Black is Beautiful Thomoya Parris
Table of Contents
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..2
i) Definition of leadership...... …….…………………………………...….2
Life history of Steve Biko...... 3
ii) His vision…………………………………………...……………………4
(a) Biko: The True Story of the Young South African Martyr and his Struggle to Raise Black Consciousness……...…….……………..…4
Rise of the Black Consciousness Movement………………...……………………....5
Biko’s strengths and weaknesses …………………………………………………...6
Biko in comparison to Monster Slayer…….…………………………………....……7
Biko in comparison to Mahatma Gandhi………….………………………….….…..8
Biko in comparison to Adolf Hitler…………………………………………………9
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………10
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………13
Leadership is the ability to influence and motivate others. It can be defined also as the process in which an individual influences the group of individuals to attain a common goal. The goal is attained by cooperation and cohesive behavior. This goal should ultimately be to create change. According to Ronald Heifetz’s Leadership Without Easy Answers, there are different types of theories of leadership in which is illustrated in his book. These are the great man theory of leadership, situational theory of leadership, contingency theory of leadership, and transformational theory of leadership[1]. These following theories highlight the importance of values within being a good or bad leader. The great man theory defines a leader determining whether they were born with greatness or made into a leader in which they achieve it. Situational theory of leadership describes a person being made into a leader based on certain situations in which someone takes the responsibility to lead others without being handed the title. Contingency theory on the other hand, describes a particular situation creating a particular type of leader. Lastly, transformational theory, this theory explains that a leader’s job is to create change and transform a movement or group of people.
Some may argue that there could have been other leaders chosen and analyzed but throughout this paper, evidence will prove that Stephen Bantu Biko was a leader in which was significant and continues to influence the South African community even after his death. Stephen Biko was an important and momentous South African activist. He was the leading founder of South Africa’s Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). This movement was created to urge a rejection of the apartheid among black workers and black youth. During this movement, students protested against educational systems, which led to the uprising that spread to black townships across the continent. This South African movement is synonymous with its founder, Steve Biko. From the beginning of Biko’s political and social life until his death, he remained one of the indisputable icons of the black struggle against apartheid. As leader of this movement, he instilled courage and bravery among the masses to transform an unjust system under Black Consciousness.
This book also describes a leaders task which is to create change in search for equilibrium and disequilibrium while modulating the distress and staying between boiling and freezing points[2]. It is also important for leaders to lead and mislead because with misleading, the leader is transferring the headache from its people to them so that the leader does not lose the effectiveness of its people. Within leadership, there are formal and informal leaders. Formal leaders hold powers of the office because the officeholder promises to meet those expectations, while informal leaders motivate influences more than formal leaders like Jesus Christ. These leaders are known for leading with virtue. Informal leaders are also worth listening to because of their experience and reputation among peers in which they have the ability to influence others decisions. According to Professor Ahmad Kamal, retired Pakistani diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, he details the difference between leaders and managers. Leaders require visions and strategic thinking. However, managers require techniques, tactics, and execute visions founded by the leader. A manager’s job is to plan, organize and coordinate. The leader’s job is to inspire and motivate. Stephen Bantu Biko is a leader in which he was both an informal leader as well as made into a leader. In Warren Bennis’ 1989 book, On Becoming a Leader[3], he composes a list of differences between leaders and managers. Manager’s focus on systems and structures while the leader focuses on the people, the manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust, and the manager is the classic good soldier while the leader is his or her person. From these differences listed, Biko is an example of a leader in which he was his own person and was able to distinguish himself from his role as a leader and his role of being human in which makes mistakes, for his people. Some important facts that are relevant to an examination of this contemporary are focused in the following report.
Being young and well into politics, Steve Biko exhibited many leadership qualities at a young age. He proves to others that at an undeveloped age, it is not impossible to have a vision, become, and develop into a leader. It is essential to take into consideration that between the ages of 18-30, that it is the best time to go through with what you envision. Steve Biko did not wait until it was too late but took advantage of what was going on within the African community and immediately decided to make a difference. With this in mind, it is also important to state also that Biko was correspondingly famous for his writings and speeches to the people of his community but specifically for his collection of writings into one work of art titled, I Write What I Like.
The important facts that are relevant to an examination of the study of Steve Biko are as follows. Stephen Bantu Biko (Steve Biko) was born in King Williamstown, South Africa, what is now considered Eastern Cape Province, on December 18, 1946. From an early age, he was interested in anti-Apartheid politics. Being politically active at a young age, Biko was expelled from his high school for his activism against African apartheid. Later he enrolled into a Roman Catholic boarding school in Natal. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Natal Medical School, where he became active with the National Union of South African Students but later resigned. This organization was an important force for liberalism in South Africa in which their motto included non-racialism and non-sexism as they advocated for the improvement of black citizens’ rights. In 1968, Stephen co-founded the South African Students’ Organization (SASO). This organization consisted of a body of South African students who resisted apartheid through political action, but not physically, which played a major role in the newly forming Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). Biko then became the president of SASO in 1969. In 1972, he was expelled again from the University of Natal due to his increasing political activism. That same year, Biko co-founded another black activist group, the Black People’s Convention (BPC), and became the group’s leader. This group became the product of three imperatives. First, black students were tired of the hypocrisy of white liberal university students of apartheid in South Africa. Second, blacks were undermining sexists divide and rule by white racialist settler-colonial governments since 1910. Lastly, young people globally were taking their part in the international radical militancy of the mid and late sixties.
