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I Write What I Like (African Writers)

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I Write What I Like (African Writers) Bibliographic details for the Electronic File Biko, Steve, 1946-1977 I Write What I Like Cambridge 2005 ProQuest LLC African Writers Series Copyright © 2005 ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved. Do not export or print from this database without checking the Copyright Conditions to see what is permitted. Bibliographic details for the Source Text Biko, Steve, 1946-1977 (1946-1977) Stubbs, Aelred. (fl. 1978) (ed.) I Write What I Like: Steve Biko. A selection of his writings. Edited by Aelred Stubbs C.R. Oxford Heinemann 1987 vi, 153 p. © Steve Biko 1987 Genre: Prose Non-Fiction Preliminaries and contents page omitted. AWS series number: 217 First published: London First published by: Bowerdean Press First published: 1978 Language of original publication: English First published in the African Writers Series in: 1979 ISBN: 0435905988 [Page ] [Page iv ] Front matter Acknowledgements: The Editor and Publishers wish to thank the following for their valuable help in the compilation of this book: the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington D.C., for providing us with various articles written by Steve Biko which the Committee had in its possession; Gale Gerhart; C. Hurst and Co. for permission to reproduce 'Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity'; David Philip Publisher (Pty) Ltd for permission to reproduce the chapter entitled 'White Supremacy and Black Consciousness'; The New Republic Inc for the chapter 'On Death'; Christianity and Crisis and Episcopal Churchmen for South Africa for permission to reproduce 'Our Strategy for Liberation'; The International University Exchange Fund; Hugh Lewin. [Page v ] Preface The time for a comprehensive biography of Steve Biko is not yet. But it is hoped that the production of a book containing a selection of his writings may be timely, that it may serve to inform those who all over the world know the name Biko only in the dreadful context of his death, a little more fully what manner of man he was. For this reason nothing is said in depth about his death, crucial as this is in a final assessment of the man. I am acutely aware that the definitive writing on Steve can only come from one who writes from within his own tradition, historic, linguistic and political. Unfortunately at the moment those who are so qualified are either in detention, banned, on Robben Island or in exile. I can claim to have known him from the mid-1960s, and with a deepening intimacy, as the memoir indicates, from 1973 until his death. I am a priest of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection. Our headquarters is at Mirfield in Yorkshire. We have worked in South Africa since 1903. I was sent out in 1959 to join the staff of St Peter's Theological College, Rosettenville, Johannesburg, of which I became Principal in 1960. Forced by government legislation to close at Rosettenville, in 1963 we took St Peter's to form the Anglican constituent college in the new ecumenical Federal Theological Seminary at Alice, next to Fort Hare. I was expelled from the Republic in July 1977. The compilation of this book would have been impossible but for a generous grant from World University Service, an organisation devoted (amongst other excellent aims) to the service of Steve's cause. Even then, because of my inability to enter South Africa, the material could not have been collected but for the initiative, diligence and skill of Mr David Mesenbring. He has also read through the manuscript of the memoir, and made valuable criticisms. To them I express my grateful thanks, as also to a Sister who typed the manuscript of the memoir, and to the Librarian and staff of the National University of Lesotho. Much of the material [Page vi ] here gathered together was supplied from sources who do not wish for public acknowledgement, but I am nevertheless grateful for their co-operation. Thanks are due to the editors and publishers of the articles contained in chapters 11, 14, 18 and 19 and for permission to reproduce them. The royalties from this book will go to the Biko family, to be devoted by them to a project of which they know Steve would have approved. Aelred Stubbs, c.r Masite, Lesotho, 1978 [Page 1 ] Main text 1 Introduction Stephen Bantu Biko was born in Kingwilliamstown, Cape Province, on 18 December 1946, the third child and second son of Mr and Mrs Mzimgayi Biko. His father died when Stephen was four. He received primary and secondary education locally before proceeding to Lovedale Institution, Alice. He did not stay long at that Bantu Education Department-run school however, and his formative higher schooling was received at the Roman Catholic Mariannhill, in Natal. Matriculating at the end of 1965 he entered the medical school of