Quotes & Sayings About Biko

My grandfather was a member of Parliament for 40 years. Obviously we're talking here South Africa, a whites only parliament. I grew up in a family that was very involved with the legal battles against apartheid - the great treason trials in the 1950s and early '60s, and later with the legal resources center that my mother founded. My father was involved with a number of very prominent cases that had political aspects to them, whether it was the inquest into the Sharpeville Massacre, the death of Steve Biko, or one of the trials of Nelson Mandela. — William Kentridge

Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression. — Steve Biko

Sometimes when you're the good guy, you're sort of trapped. "Oh, he can't say that." And even when you're playing a real person like a Steven Biko, you're sort of stuck within those confines. So yeah, bad guys do have more fun. — Denzel Washington

To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced. — Steven Biko

It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die — Steve Biko

We are experiencing new problems every day and whatever we do adds to the richness of our cultural heritage as long as it has man as its centre — Steven Biko

I write what I like — Steve Biko

When you say 'Black is beautiful' you are saying, 'Man you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being'. — Steven Biko

In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face. — Steven Biko

Double consciousness is knowing the particularity of the white world in the face of its enforced claim to universality. Double consciousness is knowing the history offered up to black people - its many interpretations and echoes of white superiority and black inferiority, of white heroism and black cowardice, and even the temporal and geographical location of history's beginning as a step off of the African continent - is a falsehood that blacks are forced to treat as truth in so many countless ways. Double consciousness, in other words, is knowing a lie while living its contradiction. — Steve Biko

WOMEN must be at the forefront of nation-building to bring the South African citizenry together and, therefore, develop a whole new ethos of human co-existence — Steven Biko

Tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and accept that it alone is entitled to privilege. — Steven Biko

If one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude. — Steven Biko

Black man, you are on your own. — Steven Biko

I'm going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I'm not going to be what you want me to be. — Steven Biko

The wealth of the country must eventually be enjoyed by people of the country — Steven Biko

all is dead
but for the mosquitoes
singing
their blood song — Thabo Jijana

We must realise that prophetic cry of black students: Black man you are on your own! — Steven Biko

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. — Nelson Mandela

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude. — Steven Biko

Sure there are a few good whites just as much as there are a few bad Blacks. However what we are concerned here with is group attitudes and group politics. The exception does not make a lie or the rule - it merely substantiates it. — Steven Biko

In all fields black consciousness seeks to talk to the black man in a language that is his own — Steven Biko

You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway. — Steven Biko

At the time of his death, Biko had a wife and three children for which he left a letter that stated in one part: I've devoted my life to see equality for blacks, and at the same time, I've denied the needs of my family. Please understand that I take these actions, not out of selfishness or arrogance, but to preserve a South Africa worth living in for blacks and whites. — Steve Biko

Youth. Murder (Biko). Slavery. Freedom. We are all creatures of ignorance at the end of the day. The natural order of the hierarchy of life states that we are creatures. Creatures of habit whether it is normal (following the status quo and all of that jazz). Creatures of marching orders and almost sanitary routine. Creatures of the abnormal. Our leaders are coldly obliterating the past. It is impossible to destroy nations, tribes, individuals without their permission. Many lessons learned from the past come to life like the connect the dots game of a child in a museum. We are swift to forget history. Bury the past like yesterday's newspaper, our infirm and elderly in nursing homes. — Abigail George

Instead of involving themselves in an all-out attempt to stamp out racism from their white society, liberals waste a lot of time trying to prove to as many blacks as they can find that they are liberal. — Steve Biko

The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit. — Steven Biko

A community is easily divide when their perception of the same thing is different — Steven Biko

I think the central theme about black society is that it has got elements of a defeated society — Steven Biko

The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity. — Steven Biko

The oneness of community for instance is at the heart of our culture. — Steven Biko

War and peace. There are blurred lines in the realities of both. A separation anxiety as the paradigm shifts from the air that a sniper wears on his face (real life, entertainment for the masses or the propaganda machine you decide), to the blueprint of an assassination in a driveway (Chris Hani lying in a pool of his own blood). You know that we cannot eat stones but we can burn, butcher, necklace, murder, forcibly remove and displace entire families, races of different faiths in the name of apartheid. Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Chris Hani instruments of change, war, tolerance or peace. The Romantics got it right before anyone else did. Truth is beauty. The truth is South Africa is not cool anymore. — Abigail George

This is white man's integration, an integration based on exploitative values — Steven Biko

The enemy came to steal,kill and destroy our hero Steve Biko. He was chosen by God and no one can deny that. — Euginia Herlihy

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. — Steven Biko

The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country. — Steven Biko

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. — Steven Biko

We believe it is the duty of the vanguard political movement which brings change to educate people's outlook — Steven Biko

The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of the liberal ideology must be cracked because it makes people believe that something is being achieved when in reality the artificially integrated circles are a soporfic to the blacks while salving the consciences of the few guilt-stricken whites. — Steven Biko

If you want to say something radical, you should dress conservative. — Steven Biko

I would like to remind the black ministry, and indeed all black people, that God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people's problems on earth. — Steve Biko

The greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. — Steve Biko

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. — Steven Biko

Change the way people think and things will never be the same — Steven Biko

Black Consciousness therefore takes cognizance of the deliberateness of God's plan in creating Black people black. — Steven Biko

The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face. — Steven Biko

I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people. — Steven Biko

The black man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity. — Steven Biko

A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine. — Steven Biko

It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realize that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality. — Steven Biko

Apartheid - both petty and grand - is obviously evil — Steven Biko

The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior. — Steve Biko

We regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God to make us a community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life. Hence in all we do we always place man first and hence all our action is usually joint community oriented action rather than the individualism.. — Steven Biko

What Black Consciousness seeks to do is to produce real black people who do not regard themselves as appendages to white society. We do not need to apologise for this because it is true that the white systems have produced through the world a number of people who are not aware that they too are people. — Steve Biko

We have set out on a quest for true humanity, and somewhere on the distant horizon we can see the glittering prize. Let us march forth with courage and determination, drawing strength from our common plight and our brotherhood [and sisterhood]. In time we shall be in a position to bestow upon South Africa the greatest gift possible
a more human face — Steven Biko

The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion. — Steven Biko

A Black man should be more independent and depend on himself for his freedom and not to take it for granted that someone would lead him to it. 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. — Steven Biko

Any warning normally implies, even if it is tacit, that there should be changes — Steven Biko

A game at which the liberals have become masters is that of deliberate evasiveness. The question often comes up 'what can you do?'. If you ask him to do something like stopping to use segregated facilities or dropping out of varsity to work at menial jobs like all blacks or defying and denouncing all provisions that make him privileged, you always get the answer - 'but that's unrealistic!' While this may be true, it only serves to illustrate the fact that mo matter what a white man does, the colour of his skin - his passport to privilege- will always put him miles ahead of the black men. Thus in the ultimate analysis, no white person can escape being part of the oppressor camp. — Steve Biko

The essence of politics is to direct oneself to the group which wields power — Steven Biko

Part of the approach envisaged in bringing about Black Consciousness has to be directed to the past, to seek to rewrite the history of the black man and to produce in it the heroes who form the core of the African background — Steven Biko

Black Consciousness seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life. — Steven Biko

We believe in the inherent goodness of man. — Steven Biko