THE ILLUSION OF FREEDOM

A talk delivered at the 24th Biko Commemoration Service in Atteridgeville, Pretoria.

Twenty four years ago, a tall, handsome and immensely talented young man going by the name Steven Bantu Biko, was murdered in police cells. He was first battered in police cells in Port Elizabeth, then transported naked and almost brain dead at the back of a land rover that off-waded him in a concrete slab in the cells of Pretoria Central Prison where he died a lonely and miserable death.

This is a young man wholed who those of us who believed in and campaigned by all means necessary for the liberation of Black people from all forms of oppression and discrimination. That oppression was clearly understood to be political, economic, cultural, psychological social and otherwise. It was understood to be total and that its eradication will also have to be total.

We understood that true and genuine liberation could only come from our own efforts as oppressed people. We also understood that complete physical freedom is impossible without psychological freedom. We knew that as long as the mind of the oppressed is in the possession of the oppressor, it does not matter whether or not you have removed the chain from the neck of the slave and thrown it into the sea, the slave will always submit to the master.

Under the leadership of Bantu Biko, we worked for the creation of a free and open society in which the colour of your skin would not be of any consequence in the general conduct of your life. We of course rejected the integration of Blacks into the culture, norms and values of others. As such a one way street integration would be to the detriment of the leaned of authentic Black person we wanted to create.

Thirty to thirty five years ago those of us who were the proponents of Black Consciousness were young, and yet we are so right and wise. The contemporary conditions of Blacks vindicates our position.

The continued suffering of Blacks under a democratic dispensation they control bears testimony to this partial freedom. We are free in politics only. We vote like everybody else, but our equality ends in the voting booth. Equality goes once we leave the voting booth. Apart from voting, the totality of our oppression continues and the total solution we talked about then is not in sight.

There is still no democracy in land ownership. We were landless then, and we are still landles now. Our people still squatter and seven million of them live in Mikhukhu-that ubiquitous disgrace confronting you in every city and dorpie in this country.

Upward of three million of our people have no safe drinking water and that is why the face and image of cholera is Black.

There is almost complete dictatorship in the ownership of the economy, which is why the poor are Black and the rich are white. That's why Blacks travel by taxi, bus and train, traveling together like sardines, while most whites drive or fly. We crowd the taxi ranks while they walk the airports.

But the most overpowering oppression Blacks suffer from is psychological. This we impose upon ourselves as a result of many centuries of oppression that constantly tell us we are inferior to others. We now seem to believe and live it.

How else do you explain the fact that we do not have state power effectively to liberate ourselves in other spheres of our lives? Why don't we employ the powerful levers and resources that reside in the state to change our fortunes?

We are not talking about a political party or particular state department. We are talking about Black people as a collective because this attitude permeates throughout our society. Obviously, those who occupy positions of power in the state apparatus are more culpable than others, but that does not exonerate the rest of us.

Why is it that those who are in political and administration leadership in the state machinery are not breaking a leg to ensure that the condition of Blacks improves quicker?

Why is it that even in the mass media that we control the dominant culture is that of others? Does it perhaps suggest that we love others, and their languages, culture and music more than we love ourselves? When you watch SABC TV or listen to their radio stations, can you believe they are controlled by Blacks?

Does it look like we are in charge of hospitals when most of them are death traps, patients sleeping on the floor, the wards filthy and some nurses assaulting patients? How else would that happen if it is not a pointer to the fact that we have a low opinion of ourselves?

If Blacks are in charge of education, how come the system is so unsatisfactory that the same Blacks take their own children elsewhere to escape the conditions in the townships and villages? If the standard of education in former model C schools is what we are after, why can't we build the same standards where we are? Why are we so eager to have our children taught and socialised by others when those people would never entrust their children to us?

Why is it that whereas we are the vast majority in this country, we are the ones who are always complaining of racism, of being discriminated against by the minority, of being beaten up and murdered? Why is the white minority not complaining of racism or ill-treatment by us? This will happen because we are important. We are immobilised by the love and respect we have for others and the converse contempt we have for ourselves. We are riddled with feelings of inferiority and inadequacy.

That's why our teachers believe they cannot teach as well as the others in former models C schools. That's why some of our nurses believe a Black patient is something you can slap around. That's why those who are in state machinery would not break a leg to ensure proper services are delivered to the Black Masses. That's why taxi people do not think twice before murdering one another about routes and passengers.

Therefore, as we remember the greatness and heroism of Bantu Biko, let our consciousness of our Blackness show and our solidarity as Blacks grow. Without Black Consciousness and solidarity, we will remain a powerless and whining majority that is incapable of using its attributes and circumstances to its advantage.

We know we are as human as everybody else is. We know we are as capable and efficient as everybody else. Let our excel in everything we do and do it more for ourselves before we do it for others. Let our love for ourselves show through our service to our people. Then Steve would lie peaceful in his grave

Mosibudi Mangena
AZAPO President
09/09/2001.