Yesterday’s heroes speak to today’s world

Simphiwe Dana wrote:

THERE had been fleeting references to Steve Bantu Biko while I was growing up, but nothing concrete.
I was born three years after his death. I was not one of the lucky ones who grew up with a politicised family member or teacher. It was not a place for a person with the kinds of ideals that Biko had. It was a place where the Bantu education system had worked.

When I moved to Jozi, my housemate knew where there was live poetry. The minute I stepped into that space, my life changed. Here, everything was music to me, like I had grown up knowing music to be.

And I was properly introduced to Biko for the first time. Not from a book but from the people who had been influenced by his teachings.

Some want to water down the brilliance of his mind by saying that he just read other African writers in the diaspora and was mouthing their words. For me it seemed that at some point in his life he came to the same conclusion before he was exposed to other writers. He was spot-on with his understanding of how our world should work.

Finding the little messages he left behind saved me. For me he is the embodiment of the modern African.

They say he worked hard and pushed his people to work hard. They say he went beyond words and implemented structures to help and empower his people. They say he would not allow anyone to look down on him or beat him up unless he was tied up.

They say he acted the fool at the end of the day to make people ease up and laugh their problems away even for a moment. They say he was a good listener and thus he was wise. He said life was not so important if it was not free. This is why he risked and lost his in his quest for freedom.

Who are we? What makes up our belief of who we are? Is it the truth or is there another truth we are not aware of? ­Today, most people do not seem to care as long as their bread-and-butter issues are taken care of.

Those who do will probably die lonely, poor and miserable. Everyone will be bored by their silly politics and not realise the effect that their ignorance has on our progress and respect from nations.

The difference between the times of Biko and our times is that people then rallied around a cause that was central to their survival. They had a common passion that united them, a dream that surpassed their selfish individual needs. The dream to be free one day. Today, people believe we are free and don’t need a cause to rally around.

So what is freedom? What state of mind is the acquisition of freedom supposed to result in and how do we achieve it? Is freedom only about a state of mind, of being?

Everyone wants to turn us into saints who forgave and embraced with open arms. Yet they read the stories daily of the violence we face.

We celebrate June 16 and do not see the significance of the person who attended the celebrations being the same one who later sneaks into your home, steals from you and kills you. Surely something is crying to be fixed.

Who are we? What makes up our belief of who we are? Is it the truth or is there another truth we are not aware of?

What we possess as Africans is our amazing history. It sounds clichéd but we need to know where we have been so we can have a better idea of where we should be and how to get there.
We need to have heroes from way back then so they can now make sense to us.

There is a quote from Biko that we need to remember: “The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look, but the greatest gift still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face.”

The article was first published with the City Press (19/08/07). Dana’s second ­album, The One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street, won four Sama awards this year.