` UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND KENNETH MATEESANWA TAFIRA 0711140G STEVE BIKO RETURNS: THE PERSISTENCE OF BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS IN AZANIA (SOUTH AFRICA) THESIS SUBMITTED FOR DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEGREE, SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY 2013. SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR DAVID .B.COPLAN DECLARATION I hereby declare that this work and ideas contained therein are wholly mine and original. I declare that full referencing and acknowledgement has been done on ideas and thoughts that do not belong to me. I am also aware of the University’s policy against plagiarism. Kenneth. M. Tafira September 2013 ii Dedication This work is dedicated to my late mother....you are living and you are watching MaNdlovu. To Azanian youth trapped in the township struggles and trying to make a meaning of it...hold up. To Grandpa, VaChimusoro Kenneth, this is for you; your wishes are fulfilled To the Great Spirit that dwells in water, Njuzu, I am eternally grateful for the gift and the honour iii Acknowledgements My heartfelt gratitude is due to my supervisor Prof. David B. Coplan for his guidance and advice to Prof. Shahid Vawda for his patience and time to answer my concerns, for his invaluable advice, I am eternally grateful to Carol Coary Taylor, thanks for the support to my family, all love to Tendayi Sithole, thanks bro' for the information and articles you sent me, I benefited handsomely from conversations with you to Sabar, you scintillating man to Zandi Radebe, Tebogo Radebe, Marechera wa Ndata and Blackwash massive...all love to Nicolas Dieltiens and Caroline Tagny, many thanks Kutenda kwakiti kuri mumwoyo (Gratitude of a cat is in her mind). iv Abstract Steve Biko returns and continues to illuminate the postapartheid social order. His contestation by various claimants for different reasons shows his continuing and lasting legacy. However he finds a special niche among a disenfranchised and frustrated township youth who are trapped in township struggles where they attempt to derive meaning. More important is why these youth who neither saw nor participated in the struggle against apartheid are turning to an age old idea like Black Consciousness in a context of the pervasive influence of non-racialism, rainbowism and triumphalism of neo-liberalism. The realisation is that a human-centred society with a human face which Black Consciousness practitioners advocated and strove for is yet to be realised. This shows the anomalies and maladies of a postcolonial dispensation where ideals, principles and teleology of the liberation struggle are yet to be consummated. Thus Black Consciousness as a node in a long thread of black political thought in the country; and as a spirit, will always be both an emotion, and a motion that finds a new meaning with each generation. v List of Acronyms ACU African Christians Union AME African Methodist Episcopal ANC African National Congress ANCYL African National Congress Youth League APDUSA African Peoples Democratic Union of South Africa APC African People’s Congress APLA Azanian Peoples Liberation Army ARV Anti-Retroviral AWB Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging Webblad AZANYU Azanian National Youth Union AZAPO Azanian Peoples Organisation AZAYO Azanian Youth Organisation BCP Black Communities Programmes BEE Black Economic Empowerment BHM Black History Month BPC Black Peoples Convention CBM Consultative Business Movement CCB Civil Cooperation Bureau CE Critical Ethnography COD Congress of Democrats CODESA Convention for a Democratic South Africa COP Congress of the People COSATU Confederation of South African Trade Unions CPC Coloured Peoples Council CP SA Communist Party of South Africa CST Colonisation of a Special Type CYL Congress Youth League DA Democratic Alliance DBE Department of Basic Education DLF Democratic Left Front DP Democratic Party EFF Economic Freedom Fighters FET Further Education and Training FNB First National Bank HPCSA Health Professions Council of South Africa HRC Human Rights Commission ICD Independent Complaints Directorate IMF International Monetary Fund IPID Independent Police Investigations Directorate JMC Joint Management Committee JSE Johannesburg Stock Exchange KZN Kwa-Zulu – Natal LP Labour Party MDG Millennium Development Goals MKWVA Umkhonto weSizwe War Veterans Association MMR Maternal Mortality Rate NACTU National Council of Trade Unions vi NDR National Democratic Revolution NEDLAC National Economic Development and Labour Council NFT New Frank Talk NGK Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk NHI National Health Insurance NIC National Indian Congress NIA National Intelligence Agency NP Nationalist Party NPC National Planning Commission NUMSA National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa NUSAS National Union of South African Students PAC Pan Africanist Congress of Azania PASMA Pan African Students Movement of Azania POPCRU Police and Prisons Civil Rights Unions PYA Progressive Youth Alliance RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme SAB South