Biko’s archetype: Are you a ‘real black’?
by The Editor
FEATURE: We are currently involved, as ever, in an intense discussion about identity. On the one hand we have a series of prejudiced comments about sexual orientation (Mulholland), race (Schutte), culture and gender (Zuma); on the other, the various responses to them. But such debates are nothing new, especially when it comes to race and culture. The debate addressing what it is to be a ‘real black’ or ‘African’, for example, is far older than South Africa’s new democracy. And so it is worth returning to its origins. In the article below I look at the writings of one of the key thinkers behind Black Consciousness – Steve Biko – and his views on the subject, before concluding they are no different from or less problematic than those more recent comments about which so many are rightfully outraged.
Biko’s archetype: Are you a ‘real black’?
By: Gareth van Onselen
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7 January 2013
Background
I wrote this piece some time ago but three recent events make it relevant today.
First, Jacob Zuma’s suggestion that black South Africans stop adopting the habits of other cultures. Much has been made of his comment about dogs, curiously less of this, equally wrongheaded remark: “Even if you apply any kind of lotion and straighten your hair you will never be white.” It is one of several such disparging comments about women and African culture made by the President. In August last year he said it was “not right” for women to be single, and that having children is “extra training for a woman”.
Second, a moralising rant from Gillian Schutte (self-described as a ‘sister settler’), imploring “white people” to “wake up and smell Africa with a fresh white nose”.
Third, a column by Stephen Mulholland, in which he wrote that gay marriage was “neither the norm nor ultimately desirable”.
All three events have at their core the same impulse: the belief that identity is homogenous; whether it is race, sexual orientation or gender, that each of these elements of one’s identity are both defining and absolute – and can be mapped precisely. They are however, collectively and individually, bigotted; each an attempt to reduce human nature to a single set of defining characteristics, seemingly good or bad, and all are wrong.
Generally this impulse enjoys the greatest amount of public space where race is concerned – South Africa’s favourite pastime. And much time and effort is devoted by many to try and determine what it is to be ‘black’, to be ‘African’ or, indeed, to be a ‘real black’. Against this background, it is worth returning to the main architect behind much of this thinking in South Africa – Steve Biko – and his writings on the subject.
Below I have set out some thoughts on Biko’s particular form of Black Consciousness and why it is problematic.
Introduction
What, according to Steve Biko, was ‘African’ or ‘black’ culture?
One can paint by a composite picture by going through his various writings and distilling from them those instances where he describes ‘African’ or ‘black’ culture, or the nature of ‘blackness’ or ‘black’ identity. By pulling them together, one can identify what Biko calls a “real Black”. Below is a selection of those instances.
Why was this important to Biko?
Biko argues that the purpose of Black Consciousness was to “ensure a singularity of purpose in the minds of black people…” because black Africans don’t want merely to be people “living in Africa.” Instead, he says: “We want to be called complete Africans”. For Biko that involved identifying the core attributes of ‘African’ culture, taking pride in them and fighting for them to be recognised as the defining nature of black Africans. Put another way, for Biko, a single racial identity was the cornerstone on which mental and physical liberation should be built.
He thus placed much emphasis on defining what a ‘true’ black person was or is – the attributes they would exemplify. By going through his various writings, one can pull some of them together, in an attempt to get a overall picture of what he meant.
