Eishhh, le Black Consciousness Bizznis!

On his own, therefore, the black man wishes to explore his surroundings, and test his possibilities. In other words to make his freedom real by whatever means he deems fit.

At the heart of this kind of thinking is the realization by blacks that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. If one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude, but if one’s mind is so manipulated and controlled by the oppressor as to make the oppressed believe that he is a liability to the white man, then there will be nothing the oppressed can do to scare his powerful masters.

Hence thinking along lines of Black Consciousness makes the black man see himself as a being complete in himself. It makes him less dependent and more free to express his manhood. At the end of it all he cannot tolerate attempts by anybody to dwarf the significance of his manhood (Biko, I Write What I Like).

“What is the mission of Black Consciousness?” The question is often posed to me and friends in BCC. I will, once again, endeavor to wrestle with the subject, hoping that your comments will further bring clarity to the issue.

Black Consciousness has, historically, been a project advanced by the black being with a mission of freeing herself from a perpetual state of dependency that the white supremacist powers had thrust her.

At the time of Biko, as in now, the black person had so internalized racist representations of herself that she did not imagine herself a subject in history, capable, by herself, of forming and shaping historical processes and developments. The ideology of white supremacy had by then reached far and wide; penetrated the nooks and crannies of the black world, so that even those who were struggling for freedom saw a solution to their problems as essentially emanating from the west and the white thinkers and activist among them. Thus, even within the progressive circles, western ideas were uncritically accepted as powerful sources of reference and white people were easily elevated to leadership positions.

On the other hand, white South Africans, having been socialized for domination, were forever inclined to draft the agenda, steer courses of action, propose solutions and, ultimately wrest real power within the progressive multiracial circles.

Biko rightly foresaw the possibility of a situation where a black person enters the rendezvous of political victory (to borrow from Aime Cesaire) as a dependant; a child, forever requiring guidance and mentorship rather than a subject in her own right; that is, a matured, fully responsible person, capable of driving historical processes, especially as they affect her. He foresaw a situation where, at the point of victory, the black person remained nothing more than a beggar; wholly dependent on others for her welfare; those whose resources, whose ideas and whose leadership were pivotal, in the first instance, for her very liberation. And he cried out loud that in order for a black person to experience substantive freedom, she will first have to become a subject; take full responsibility for her liberation from white domination.

For Biko; how a black person thought of herself in the context of struggle; whether she experienced herself as an object or subject, whether she experienced herself as a child to be liberated or an adult who is completely responsible for her liberation; will determine the quality of a person she becomes at the rendezvous of victory. Thus his insistence that, in the struggle to overthrow the racist regime, black people should reject simplistic solutions, in the form of blue prints from the west, and should, on their own, take initiative and assume full responsibility for their choices, decisions, actions and victories. They should exploit their capacities, test their potentialities and explore their possibilities. They should dare exercise their imagination and apply their collective strength to its maximum.

To be sure, taking initiative and accepting full responsibility for one’s choices, decisions and actions in the imagination and making of history is a quality that a black person had been systematically stripped off by centuries of white domination.

To Biko, if a black person was to sustain her freedom in the future; if she was to be free from a state of dependency that has historically defined her relations with white society; then she will have to become a subject by taking initiative, and accepting full responsibility for her life, her freedom and her destiny. True freedom can only be achieved by a subject; a fully matured person who takes complete responsibility for her destiny.

Biko’s philosophy is succinctly captured by the words of a radical Brazilian educator when he said that one can not enter the struggle as an object to later become a subject . Thus to Biko, as important as political freedom (the freedom accorded by rights) is, it cannot in and of itself, restore the black person her subject status, essential for her humanity, her dignity and her pride. If a black person is not a subject within the context of struggle; if she does not see herself as a fully matured person, rather than a perpetual dependant; then a black person will also remain a child at the rendezvous of political victory, wholly and perpetually dependent on others for her wellness, growth and development. Ultimately, failure to become a subject in the struggle for freedom, will result in the achievement of a form of freedom; where a black person is still a dependant; a child, and the white other is still completely responsible for her wellness, growth and development. To Biko, this type of freedom is nothing but an illusion of freedom. Hence the slogan; “black man you are on your own.”

The call for collective solitude in the quest for freedom is meant to inspire a black person to assume full responsibility for her freedom; and, finally, to enable her to enter the rendezvous of victory as a subject, a person, who realizes that African history, its success or its demise, lies in her very own hands.

It is important to realize that Biko was engaging attitudes and mentalities that are steeped in a long history of colonial domination. The construction of a black identity as a child identity at best and nature at worst (or a being who has just evolved from a state of nature), can be traced back to the early days of colonialism. It can be traced back to notions of Africa held by eminent European thinkers who took it upon themselves to inform the western public about the nature of an African. To these thinkers, the native of Africa whose color could not be separated from the soil of the land and the lion of the land was seen as, either an extension of nature or a child in her mindset and behavior, a being that has not realized the status of maturity, of adulthood, of full humanness. She was there to be conquered, tamed, controlled and used for ends of progress and civilization.

