with building
awareness of the value of these crops over a wide area and included many villages. The
challenge was how to maximise production on the limited available land of a family
homestead. There are many examples of national economies where small scale family based
production plays a significant role in the national economy.
In time Is’Baya’s work became more comprehensive and programmatic and the Integrated
Village Renewal Programme (IVRP), which today is the only long-term integrated rural
development programme in South Africa (My Azania), was designed in conjunction with
several universities, including WSU, and CPUT. The programme’s overall objective is to
reduce the number of households living below the poverty line through the creation of new
sustainable jobs and pro-poor economic growth and ensuring that rural villages become
functioning economic entities. There are a number of programme elements that will be
implemented, interactively with organized village communities, to achieve this and includes
agricultural production (household and commercial), a community health management
strategy, trade and business development, appropriate ICT resources and infrastructure
planning.
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This national programme was launched, during the latter half of 2009 and covers 57 villages
in the OR Tambo, Amathole, Cacadu and Alfred Nzo Districts. These villages have
participated over the last number of years in the planting of high value crops like fruit and
nuts as well as herbs for essential oils. 5200 family households have thus far planted 150
000 fruit trees, and 33 village based cooperatives are being registered (after extensive
training in all aspects of coops) this year.
In every participating village, households are required to join the local Uphuhliso
(Community Development Association), thereby qualifying for a subsidy that will provide
agricultural inputs. In addition every household is provided with a long-term production
plan that will lead to increased food production and improved livelihoods.
Technical training and mentoring, as well as capacity building of these communities are
highly structured and organised.
Over time (5 – 7 years) and with careful planning and support provided by Is’Baya and the
ARC, the overall health and economic productivity of these villages have improved
dramatically. This will enable the village to finally become part of the national economy and
to represent itself in relation to its infrastructure and basic services needs.
Towards an Egalitarian, Humane Society – a word of caution to BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS
Mphutlane wa Bofelo, who is a member of Sopa in Durban - says that the left project in
South Africa (My Azania) should be and is essentially about democratization of both politics
and the economy in order to “realise the vision of a humane and egalitarian society wherein
prevails political, social, economic, environmental and gender justice”. He also laments the
failures and collapse of socialist projects in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America that were
supposed to be based on cooperation, collectivism and communitarianism (instead of
individualism, crass materialism and consumerism). They also failed to promote socioeconomic justice and sustainable environments and sustainable communities. They had
become “closed, intolerant and immoral agents of mind and body domination by a selfelected and empire-building elite”.
He goes further to say that in our current struggle, we need a party/movement which in its
language, idioms, etiquettes, platforms, mediums and processes shows, demonstrates,
illustrates, educates, that the way and systems of life based on cooperation, collective
ownership and sharing of resources and responsibilities, is possible. The Late Strini Moodley
also reminds us that “to realize a socialist revolution and socialist society you need to first
build a socialist person – a critical and conscious, selfless, caring, sharing and compassionate
person”.
I agree with Mphutlane when he cautions us in relation to collaboration with other
organisations and stakeholders, not to focus on which individuals must occupy which office,
but rather to achieve a complete and sincere commitment to a culture where the focus is on
the type of society envisaged and therefore the type of organisation required to advance
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that agenda. “The HOT and burning question is whether we want to build an organization of
which the face is the membership, its constituency and the class it represents as opposed to
a particular leader or a specific group of individuals or some office”.
Conclusion
It is my contention that South Africa (My Azania) experiences a terrible pang of angst every
year, when we are reminded on the 12th September that Steve is not dead – as an ancestor,
he is just smarter. He can see more, better able to remind us about ourselves, and for the
brave, he awards a mirror instead of a university degree. He remains the best champion for
the cause of human sustainability.
Steve Biko’s life and example demonstrates the achievement, for the first time in the
Azanian liberation struggle, of the integration of all aspects of human existence in a
single, holistic struggle for emancipation and liberation.
In conclusion therefore, the practitioners of the ethos and discipline of self-reliance, action
and reflection, and building the capacity of the people need not concern themselves about
the merit or demerit of their work – authenticity needs no further endorsement.
Peter Jones - Wednesday, 11 September 2013
Is'Baya Development Trust
Office: +27(0)21 8519 698
Fax: +27(0)21 8510 748
Cell: +27(0)72 1380 125
Direct (Preferred) Fax: +27 86 6680 125
Bibliography:
Fanon F
1968: “Wretched of the Earth”
1967: “Black Skin White Masks”
Biko, Steve (edited by Aelfred
Stubbs
1970:”Black Souls in White Skins”
1978: “I write what I like”
Gibson NC
2011: Fanonian Practices in South Africa – from
Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo
Prof HW Vilakazi
2005: “On the crises of South Africa (My Azania)n
Society”
Mphutlane wa Bofelo
2013: “Towards an Egalitarian, Humane Society”
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