Here, then, are some of his various descriptions:
• “The oneness of community for instance is at the heart of our culture.” [‘We Blacks’, Frank Talk]
• The easiness with which Africans communicate with each other is not forced by authority, but is inherent in the make up of African people.” [‘We Blacks’, Frank Talk]
• “Africans develop a sense of belonging to the community within a short time of coming together.” [‘We Blacks’, Frank Talk]
• “One of the most fundamental aspects of our culture is the importance we attach to Man. Ours has always been a Man-centred society.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “We believe in the inherent goodness of man.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “We regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God to make us a community…” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “We always refrain from using people as stepping stones.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “Nothing dramatizes the eagerness of the African to communicate with each other more than their love for song and rhythm.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “Music in the African culture features in all emotional states.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “The major thing to note about our songs is that they were never songs for individuals. All African songs are group songs.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “Whereas the Westerner is geared to use a problem-solving approach following very trenchant analyses, our approach is that of situation-experiencing.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “We as a community are prepared to accept that nature will have its enigmas which are beyond our powers to solve.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “All people are agreed that Africans are a deeply religious race.” [‘Some African Cultural Concepts’, 1971]
• “We must seek to restore to the black people a sense of the great stress we used to lay on the value of human relationships; to highlight the fact that in pre-Van Riebeek days we had a high regard for the people, their property and life in general; to reduce the hold of technology over man and to reduce the materialistic element that is slowly creeping into the African character.” [‘White Racism and Black Consciousness’ 1972]
• “Ours is a true man-centred society who sacred tradition is that of sharing.” [‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’]
• “Now in African society it is a cardinal sin for a child to lose respect for his parent.” [‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’]
• “…we regard [black magic] as part of the mystery of our cultural heritage…” [‘What is Black Consciousness?’ 1976]
• “We do not accept superstition. We do not accept witchcraft…” [‘What is Black Consciousness?’ 1976]
In summary, then, how might one describe the archetypal black African – someone who embodies ‘authentic’ African culture and whose behaviours and attitudes are a consequence of ‘true’ African tradition, according to Biko?
Such a person would be an excellent communicator. They would be gregarious and social, disinclined to keep to themselves or to enjoy solitude. They would thrive among other people, even if in a new environment and quickly establish friendships. They would be inherently optimistic. They would be religious, but in a particular way: they would be Christian. They would be noble, never taking advantage of others. They would love music and dance but, again, in a specific way: only music that celebrated community and sharing. They would not be analytically minded, relying rather on experience to engage with the world and its challenges. They would not be inquisitive, or seek answers to the natural world that surrounds them. They would shun new technology and not pursue the materialistic trappings of modern culture. They would respect their parents.
And remember, that represents merely a selection of attributes and attitudes. Biko provides many more in his various writings.
The problem is I know of no such black person in the real world. True, I know many who, by coincidence, embody one or two maybe even four or five of those characteristics, but no one who embodies them all. In the other direction, I know some white South Africans who fit much in that description, does that mean they are, in fact, ‘black’?
I know black people who love all kinds of music and I know black people who don’t like music at all; black people who celebrate and advocate individualism; who are pessimistic; black people who do not respect their parents; black people who are reclusive and do not enjoy the company of others; black people who are not religious, in fact, who find religion ridiculous; black people who are profoundly analytically-minded, rational and insightful and who constantly seek out evidence-based answers to the mystery of the world around them; black people who embrace and love modern technology; who are capitalists, entrepreneurs and industry leaders; and black people who are selfish and manipulative and take advantage of others.
Indeed, I know many people, of many different racial persuasions, to whom those things are applicable. I know such people because what I am describing is humanity, in all its messy glory; what Biko was describing is an imagined and subjective racial ideal. And one insists on the latter over the former to one’s peril.
The point is: the minute you attach a racial qualification to any idea you warp its true nature. And the problem with any archetype is that it only has to fail in one of its characteristics to fail completely. Today, no doubt due in part to Biko’s legacy, South Africa is awash with such things: ‘black businessmen’, ‘black professionals’, ‘black lawyers’, ‘black editors’ – every single one an artificial construct that, on closer inspection, is no more coherent nor consistent than the idea of ‘white businessmen’ or ‘white lawyers’.
(The irony of dividing black people up by profession in this way, lost on those whom advocate such things – is that, presumably, a ‘black’ lawyer is different from a ‘black editor’, or why distinguish between the two in the first place. Biko himself would have disapproved. His understanding at least was generic, to be applied to all Black Africans.)
In short, Biko’s archetype is a fiction.