the (white) University of Natal, Non-European section, Durban, at the beginning of 1966. Active at first in NUSAS (National Union of South African Students), he broke with them in 1968 to form SASO (South African Students' Organisation), of which he was elected first President in July 1969, and in July 1970 he was appointed Publicity Secretary. In December 1970 he married Miss Nontsikelelo (Ntsiki) Mashalaba from Umtata. From 1971 his heart was increasingly in political activity, and in the middle of 1972 his course at Wentworth was terminated. Immediately he began to work for BCP (Black Community Proggrammes) in Durban, but at the beginning of March 1973, together with seven other SASO leaders, was banned. Restricted to his home town of Kingwilliamstown, he founded the Eastern Cape Branch of BCP and worked as Branch Executive until an extra clause was inserted in his banning order at the end of 1975 prohibiting him from working for BCP. In 1975 he was instrumental in founding the Zimele Trust Fund. He was detained for 101 days under section 6 of the Terrorism Act from August to December 1976, and was then released without being charged. He was many times charged under security legislation, but never convicted. In January 1977 he was appointed Honorary President of BPC (Black People's Convention) for five years---an organisation he had helped to found in 1972. On 18 August 1977, he was again detained under section 6 of the [Page 2 ] Terrorism Act. He was taken to Port Elizabeth, where he was kept naked and manacled, as was revealed at the inquest after his death. He died in detention on 12 September. The cause of death was established as brain damage. His death and the inquest have been so extensively reported that it is unnecessary to add further details here. He leaves a widow and two small boys aged seven and three. The writings which follow belong or refer to the period 1969-72, when Steve was active in the Black Consciousness Movement, of which he is now regarded as the "father". After his banning in March 1973 he could no longer travel, speak in public, or write for publication. The evidence at the BPC-SASO Trial in Pretoria was given in the first week of May 1976, but refers to events which took place during the earlier period. Thus the book follows a chronological sequence as far as can be ascertained. [Page 3 ] 2 SASO---its Role, its Significance and its Future In the early 1960s there had been abortive attempts to found non-white student organisations. In 1961 and 1962 the African Students' Association (ASA) and the African Students' Union of South Africa (ASUSA) were established. The Durban Students' Union and the Cape Peninsular Students' Union, which later merged to form the Progressive National Students' Organisation, were fanatically opposed to NUSAS initially. ASA and ASUSA were divided by ideological loyalties connected with (ANC) African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). None of these organisations survived. NUSAS was by no means a spent force on the black campuses, but the fact that its own power base was on white campuses (Wits---the University of Witwatersrand---Rhodes, University of Cape Town, Natal) meant that it was virtually impossible for black students to attain leadership positions. Least of all could NUSAS speak for non-white campuses, though it often assumed that role . The formation of the University Christian Movement (UCM) in 1967 gave blacks a greater chance of coming together. Its initial political respectability in the eyes of the black university college authorities gave it a chance to function on those campuses in a way impossible for NUSAS. At the UCM Conference at Stutterheim in July 1968 about 40 blacks from all the main black centres of higher education in the Republic formed themselves into a caucus and agreed on the need for a nationally representative black student organisation. The UNB group (University of Natal Black), which of course included Steve, was asked to continue investigations. As a result a representative conference was held at Mariannhill, Natal, in December 1968, when SASO was formed, to be officially inaugurated at Turfloop in July 1969, when Steve was elected President . [Page 4 ] This is Steve's Presidential address to the 1st National Formation School of SASO, held at University of Natal---Black Section, Wentworth, Durban, 1-4 December 1969 . SASO---ITS ROLE, ITS SIGNIFICANCE AND ITS FUTURE Very few of the South African students' organisations have elicited as mixed a response on their establishment as SASO seems to have done. It would seem that only the middle-of-the- roaders have accepted SASO. Cries of "shame" were heard from the white students who have struggled for years to maintain interracial contact. From some of the black militants' point of view SASO was far from the answer, it was still too amorphous to be of any real help.
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