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
3 - Steve Biko: 30 years after
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
Steve Bantu Biko was murdered in cold blood 30 years ago, in September 1977. The then Minister of Law and Order, Jimmy Kruger, responded to the news of this enormous crime and the death of a patriot with the infamous words: ‘It leaves me cold’.
An exemplar of the racist arrogance of the regime he represented, this captain of apartheid was blind to the national and international consequences that would follow the murder of Steve Biko. The day after the murder the Chairperson of the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, Ambassador Leslie O Harriman of Nigeria, said:
I was shocked to learn that Mr Stephen Biko, Honorary President of the Black People's Convention and an outstanding leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, died in detention on 12 September.
This is one more despicable crime by the apartheid regime which has murdered a score of patriots in the past year in its police cells. It is a crime against the oppressed people of South Africa, and indeed, against the United Nations which has proclaimed special responsibility for them. It shows that the apartheid regime is incorrigible, and that any hesitation or delay in decisive international action to enable the national liberation movement to destroy that regime is, in effect, a condonation of crimes against the patriots.
On 5 December 1977, Ambassador Harriman issued another statement in which he said:
The judgment of the magistrate in the inquest over the death of Mr. Steve Biko is a contemptible farce which can only be enacted by the institution of apartheid. It should open the eyes of those who saw a modicum of judicial propriety in racist courts managed by racist officials under racist laws.
I must congratulate the courageous Biko family and their able lawyers for laying bare the identity and the savagery of the murderers of Biko and their instigators and protectors. The people of South Africa and of the world have made their judgment, and the guilty men from the so-called Ministers to the Security Policemen will not escape just punishment…
I wish to draw attention to the fact that the continued repression and acts of violence by the apartheid regime are a flagrant violation of the Security Council resolution of 29 October. The Council must take action, without any further delay, to stop its crimes.
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- Information
- We Write What We LikeCelebrating Steve Biko, pp. 21 - 42Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2007