Indeed, the very attempt to racially categorise black people in this way is no different from Afrikaner nationalism’s attempt to define white people as particular and homogenous. And, the more radical the nationalism, the more radical the attempt to define the race group at its core. The AWB, for example, could go into great detail about ‘die Volk’, who they were and who they were not. By taking the exercise to extremes, you can reveal its inherent silliness: what, I wonder, does a ‘real’ Afrikaner have for breakfast, or what colour socks does a ‘real’ black wear? Do they wear socks at all? Trust me, somewhere out there is a person with serious answers to those questions. Or, at least, answers they think are serious.
And so Biko’s attempt at social engineering is revealed to be little more than a racial stereotype, romanticized but unreal. Importantly, if taken seriously, it is also dangerous (because that is what it is to try and impose on a people a single, definitive identity). The difference between the archetype Biko describes and the reality I describe is a simple one: Biko’s is a racial fiction, mine is a description that could be applied to any race, because there no such thing as a homogenous or absolute culture or race and to try and impose one on the world is a totalitarian idea.
It represents a regressive attempt to control behaviour and, in truth, is insulting to many black South Africans who do not see themselves as ‘black’ but rather define themselves by a range of other traits and characteristics particular to them as individuals.
Perhaps more to the point, the broader implications inherent to Biko’s description are backward, run against progress and stand in conflict to many of the civil liberties and freedoms we enjoy under a modern democracy; the most important being: the right to be who you want.
Here are two examples:
One can never demand respect, it must be earned (Biko describes a child’s possible lack of respect for their parents as “a cardinal sin”, presumably the same status murder enjoys; certainly it is the cardinal sin). No doubt there are many parents who deserve respect – who are caring, wise and protective; at the same time, no doubt, there are many who do not – who are abusive, callous or indifferent. To impose respect upon a child – indeed, upon anyone – is to demand unthinking deference and excuses those demanding it from their responsibility. But the idea is more subjective still – even if someone is deserving of respect, it needn’t be forthcoming. What one respects says much about them, their values and principles, but it is one’s to give and cannot be insisted upon regardless of behaviour, merely engendered and encouraged through good deeds. To divorce the idea from those necessary good deeds and attitudes is to denude it of its value. Certainly one’s race is entirely irrelevant to the issue.
Likewise, rationality and evidence-based thinking is a necessary component in order that knowledge, progress and scientific advancement thrive. Anyone interested in the betterment of the human condition needs to try and understand it and its effect. To shun intellectual curiosity is to retard education and rational thought. Democracy demands something else, primarily an emphasis in the other direction. In turn, it undermines freedom. If “situational experience” is an allusion to emotion rather than rationality well, emotion has its place, but it is of little help in determining right from wrong. For that you need principles, more often than not an exercise in counter-intuition.
Biko’s argument detracts from basic human rights as the fundamental cornerstone of equality. Because if you agree that people, on the basis of nothing more than their race, are different – if a group mentality is hard-wired into them – then on what basis do you argue we are all equal before the law? If certain people are inherently communal, for example, surely it is unfair to expect them to uphold every individual civil liberty?
The problem with Biko, a man as brave as he was ideologically misguided, is that he was on the side of the angels. In the big picture he dedicated himself to overthrowing the evils of apartheid and liberating South Africa and black South Africans from racial oppression, the price for which he paid with his own life. There can be no greater sacrifice. And for that he deserves much praise and recognition. His death was a powerful metaphor for a just fight and the inhumanity of what he stood in opposition to. That alone had a powerful effect, at home and abroad, on the struggle against apartheid. But the result is that his ideology enjoys far more legitimacy than it should. And, in reflecting on his death, one shouldn’t make the mistake of endorsing everything he stood for. In truth, he tried to beat Afrikaner nationalism at its own game: by advocating Black Consciousness – an attempt to create a strong, homogenous black identity in the other direction.
