Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- Timeline of Steve Biko's life
- 1 Dear Steve
- 2 Thirty years on and not much has changed
- 3 Steve Biko: 30 years after
- 4 Through chess I discovered Steve Biko
- 5 Biko's influence on me
- 6 Biko's influence and a reflection
- 7 The impact of Steve Biko on my life
- 8 He shaped the way I see the world
- 9 White carnations and the Black Power revolution: they tried us for our ideas
- 10 Steve Biko and the SASO/BPC trial
- 11 A white man remembers
- 12 King James, Princess Alice, and the ironed hair: a tribute to Stephen Bantu Biko
- 13 Biko's testament of hope
- 14 Black Consciousness and the quest for a true humanity
- Contributors
14 - Black Consciousness and the quest for a true humanity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2018
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- Timeline of Steve Biko's life
- 1 Dear Steve
- 2 Thirty years on and not much has changed
- 3 Steve Biko: 30 years after
- 4 Through chess I discovered Steve Biko
- 5 Biko's influence on me
- 6 Biko's influence and a reflection
- 7 The impact of Steve Biko on my life
- 8 He shaped the way I see the world
- 9 White carnations and the Black Power revolution: they tried us for our ideas
- 10 Steve Biko and the SASO/BPC trial
- 11 A white man remembers
- 12 King James, Princess Alice, and the ironed hair: a tribute to Stephen Bantu Biko
- 13 Biko's testament of hope
- 14 Black Consciousness and the quest for a true humanity
- Contributors
Summary
It is perhaps fitting to start by examining why it is necessary for us to think collectively about a problem we never created. In doing so, I do not wish to concern myself unnecessarily with the white people of South Africa, but to get to the right answers, we must ask the right questions; we have to find out what went wrong – where and when; and we have to find out whether our position is a deliberate creation of God or an artificial fabrication of the truth by power-hungry people whose motive is authority, security, wealth and comfort. In other words, the ‘Black Consciousness’ approach would be irrelevant in a colourless and non-exploitative egalitarian society. It is relevant here because we believe that an anomalous situation is a deliberate creation of man.
There is no doubt that the colour question in South African politics was originally introduced for economic reasons. The leaders of the white community had to create some kind of barrier between black and white so that the whites could enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks and still feel free to give a moral justification for the obvious exploitation that pricked even the hardest of white consciences. However, tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and to accept it as normal that it alone is entitled to privilege. In order to believe this seriously, it needs to convince itself of all the arguments that support the lie. It is not surprising, therefore, that in South Africa, after generations of exploitation, white people on the whole have come to believe in the inferiority of the black man, so much so that while the race problem started as an offshoot of the economic greed exhibited by white people, it has now become a serious problem on its own. White people now despise black people, not because they need to reinforce their attitude and so justify their position of privilege but simply because they actually believe that black is inferior and bad. This is the basis upon which whites are working in South Africa, and it is what makes South African society racist.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- We Write What We LikeCelebrating Steve Biko, pp. 151 - 164Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2007