African Breweries SABC South African Broadcasting Corporation SACP South African Communist Party SADF South African Defence Force SADTU South African Democratic Teachers Union SAIC South African Indian Congress SAIIA South African Institute of International Affairs SAIRR South African Institute of Race Relations SANCO South African National Civic Organisations SAP South African Police SASCO South African Students Congress SASM South African Students Movement SASO South African Student Organisation SASS South African State Security SAYRO Socialist Azanian Youth Revolutionary Organisation SBF Steve Biko Foundation SOE State Owned Enterprises SOPA Socialist Party of Azania SNI September National Imbizo SSRC South Africa Students Representative Council SRC Students Representative Council StasSA Statistics South Africa SYP Siyapambili Youth Pioneers TBVC Transkei Bophuthatswana Venda Ciskei TCE Transvaal College of Education TEC Transitional Executive Council TIC Transvaal Indian Congress TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission UDF United Democratic Front UNDP United Nations Development Programme UP United Party WHAM Win Hearts and Minds WHO World Health Organisation YCL Young Communist League vii YWCA Young Women’s Christian Association ZANU Zimbabwe African National Union ZANLA Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army ZAPU Zimbabwe African Peoples Union ZIPRA Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army viii Table of Contents Chapter Page Introduction 1 1. The Black Consciousness Movement in Azania 19 1.1. Existentialism and Humanism in Black Consciousness Philosophy 27 1.1.1. Frantz Fanon 28 1.1.2. Steve Biko 30 1.1.3. Amilcar Cabral 33 1.2. Black Theology 34 1.3. Race and Class 40 2. BC and It's Fortunes After 1976 49 3. BC in the Postpartheid Era 61 3.1. Blackwash 71 3.1.1. Political Education 76 3.1.2. Film Screenings 77 3.1.3. Bua Blackwash Bua 78 3.2. Black Socialism 79 3.3. Contradictions, Contractions and Contestations among BC Youth 92 3.3.1. Where Do Go From Here? 109 3.4. The September National Imbizo 120 3.5. Hagiography and Biko's Contested Legacy 126 4. Youth Politics, Agency and Subjectivity 135 4.1. Sadique Variava 141 4.1.1. B 144 4.2. Siyapambili Youth Pioneers (SYP) 150 4.3. Blaq Aesthetics 153 5. The Social Construction of Blackness in Azania (South Africa) 156 5.1. The Black Body and Social Suffering 157 5.2. Blackness as Labour 167 5.3. Blackness and Social Science 170 5.4. Blackness as Agency 174 5.5. Postapartheid, a post racial society? 193 6. The Black Middle Class and Black Struggles 207 7. Culture and History in the Black Struggles for Liberation 226 7.1. The Modernist View 227 7.1.1. Culture and History 234 7.1.1.1. The Roots View 239 8. Collaboration, Complicity and “Selling – Out” in South Africa Historiography245 8.1. Collaboration, Complicity in South African History 246 ix 8.2. Homelands and Collaboration 263 8.3. Categories of a “Sell – Out”/ Collaborator 275 8.3.1. Impimpi/Mthengesis/Mdayisi 275 8.3.2. Askari 282 8.3.3. Amagundwane (Rats) 283 8.3.4. The Vigilantes 284 8.4. Why Do People Sell – Out? 286 9. Transference and Re (de) placement and the edge Towards a post colonial Conundrum 291 9.1. The Transference and Re (de) placement 292 9.1.1. The Congress Approach 292 9.1.2. PAC and BCM Perspective 297 9.2. The Postcolonial Malady 305 9.3. The Black Condition 321 9.3.1. Nationalisation 324 9.3.2. Land 326 9.3.3. Education 330 9.3.4. Health 333 9.3.5. Police Brutality 335 10.The Nation 340 10.1. The Unity Movement/BC and Africanist Position 341 10.1.1. The Congress Tradition 356 10.2. Nation in the postapartheid 359 11.Symbols, Symbolism and the New Social Order 370 11.1. The Masses 382 11.2. The 2010 Soccer World Cup 388 Concluding Remarks 391 Bibliography 393 x Introduction Black Consciousness (BC) is a historical idea rooted in the colonial encounter between Africans and colonisers. Although BC has come to be associated with Steve Biko, it is a consummation of a long tradition steeped in the desire by colonised Africans to liberate themselves. It is a strand; a node in a long thread woven through different historical epochs in Azanian resistance struggles. It is my intention to trace this idea. More important is the question why certain ideas persist throughout history, refusing to be buried but like a spectre or ghost of the past returning to haunt the present. I realise this is a monumental task to undertake or even a mammoth question to ask and answer. In this thesis I seek to answer the question why should certain ideas like BC persist through history, even when they are pronounced “deceased.” Interestingly some of the contemporary BC-oriented youth neither saw nor participated in the struggle against apartheid (as seen in BC youth formation Blackwash). I trace the development of political lineage of BC in Azania from early African nationalism of the mission-educated elite, Ethiopianism, Garveyism to BC in its contemporary forms. I also argue that ideas travel; that while Africans were transported as human cargo into the New World, they came back into the continent in the form of an idea – Pan-Africanism.