Consider, for example, these descriptions of black South Africans from apartheid (‘bantus’ in apartheid jargon):
• “The bantu is not lacking in intelligence; what he lacks chiefly is ambition.” [The Dean of Bloenfontein, the Very Reverend CC Tugman]
• “They are by nature a cheerful race; if you make their souls happy, they are a dancing, singing, happy race.” [Mr C E de Wet Nel, National Party Wonderbloem, House of Assembly]
• “The difference between these two races (Negros and Caucasoids [whites]) is so great that ethnologists no longer regard them as members of the same species.” [Mr Ron Stevenson, National Forum]
• “You have to know a black to realise that he wants someone to be his boss. They can’t think quickly.” [Mr Arrie Paulus, Chief Secretary of the all-white Mineworkers’ Union]
• “Time and distance mean nothing to blacks. They only know two times and that is that the sun will rise and the sun will set.” [Regional Magistrate Mr M S Knox]*
Conclusion
The very essence of apartheid racism was that it attached to black South Africans a series of pejorative, degrading and artificially homogenous attributes, which it often tried to legislate for. Essentially, and as horrific, demeaning and dehumanising as they were, what Biko was arguing is that the problem wasn’t the act of stereotyping, it was the type of stereotyping used. Thus he set about providing his own set of ostensibly empowering characteristics that defined a “real black”. But labeling is labeling. Good or bad, both denude the individual of their unique wonder – and repress more than liberate.
The phrase ‘real black’ is deeply ironic, for it holds within it an admission of failure, of difference and diversity. If there is such a thing as a ‘real black’ then, at the same time, there must exist such a thing as a ‘unreal black’. The abstract undermined by the actual. Likewise, it necessitates a debate about who, exactly, has the authority precisely to determine such parameters. Is Zuma’s description definitive? I know of many black South Africans who disagree with it. Is Biko’s? Who are the gatekeepers of cultural identity? (They are highly contested, and that tells you everything.) You will be surprised how often they are those in positions of power, and to whom that power has afforded their insecurity enough egoism to project onto the world their own private moral code.
If one buys into Black Consciousness, just as if someone buys into Afrikaner nationalism or white superiority, one sees the world in racial stereotypes and individuals reduced down to replicas of some ideological factory model – all the same, indistinguishable and homogenous. And that is to strip every person of the many and varied wonders that define each of us for who we are. If that is the game you wish to play, the trappings are many and varied. For who, really, is ‘black’, after all?
Postscript
Returning briefly to those three recent examples cited in the background to this piece, each is an illustration of exactly the kind of bias Biko advocates: the idea that race or gender or homosexuality – even culture for that matter – is in itself a defining feature of identity; against which a set characteristics (often prejudiced) can be ascribed and people judged. There is no difference between Biko trying to define a ‘real black’ and Mulholland the ‘real’ nature of marriage. Both are born of the same wrongheaded attitude. And both of them, profoundly problematic.
Just like Biko, one could produce a list of attributes according to Zuma, or Schutte or Mulholland about what it is or is not to be gay, African, a woman, white, or black; an archetype for each. And, just like Biko, each would be a fiction. Only when we begin to understand that each person is different and, therefore, unique, will we begin to appreciate that those generalisations that are culture, race, gender and sexual orientation are merely a broad set of influences on one’s character and by no means defining. More importantly, that acting like they are is anathema to individual liberty and, ultimately, freedom itself.
* Drawn from Ben Maclennan’s ‘Apartheid: The lighter side’.
- Gareth van Onselen (@GvanOnselen) is the Editor of Inside Politics (@insidepols), Winner: Best Political Blog 2012.
