Published: 18 December, 2011, 20:08
Edited: 18 December, 2011, 20:12
Western powers never supported South African leader Steve Biko, just as they do not support democracy in Libya, Bahrain and Saudi-Arabia today.
Last 8 October I wrote “Why true African leaders never stand a chance” about Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso and also referred to Patrice Lumumba. In that blog I denounced the complicity of Western former colonial powers in the repression of Africa, from Congo in 1961 to Libya today.
If there is one African leader worthy of the same praise as Sankara and Lumumba, that is without any doubt South Africa’s Steve Biko. Born 18 December 1946, he was arrested and brutally tortured by the police from 18 August 1977 until his death on 12 September 1977. This Sunday, 18 December 2011 is his 65th birthday.
Interesting to note in these times of “War against Terrorism”, Biko was arrested on the basis of the South African law against terrorism. The white rulers of South Africa had a specific understanding of what “terrorism” was: any kind of opposition against the system of apartheid (a system of racial segregation, ruled over by the white minority).
Whether that resistance was violent or non-violent was completely irrelevant to them, as Steve Biko was to find out during his last days. Well, not quite, actually the regime preferred the armed resistance of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) over non-violent opposition.
In those days, the West officially opposed apartheid, at least in words. Their rhetoric against violent repression by the South African police was tepid and toothless. Counter-violence by the ANC on the other hand was met with real concrete measures. The ANC became a prominent frontrunner on their list of “terrorist organizations”.
Against the ANC, South African repression could pretend to the outside world it was merely maintaining “law and order” (the law being what the white minority decided it to be).
The likes of Steve Biko were a bigger threat, as leaders like him denounced the regime for what it really was: a white supremacist dictatorship. It is thus that one should understand why they were so keen on silencing a local student leader with moderate demands for racial justice.
Indeed, Steve Biko was “just” a student leader, cofounder of the South African Students’ Organization (SASO), later to become the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Barely 25 years old, he was “banned” for speaking out.
Banning under apartheid meant you were not allowed to speak to more than one person at once in your own house (!) nor to speak in public and you were restricted to the area around your home. Contacts with the media were also out of the question. Truly the methods of a genuine democracy, one might say…
As is often the case, repression backfired – his banning made him into a nationwide hero. The BCM kept growing and the more he was kept silent, the more Biko’s voice was being heard.
When the BCM co-organized the protests of June 1976 in the Johannesburg poor black suburb of Soweto, the authorities decided they had enough. While traveling to a meeting in yet another defiance of his banning orders, Biko was arrested as a “terrorist” and died under torture.
The South African regime was relaxed, knowing they could get away with it. Western reaction was as usual, empty. Coal and uranium exports would go on.
Biko’s short life was immortalized in the 1987 movie Cry Freedom (based on the book Biko by journalist Donald Woods). You can watch it as a typical Hollywood feel good story – professionally-made, well-acted, good script – or look through it and see it for what it is: another “good white hero supports poor black boy” movie for a white audience.
The first half of the movie is fairly decent, depicting Biko’s life under banning, downplaying journalist Donald Woods white upper class liberal life with maid and gardener (both black) living in a shed in their garden. The second half is a thriller about Woods’ escape out of South Africa.
In a decent world, Biko’s birthday would be headline news today. The Western media prefer to ignore him. His story is disturbing to the self serving image of “us” as the good guys who try to bring democracy and justice to the world.The truth is less appealing: the Western powers have not given up on their colonial ambitions.
From South Africa over the Congo to Libya, the African people are not fooled. They do remember Steve Biko and other African leaders. They look through our empty rhetoric and judge us by our actions.