Steven (Bautu) Biko is one of the most famous advocates in South Africa. He was born December 18 1946, Tylden in the Eastern Province now called Eastern Cape. He died on September 12, 1977 in Pretoria, Transvall now called Gauteng. Steven was a Member of the SRC at University of Natal (Non-European section), first president of SASO, Chair of SASO Publications, Black Consciousness Movement leader, banned person, political prisoner, killed in police detention. Biko was not alone in forging the Black Consciousness Movement also known as the (BCM). He was by far South Africa’s most prominent leader, who with others guided the movement of student discontent into a political force unprecedented in the history of South Africa.
Biko and his peers were responding to developments that emerged in the high phase of apartheid, when the Nationalist Party (NP), in power for almost two decades, was restructuring the country to conform to its policies of separate development. The NP went about untangling what little pockets of integration and proximity there were between White, Black, Coloured and Indian people, by creating new residential areas, new parallel institutions such as schools, universities and administrative bodies, and indeed, new ‘countries’, the tribal homelands. The students that launched the South Africa Students Organisation (SASO) belonged to a generation that resisted the process of strengthening apartheid, in any manner they could. Biko’s rise to prominence is inextricably tied to the development of the BCM.
Steven believed mostly in politics and speeches, he strongly believed in the idea of a non-violent way to end Apartheid in South Africa, and to have the whites return to their original homes. Also he was strongly influenced by Mohandas Gandhi and the way he stood up for Indian rights in a non-violent way, and by Martin Luther King Jr. with his non-violent attempt to end segregation in the United States. This south african acknowledged that blacks could support themselves and live in a world without whites, and so, he started the Black Consciousness Group, which was a group that believed in black pride. He then started the Black Peoples Convention in 1972, which was a political front for the Black Consciousness Group and consisted of only blacks, all whites were excluded.
From the beginning Steve Biko always found Anti–Apartheid interesting. He had a high appreciation toward groups and pollutions/politics. Biko, after going to a medical school, was involved with (NUSAS) National Union Of South African students. Steve himself worked on the social uplift project for the students around the Durban area. In 1973 the apartheid government banned Steve Biko. He was arrested and restricted to his house, but that did not stop him from helping out. He wanted to help the families of the blacks that were arrested and thrown in jail, and so, Biko set up a Zimele Trust Find, which helped support political prisoners and their families.
It has been 37 years since Biko has been killed yet his impact he had on the South african people still stands today. He was an ordinary young man of his time. Nothing could have distinguished him, his family circumstances and environment from any other young man growing up in a small township in a small Eastern Cape town. Steve Biko was an ordinary young man who lived in ordinary times but who made something extraordinary out of his life, not out of his own will, by but the machinations of an evil system. He touched the lives of young men and women of his generation and he was part of an abiding movement capable of changing the social and political face of our country. In other ways he gave birth to a society that could shape its own future. The first time I had heard of Steven Biko when I was watching a movie called the “The Color of Friendship”. It was a disney movie that highlighted an interracial friendship but Biko was mentioned for anti-aparthied riots that was at it’s peak. Apartheid ended in 1994 the year I was born but, Biko could not see the day that the south african people were free from it all. I am glad i was able to learn more about Steven Biko and how his impact changed the lives of the South African people forever through his commitment that could not have been denied.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200709130385.html
http://myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=S_Biko_nehs_US_2010_ul
http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/stephen-bantu-biko