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Insightful article with at least some logic, reason and facts to back up a point of view. Gareth you articulated and expressed what I have been thinking after reading the rants over the past weeks. Thanks for the clarity. Enjoyed 🙂
Thanks beconsciousabout, I am glad you found “at least some logic” in the piece. lol. I shall endeavour for even more in the future. Gareth
I am responding here to the following comment on this piece, drawn from Politicsweb, because the Politicsweb comments page does not allow enough space for a full response:
Disingenuous portrayal of Mullholland’s article
The bulk of the article was about child-rearing by same sex parents. There are great dillemmas about children in this context. While discrimination against same sex couples for their choice is unacceptable, there is individual choice in one’s . .more
by Politically incorrect on January 07 2013, 18:15
My response is as follows:
It is not my preference to respond to comments but I shall make an exception here. I have just listened to the 702 interview with Mulholland and, I am afraid, my description is both accurate and defensible. First, with regards to the ‘bulk defence’ you offer, that is both disingenuous and irrelevant, it is a quantitative excuse for a qualitative problem. Second, the interviewer failed properly to understand the nature of Mulholland’s bias (admittedly, no doubt thrown by his surprisingly poor grasp of English and those words best chosen to demonstrate what he meant), but bias there most certainly was. It is best summerised thusly: Mulholland failed to identify the principles at stake: equality and, ultimately, freedom. He’s defence was pragmatic – homosexuality and gay marriage is a minority occurrence (that is, it constitutes a small percentage of all marriages) and, because, he claims, homosexuality is difficult and not readily accepted, it is therefore undesirable. That is in itself contestable but the key point is this: it never occurred to him that the reason it is often difficult is because people are bigoted and prejudiced; and outlawing that, not gay marriage, is what is ‘ultimately’ desirable. The only people that find it undesirable are those who cower to and accommodate such bias. If you accept Mulholland’s logic, women would never have been allowed to vote. There was a time when that act of equality too was likewise deemed ‘ultimately undesirable’ by the majority – no doubt it would have upset many recalcitrant men (and repressed women) and the difficulties that followed created a real life situation for women exactly equivalent to what many gay people face today: independence curtailed, prejudice accommodated and personal trauma as a result. Should women not have been allowed to vote because it was undesirable? What nonsense. The pursuit of equality is never undesirable; and the problem is never with the victims of inequality but always those advocating for it. If anything, gay marriage is desirable if only to teach the bigoted and prejudiced their views are wrong and to uphold freedom and the liberties that flow from it. Gareth van Onselen
Your cherry-picking Biko to argue that he advocated for a monolithic, unitary black in the way you have put forward is intellectually fraudulent at best or misinformed at worst. It’s an giant unsubstantiated leap of assumption to go from those selected quotes to concluding that he said they exist in a single person and not, as he did, across the tapestry of black society. Biko ‘blackness’ was the stitching together of individuals (yes, individuals) so that they may fight their common oppression.
Which brings me to what you fail to recognise about social constructs of identity, which is that they may not be homogeneous but are experienced uniformly by those individuals identified as belonging to that construct. Thus the brutality of societal oppression is that it ignores individual traits. But asserting and retreating into your individualism won’t break down societal oppression, which is why feminism, gay rights, civil rights movement, etc, succeeded through collectivist action. Thus then need for calls such as: if you’re a woman you’re a feminist, if you’re black you’re oppressed, etc.
T.O. Thank you for your comment. I would like to respond in detail but first it is important I understand exactly what you are saying. Are you saying Biko was, in fact, a liberal? Who saw black South Africans first and foremost as individuals, each different culturally, only that they shared a common plight? If not, how would you describe him ideologically? (This is the key point I need to understand.) My reading of your comment – in particular your line “Biko ‘blackness’ was the stitching together of individuals – is that you are arguing his cause (Black Consciousness) was no different in abstract than, say, the DA’s cause: to unite South Africans behind a liberal idea, the Open Opportunity Society for All? Or any party or organisation’s attempt to do such a thing. Only his was Black Consciousness? Am I misunderstanding you? Gareth
You’ve partially misunderstood me. He saw black South Africans as individuals, yes, but more important that their individualism was the need for blacks to unite on the basis of their common oppression in order to defeat that oppression, which wasn’t an aside. It was (and to an extent is) part and parcel of being black.
And unless you’re telling me the open opportunity society has socialist underpinnings, in which case I’ll fill in a membership form today, black consciousness is nothing like it. Black consciousness says: total (political, economic, social) freedom today. The open opportunity society says: a semblance of freedom (political, social and, if you can afford it, economic) at some future date, and only if you work for it. What’s political and social freedom without economic freedom? Not much.