The French philosopher Voltaire set the general tone of Enlightenment attitudes to Africans. Although derogatory remarks may be found in most of his works, his short essay The Negro sums up his position. He tells his readers:

The NEGRO race is a species of men as different from ours as the breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds ... if their understanding is not of a different nature from ours, it is at least greatly inferior. They are not capable of any great application of… our philosophy.

David Hume expressed similar views when he wrote:

I suspect that Negroes ... be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white...

To Rousseau, the difference between the African, who he refers to as a savage and the westerner lies in the fact that the African is still a part of nature, a species whose being is, primarily governed by instinct, whilst the westerner has achieved civilization, a state of thought, far removed from nature:

Solitary, indolent, and perpetually accompanied by danger, the savage cannot but be fond of sleep; his sleep too must be light, like that of the animals ... Such in general is the animal condition, and such, according to travelers, is that of most savage nations …

As indicated earlier, animality features strongly in the nature of an African, it governs her very beingness:

Savage man … must accordingly begin with purely animal functions ... being destitute of every species of intelligence … his desires never go beyond his physical wants … food, a female, and sleep …

Thus, for Rousseau, a life of the mind is far removed from the essentially instinct driven African. He states:

... everything seems removed from savage man … he is so far from having the knowledge which is needful to make him want more, that he can have neither foresight nor curiosity ... he has not understanding enough to wonder at the great miracles; nor is it in his mind that we can expect to find that philosophy man needs ...

The imagination, which causes such ravages among us, never speaks to the heart of savages, who quietly await the impulses of nature, yield to them involuntarily, with more pleasure and ardor, and, their wants once satisfied, loose the desire ... the Caribbeans, who have at yet least of all deviated from the state of nature …

The philosopher Kant might sound more cautious in his viewpoint. However, he still dares to construct a very racist hierarchy of talents:

Humanity exists in its greatest perfection in the white race. The yellow Indians have a smaller amount of talent. The Negroes are lower, and the lowest are a part of the American peoples.

Hegel comes out as the most scathing of the great colonial western thinkers. Enjoy him!

The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality-all that we call feeling-if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character.

Africa is, to him, a hopeless case that has long forfeited an opportunity for the redemption.

At this point we leave Africa not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it-that is in its northern part-belong to the Asiatic or European World.

Wholly convinced by facts about Africa established by his intellectual superiors, the average, even marginal European, for the first time, felt himself Lord over “nature.” He felt he would, finally test his potentialities, by exercising control over the land of Africa, the beast of Africa and the native of Africa. He would tame the strength of Africa and make it bow before him.

In this state; this tamed condition, Africa would be used to bolster his inferiority complex, which was, in the first instance, the source of his drive for domination. But let it also be said that in this tamed state; Africa would be used to satisfy his whims and fancies; his characteristic propensity for indulgence.

To be sure, what the colonizer saw in Africa was nothing but a wish fulfillment. He had long realized that if he were to indulge in the colony, the native would have to become nothing but an extension of nature in her very essence and an object to be conquered and tamed. Thus innumerable campaigns, policies and measures were undertaken to construct the native as nature, as an object and as a child.

The native’s very humanness, her inclination to welcome strangers was constructed as an animal’s instinct for generosity. Her stylishly revealing garment was made comparable to the nakedness of the land and the beast. Her physical strength was the sheer strength of the wild beast. Her respect for nature was constructed as evidence for a primitive instinct connecting animals to nature.

The native could never redeem herself as a fully matured person in the sight of the European coloniser. Thus, if nature was there as an object, for the satisfaction of the European’s inexhaustible desire, then the native was also there, implicated as an object, for the indulgence of the colonialist and settlers. If it was justifiable to conquer, dominate and control nature, for scientific reasons, then it was justifiable to conquer, control and use the native for such questionable ends. If it was justifiable to pursue the realization of one self by dominating nature, then it was justifiable to dominate the native in the name of self actualisation. If it was justifiable to exploit nature for commercial ends, then it was justifiable to exploit the native in the name of commerce.

The South African political economy of Biko’s time was a crude embodiment of these racist ideas. It was a culmination of an interplay of centuries of political, historical, ideological and economic forces aimed at creating master-slave relationships between white people and black people. Ideology, in particular, was a force that the colonial and Apartheid white supremacist powers utilized to win the willing consent of the black oppressed.

Through ideology, couched as civilization and also as The Word of God, backed by political, economic and military forces, a black person was made to accept the status of a perpetual childhood imposed on her. She was made to see a white person as a natural parent, to whom she owes her very freedom. It was this childhood status; this dependency mentality that Biko, through the Black Consciousness project, had set out to destroy.

The emphasis that the black consciousness project had placed on the attainment of a subject status marked by qualities such as courage, responsibility, imagination, originality, and creativity on the part of a black person in the quest for freedom was, essentially, aimed at killing a child like mentality of dependancy in a black person instilled and entrenched by centuries of white domination.

Now the question is; to what extent has a black person achieved true emancipation in Africa? To what extent has she become free of a dependency mentality, disposition and orientation that, centuries of white supremacy has plunged her?


Ghosts of the past still haunt South Africa but the spirit of Biko's writings and life invoke a sense of hope and pride. Savor this young man's work and allow yourself to be guided by his spirit.