Biko Quotes

Steve Biko’s Predecessors

“Any thinking African in this country is driven continuously to a conflict between his conscience and the law. / But this government has set the scene for violence by relying exclusively on violence with which to answer our people and their demands. We have been conditioned to our attitudes by history which is not of our making.” (22) by Nelson Mandela

“Government violence can only breed counterviolence. Ultimately, if there is no dawning of sanity on the part of the government the dispute between the government and my people will be settled by force.”(23) by Nelson Mandela

“I hate the racial arrogance which decrees that the good things of life shall be retained as the exclusive right of a minority of the population, which reduces the majority of the population to a position of subservience and inferiority, and maintains them as voteless chattels to work where they are told and behave as they are told by the ruling minority.” (23) by Nelson Mandela

The Rise of Black Consciousness

“The ideas behind Black Consciousness was to break away almost entirely from past black attitudes to the liberation struggle and to set a new style of self-reliance and dignity for blacks as a psychological attitude leading to new initiatives. From this philosophy came many black organizations, which sprang from the Black Consciousness movement, mainly the Black People’s Convention (BPC) and the all-black South African Students’ Association (SASO). Biko and his associates has to get blacks to break away from the whites in multiracial organizations such as the National Union of South African Students.” (30) by Donald Woods

“The major problem facing NUSAS as a nonracial organization existing in a society based on racism is that, while preaching the ideal of nonracism, the members of the orgaization are unable to live out their ideals. While it is still possible for white and black students to hold joint congresses and seminars , and to meet occasionally at social events, they live in different worlds.” (31) by Clive Nettleton of NUSAS

“The South African population consists of more than 25 million people. Of these only about 5 million are white. Yet all political and economic power is in the hands of this white minority. They have a right to vote for, and to be voted on to, all effective legislative bodies. They monopolize all key positions and centers of power and preferred occupations.” (33) by Barney Pityana, Steve Biko’s chief lieutenant in the SASO movement.

“South Africa uniquely demonstrates that a powerful minority will perpetuate social indignities even on the labor force of vigorously expanding economy. Civic status is determined at birth and for life by color. Whether he is a wage earner, a businessman, an intellectual or a chief, no black can be admitted to the national Parliament.” (34) by Barney Pityana

“Black Consciousness can therefore be seen as a stage preceding any invasion, any abolition of the ego by desire: The first step, therefore, is to make the black man see himself, to pump life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth. This is what we mean by an inward-looking process.” (34) by Barney Pityana

“I am no a potentiality of something. I am wholly what I am. I do ont have to look for the universal. No probability has any place inside me. My Negro consciousness does not hold itself out as black. It IS. It is its own follower. This is all that we blacks are after. TO BE. We believe that we are quite efficient in handling our goals and aspirations as a people centered anywhere else but in US. This, therefore, necessitates a self-examination and a rediscovery of ourselves. Blacks can no longer afford to be led and dominated by nonblacks.”(34) by Franz Fanon

I Write What I Like

"The blacks are tired of standing at the touchlines to witness a game that they should be playing. They want to do things for themselves and all by themselves." Letter to SRC Presidents, I Write What I Like, 1978. (15)

"Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time. Its essence is the realisation by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression - the blackness of their skin - and to operate as a group to rid themselves of the shackles that bind them to perpetual servitude." The Quest for a True Humanity, I Write What I Like, 1978.

"We do not want to be reminded that it is we, the indigenous people, who are poor and exploited in the land of our birth. These are concepts which the Black Consciousness approach wishes to eradicate from the black man's mind before our society is driven to chaos by irresponsible people from Coca-cola and hamburger cultural backgrounds." The Quest for a True Humanity, I Write What I Like, 1978.

“You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway." On Death, I Write What I Like, 1978"

"It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realise that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. The first step therefore is to make the black man come to himself; to pump back life into his empty shell; to infuse him with pride and dignity, to remind him of his complicity in the crime of allowing himself to be misused and therefore letting evil reign supreme in the country of his birth." We Blacks, I Write What I Like, 1978.

“His heart yearns for the comfort of white society and makes him blame himself for not having been ‘educated’ enough to warrant such luxury. Celebrated achievement by whites in the field of science – which he understands hazily – serve to make him rather convinced of the futility of resistance and to throw away any hopes that change may ever come. All in all the black man has become a shell, a shadow of a man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity”. We Blacks, I Write What I Like, 1978 (28-29).

“A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.” We Blacks, I Write What I Like, 1978 (29) "Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being." The Definition of Black Consciousness, I Write What I Like, 1978.