Also, anybody concerned with equality and freedom overlaps with liberal ideals. The economics is where there is a sharp departure, especially with regard to classic liberalism.
T.O. No, I was not equating the OOSA with socialism, merely the idea, in abstract, of uniting individuals behind a cause (in the case of the DA, the OOSA; for Biko, Black Consciousness), to try and better understand you, which I think I do now. Although you misunderstand the pursuit of freedom, the OOSA and Black Consciousness but that is another discussion. Your position is a rather odd one. Certainly Biko was no liberal. And certainly he had in his mind, and throughout his writing, an archetype of what he (not me) called a ‘real black’. You say I have ‘cherry picked’ those examples cited. I am not sure what you mean by that. They are indeed a selection (18 examples out of many). If you mean I have misrepresented them, well, they each represent a self-contained thought, in Biko’s own words. And 18 is hardly a small sample. So I am not sure how that is possible. It is Biko, not me, who talks in absolutes. The phrase, for example, “is inherent in the make up of African people”, is not easily misunderstood. Inherent means intrinsic, permanent, pre-existing. That is, he means that attribute is hard-wired into ‘Africans’. Well, that’s just silly and no different from saying, as the apartheid government did, black South Africans are inherently without ambition or intelligence. No race or cultural group is inherently anything. To say so is a profoundly illiberal idea. Each person is different, unique. That is the essence of liberal thought. So, I disagree with you. Biko was not a liberal. He was a racial essentialist. As for your point about social constructs (presumably, your euphemism for an archetype, for they are the same thing) – which you say “may not be homogenous” – but which are “experienced uniformly”, well how they are experienced is neither here nor there. I am talking about what Biko believed, and it is quite clear from his writing, from the examples I have cited and a myriad others I am happy to quote, he believed ‘real blacks’ or ‘Africans’ were “inherently” of a certain nature. Well no, sorry, show me a ‘real black’ and I will show you a unique individual. Gareth
It’s a pity Biko didn’t live longer and have a chance to mature more as a thinker, because I read his Black Consciousness thought as a form of ‘strategic essentialism’, to use Gayatri Spivak’s term. I think he would have significantly refined his thought in a post-Apartheid political environment. He was writing from a position that called for the essentialisms you’ve described, because he correctly felt a deep need to counter the negative, racist essentialist discourse fermenting around blacks (as you pointed out in your article). He didn’t have time for the sort of nuanced identity politics that has (thankfully) emerged in the post-colonial era.
You make many of these same points in your essay. What I just want to add is my own contention that Biko himself would not have shunned this non-essentialist view of identity, had he been able to live long enough and in a political climate that afforded him the luxury. He often pointed out that Black Consciousness was only a necessary first step to forming an equal and just society. His conception of political struggle was essential dialectical (he frequently talks of a synthesis of white and black views and demands) that I think already sees him moving towards a more complex notion of identity as hybrid and mixed across the colour line. Of course, these are only speculations, but I don’t think it’s fair to call him a “racial essentialist”, when he clearly contextualised his thought as a strategic essentialism – take, for instance, his argument that it was necessary to unite Indians, Blacks of all tribes and coloureds under the common designation of ‘Black’ in order to build solidarity and tackle their common oppressor. To regard everyone as ‘black’ is obviously problematic, but it makes sense as a strategic essentialism that fosters cultural collaboration and assists in the overthrow of a common oppressor. Similarly, I would argue that we should read his essentialising comments about ‘THE African’ in a similar light. Nor do I think these simplicities are reason enough to dismiss him as no longer relevant. When poverty is still more or less colour coded and feelings of black self-worthlessness are still felt amongst the poor, his ideas are desperately needed to give people a sense of pride in themselves. I do not think we are out of the realm of this particular strategic essentialism quite yet. Especially when the best black pride sentiment our president can muster does more for animal cruelty than black self-empowerment.