Many have defined blacks as those who are discriminated against, as a group in the South African society in which they are a component in the struggle towards the realization of their aspirations. They are also known for being the member of a dark-skinned people especially one of African ancestry[4]. Being black is not a matter of pigmentation but is a reflection of a mental attitude. By simply describing yourself are black, you beginning a road towards freedom and acceptance. Black Consciousness is the realization by the black man of the need to assemble together with others around the cause of oppression and to operate as a group to get rid themselves the restraints that drag them to everlasting servitude. Black consciousness also seeks to infuse the black community with a pride in themselves, their efforts, value systems, cultures, and religions. Stephen Biko believed that the future of South Africa was a case where blacks adopted Black Consciousness. The purpose of the Black Consciousness Movement was to give further implication about what it meant to be black to the white community. During the rise of the Black Consciousness Movement, Stephen Biko did not feel the need to proclaim himself as a leader but simply stood in the background and played a backroom role. This not only shows that he was willing to learn but was able to gain experience and prior knowledge from being a part of different organizations rather than jumping to become a leader while taking full control.
Donald James Woods a white South African journalist, close friend of Biko, and anti-apartheid activist wrote a book titled Biko: The True Story of the Young South African Martyr and his Struggle to Raise Black Consciousness. In this book, Woods exposes the murder of Biko as he wrote this book in defiance of a government banning order and writings about Biko. He recaptures the moments of Biko’s vivid, brilliant, and charismatic short career whose death became a symbol of Black Consciousness. This story also is the story of a friendship that thrives between these two men despite a system that was determined to keep them separate and unequal. Woods states in his narration[5]:
He was a statesman, in that sense of the word in which it is applied to Abraham Lincoln, having that breadth of vision and that wider comprehension of the affairs of men and nations that is conveyed to the listener through more than mere words. He could impart understanding. He could enable one to share his vision and he could do so with an economy of words because he seemed to communicate ideas almost physically. (Woods 70)
Not only was Biko a charismatic leader but also was able to create change within his community before given the title of a leader. From founding the Black Consciousness Movement, which empowered and mobilized much of the urban black population, Biko gained informational and expert power. In this, he was able to result from access to and from his followers and had control over the distribution of important information necessary for his vision. He was also able to define himself as powerful and heroic based on his possession of expertise valued by others with similar knowledge and skills.
After Steve Biko’s tragic death in in the Pretoria prison cell, South Africa, on September 12, 1977, many speeches and lectures have been delivered in commemoration of Biko’s life. One speech in particular given at the University of Cape Town by Professor Ben Okri was titled, “Biko and the Tough Alchemy of Africa”. In this speech, he memorialized the life and death of Biko and celebrated his courage to take on these leadership qualities as a political activist. He stated, “Your struggle highlighted to us the meaning of justice”.[6] Steve Biko was a massive role in the struggle against South Africa’s white minority rule and its most famous martyr. A martyr is someone who is killed because of his or her religious or other beliefs. His struggles focused on making people responsible for their own liberation. In one of his selected writings of I Write What I Like, Biko writes about the ways in which Blacks can gain justice again. He says,
The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. This is the definition of ‘Black Consciousness’[7]. (Biko 29)
Throughout Steve Biko’s life, he delivered different speeches as well as organized many boycotts and strikes on university campuses. All of these speeches included information about the Black Consciousness Movement. In one of his speeches, he says, “Black people will continue to be poor if we have a change of face of those in governing positions.”[8] Steve Biko believed that South Africa was able to form one liberation and that blacks that were dedicated to the movement can affect the greater result of their community and themselves. Since Black Consciousness is the political and cultural philosophy employed by blacks in South Africa in effort to shake off shackles of mental oppression, Biko believed that through state participation, there would be a better distribution of wealth, in which this became his future of South Africa. In 1973, Steve Biko was banned by the apartheid government. Under the “ban”, he was restricted from his hometown of Kings Williams Town in the Eastern Cape. This meant that he could no longer support the specific organizations but was able to continue working for the Black People’s Convention. He could not speak to more than one person at a time or speak to his peers in public, and could not write publicly or speak with the media. This resulted in him secretly holding meetings with the fellow members of these organizations. Through this, he helped set up the Zimele Trust Fund, which assisted political prisoners and their families, the Njwaxa Leather-Works Project, and the Ginsberg Education Fund. Each of these funds became based on the notion of self-reliance. In spite of the repression of the apartheid government, Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement played a significant role in organizing the protests which culminated in the Soweto uprising of 1976. In the aftermath of the uprising, which was met by the security forces, the authorities began to target Biko further and individually because he was seen as a threat to the governmental officials.
On August 18, 1997, Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No. 83 of 1967[9]. This act was proposed to facilitate the governments fight against “terrorists”, but police used the law to pursue and prosecute various organizations and individuals who resisted its state control. After being arrested under this act, Biko was taken into interrogation for over twenty hours and was tortured with beatings to the head resulting in a coma. He suffered a major head injury while in police custody while traveling to the jail. Biko was pronounced dead shortly upon arrival at the Pretoria prison on September 12, 1997. The police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike, but was really because of the beatings. Once evidence was proven that this was not true, in 2003, the South African justice ministry announced that the police officers accused of killing Biko would not be prosecuted because the time limit for prosecution elapsed. This became evident of the struggles of Black Consciousness and their fight against the major white race. The brutal circumstances of Biko’s death caused a worldwide outcry all throughout Africa and he became a martyr and symbol of black resistance to the oppressive Apartheid regime, in which he was slaughtered because of his own beliefs.