Address by President Nelson Mandela
At The Commemoration Of The Twentieth Anniversary Of
Steve Biko's Death (excerpts)
Ntsiki Biko and members of the Biko family;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen,
We are gathered here to pay homage to one of
the greatest sons of our nation, Stephen Bantu Biko. His hope in life, and his
life of hope, are captured by his resounding words: "In time, we shall be
in a position to bestow on
...Today's occasion speaks of our resolve to
preserve the memories of our heroes and heroines; to keep alive the flame of
patriotism which burnt in the hearts and minds of the like of Steve Biko; to
redeem the pledge to give a more human face to a society for centuries trampled
upon by the jackboot of inhumanity.
...History called upon Steve Biko at a time
when the political pulse of our people had been rendered faint by banning,
imprisonment, exile, murder and banishment. Repression had swept the country
clear of all visible organisation of the people. But at each turn of history,
apartheid was bound to spawn resistance; it was destined to bring to life the
forces that would guarantee its death.
It is the dictate of history to bring to the
fore the kind of leaders who seize the moment, who cohere the wishes and
aspirations of the oppressed. Such was Steve Biko, a fitting product of his
time; a proud representative of the re-awakening of a people.
It was a time when the tide of Africa's
valiant struggle and her liberation, lapping at our own borders, was
consolidating black pride across the world and firing the determination of all
those who were oppressed to take their destiny into their own hands.
...From the start, black consciousness
articulated itself as "an attitude of mind, a way of life". In
various forms and under various labels, before then and after, this attitude of
mind and way of life have coursed through the veins of all the motive forces of
struggle; it has fired the determination of leaders and the masses alike.
The driving thrust of black consciousness was
to forge pride and unity amongst all the oppressed, to foil the strategy of
divide-and-rule, to engender pride amongst the mass of our people and
confidence in their ability to throw off their oppression.
...One
of the greatest legacies of the struggle that Biko waged - and for which he
died - was the explosion of pride among the victims of apartheid. The value
that black consciousness placed on culture reverberated across our land; in our
prisons; and amongst the communities in exile. Our people, who were once
enjoined to look to
I speak of culture and creativity because,
like truth, they are enduring. It is then a happy coincidence of history that
Steve Biko is honoured with a statue, sculpted in bronze by Naomi Jacobson,
whom one can say is his distant home-girl. It also gives a certain kind of joy
that the financial cost of creating the statue was footed by people in the
creative field, including Denzel Washington, Kevin Kline and Richard
Attenborough who will be remembered for the film on Biko, `Cry Freedom'.
Another contributor is Peter Gabriel whose song `Biko' helped keep the flame of
anti-apartheid solidarity alive. This collaboration of British and American
artists bears eloquent witness to Steve Biko's internationalism.
In speaking about "a more human
face", Steve Biko was rejecting the brutality of men who behaved as if
possessed, in their defence of injustice. It is these brutes that he faced
without flinching; and the true story of his last moments we are only now
starting to fathom...
Source: "Mandela Speaks" - Speeches,
Statements and Writings of Nelson Mandela - 1997. African National Congress.