Dear Jacques, thank you for your thoughtful comment, you make a number of very important points. It is my experience that when a powerful cultural and historical figure is glorified in the way Biko has been (and not without reason, although I would distinguish his courage from his convictions), there is a tendency to post-rationalise everything he said from that perspective. In other words, many who idolise him are desperate you not find something objectionable about his words and so, soon enough, what was actually written becomes a metaphor, or an allusion, or a parable or some masked reference to something hidden but profound, just and true, in order that everything he wrote might enjoy the same status he does. In my opinion that often lends itself to distortion and the misrepresentation of what is there, written in ink. The obvious in other words. Now, I am not disagreeing with you in making this point, at least not with the general thrust of your argument, more to explain my purpose behind the piece. Any writer must be able to explain not just the ideas they advocate but the words they use to articulate them. Biko had an explicit political purpose, and his motivation must be taken into account, but that doesn’t excuse away the specifics, in the way many people excuse away those more dubious suggestions in religious text, as all defensible on the grounds they were designed to illustrate some virtuous ideal, and are misunderstood if taken literally. There is a clear archetype throughout Biko’s writing. It might only have been part of his writing. It might have served a certain political purpose. It might have been the means to an end, but it is there. As such I think it needs to be accounted for. On your point about a modern day Biko, its an intriguing thought, remove the political purpose from his writing and what would remain. I wonder. Thank you again for the thoughtful response. Gareth
Dear Gareth,
I think we’re more or less in agreement. The kind of revisionism and close reading you’ve done in this article is an example of important work that needs to challenge the legacy of our political forebears – how else would our thinking progress? However, I differ with you on two points. Firstly, I have a feeling (perhaps I am wrong?) that I find more positive messages in Biko’s work than you do. I think the task of intellectuals today should certainly be to analyse Biko’s shortcomings*, but to do so in order to also reread, reclaim and rehabilitate him in the post-Apartheid fight for a non-racialised society that gives power and dignity to all. In our present context, I think the inspiration and ideas he offers, particularly for the poor, are streaks ahead of any active South African politician.
Secondly, I think it would be wrong to call Biko “the main architect behind much of this [Black essentialist] thinking in South Africa”. Rather than seeing Biko as the “main architect” behind this, I would have positioned him in a far broader African nationalist context whose true architect needs to be recognised, ironically, as Apartheid and colonialism more generally. Prior to Biko, Zuma, Schutte, et al (Mulholland’s prejudice has a different, though interconnected, history), African (and by extension white) identity had already been essentialised by the various colonial powers, who went about entrenching a stark white/black binary discourse, where the colonisers were ‘enlightened’, ‘intelligent’, ‘benevolent’, ‘gentlemen’ and innumerable other positive virtues, while ‘black’ represented the negative reverse of all these values. Biko saw this paradigm and consciously reversed it in order to empower blacks. While this means that he was working within the colonialists’/Apartheid’s own paradigm, again, this was the best choice he could have made given the political stakes at the time.
I think this colonial legacy, one built on essentialising binaries, needs to be foregrounded in discussions of the current remarks made by Zuma, et al. This helps us to get at the fundamental root of a binarised discourse that still continues to this day. By emphasising its colonial roots, rather than seeing it as primarily derived from Biko, which is just incorrect, I think we make a far stronger case for moving beyond such essentialist thinking. We need to be honest about this history and how it has shaped the identities of both whites and blacks. To quote Bart Moore-Gilbert, “any notion of a ‘pure’ or ‘original’ form of postcolonial consciousness and identity implies that (neo-)colonialism has had no role in constructing the identity of its subjects”. This is of course impossible. Like Frantz Fanon in the Algerian context, Biko openly recognised this and made it his brief life’s work to make others see too. We should build on that thinking, especially in light of the identitarian essentialisms that have been bandied about recently. Rather than cling to notions of THE Black, THE White, THE Indian, THE Nigerian, et al, we should recognise them as ideological ghosts from a colonial era that won’t die. Now is the time to think of identity as something that is constantly being negotiated, always in flux, a matter that is never conclusively settled.
*And he certainly has shortcomings, don’t get me wrong. Personally, what I find more reprehensible in Biko’s writings than his asides to a certain essentialised African, is the persistent patriarchal reiteration in his writings of the African MAN. His frequent insistence that the African’s manhood has been robbed, such that he is emasculated and cannot be a real man in society any longer. This of course speaks to a much longer history of the colonial subjugation of black men’s bodies, their denigration as promiscuous, amoral, lowly – in short, their being robbed of their basic right to dignity and equal human status (this is a history and a stereotype that Brett Murray should have thought harder about if he was expecting ‘The Spear’ to be taken as a comment on Zuma, not a racial group, but that’s another debate). But it is painful that little to no equal thought is paid to the historical and ongoing disenfranchisement of black women and THEIR right to dignity.
Dear Jacques, thank you again, a pleasure to read your insights. On your first point of disagreement, as with the second, we are going to have to agree to disagree, as it were; not fundamentally, for the most part I think both our perspectives are more a matter of where and what we place an emphasis on, rather than a case of believing the other person profoundly wrong. Correct me if you believe otherwise. On the first point, yes there is merit to rehabilitating Biko, as you put it, done in a certain way. History offers many lessons, however, and I would suggest there are others (Mandela for example), who placed more emphasis on equality than inequality (and individual liberty as opposed to group solidarity, in turn). Which lessons you chose are at your discretion, Biko’s seem more problematic than some of the other, simpler, more liberal and equally inspiring historical insights to be found in our messy past. On your second point, well, this really is a matter of emphasis for me. I absolutely agree with all your points. I was referring particularly to the idea of Black Consciousness, rather than the general framing of identity and race for which the apartheid regime (and others before it) were responsible. One should also realise that Biko was not entirely isolated at the time he wrote, in America the ‘Black Power’ movement and the likes of Stokely Carmichael were rising to prominence, no doubt this influenced his thinking. He might have been working within a paradigm (aren’t we all) but his response was particular and original. Take that away and one starts arguing whether or not Biko was inevitable; my instinct for individual agency, ironically, is happy to give the man most of the credit in this regard. Gareth
I disagree that Biko placed more emphasis on inequality than equality. In his writing he asserts time and again that equality should be the ultimate aim of our society and the Black Consciousness movement. This is clear in one of his last published statements: “We are looking forward to a non-racial, just and egalitarian society in which colour, creed and race shall form no point of reference”. He makes this position similarly clear vis-a-vis the Black Consciousness philosophy: “The ‘Black Consciousness’ approach would be irrelevant in a colourless and non-exploitative egalitarian society”. Biko was ALL about equality, but he also recognised that this could not be achieved unless the exploited defeated their own sense of inferiority. This is still the case today, sadly, with the poor mired in poverty and still seeing whites as some sort of essentialised, superior beings (this is a self-hating phenomenon I have witnessed firsthand). While Mandela might be a more PC figure to adopt, particularly for whites like you and I because he seems less ‘threatening’ (though I can’t say I have ever found anything racially threatening in Biko’s writings), Mandela’s message does not address these still-present feelings of inferiority with anything approaching Biko’s precision and focus. This is why his ideas are still crucial to post-Apartheid discourse. I’m obviously not suggesting that he or anyone else should stand as the be-all and end-all of today’s political debate – Mandela casts a justifiably long shadow – but Biko’s words are still indispensable today.
On a side note regarding the Black Panther connection, while I wouldn’t discount that influence, Biko did emphasise that there were fundamental differences between the Panther movement and Black Consciousness. I think the bigger and more applicable inspiration was fellow African writer Frantz Fanon. Biko refers to Fanon anonymously and quotes him in one of his essays and the title of his paper, ‘Black Souls in White Skins?’, is undoubtedly a nod to Fanon’s seminal ‘Black Skins, White Masks’.
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