The repression of Scott Davis by the fascist Corbett regime and subsequently the fascist players in the Obama Administration is increasingly becoming very chillingly similar to what happened to Steve Biko in South Africa. {See the portion of Steve Bikos biography between the brackets, which most closely describes these similarites described above.} Government in the United States is physically prepared to do to Scott Davis and other independent thinkers exactly what the South African government did to Steve Biko from August 18, 1977 to September 11, 1977, and in the days leading up to that suppression unto death. . Steve Biko was a victim of, and spoke out against the injustices of, South African racial apartheid. . Scott Davis is a victim of, and spoke out against the injustices of, American age apartheid. . Read about Steve Biko here, in this Wikipedia article: ................................................................................... Stephen Bantu Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. {A student leader}, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. {While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower} black people, and he was famous for his slogan black is beautiful, which he described as meaning: man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being. Even though Biko was never a member of ANC, ANC has included him in the pantheon of struggle heroes, going as far as using his image for campaign posters in South Africas first non-racial elections in 1994. Early life Biko was born to parents Mzingayi Mathew and Alice Mamcete Biko in King Williams Town, in the present-day Eastern Cape province of South Africa. As a child, he attended Brownlee Primary School and Charles Morgan Higher Primary School. He was sent to Lovedale High School in 1964, a prestigious boarding school in Alice, Eastern Cape. During the apartheid era, with no freedom of association protection for non-white South Africans, Biko was expelled from Lovedale for his political views. After being expelled, he then attended and later graduated from St. Francis College, a Roman Catholic institution in Mariannhill, Natal. He studied to be a doctor at the University of Natal Medical School. Biko was a Xhosa. In addition to Xhosa, he spoke fluent English and fairly fluent Afrikaans. In the early 1970s Biko became a key figure in The Durban Moment. In 1972 he was expelled from the University of Natal because of his political activities. . {He was banned by the apartheid regime in February 1973, meaning that he was not allowed to speak to more than one person at a time nor to speak in public, was restricted to the King Williams Town magisterial district, and could not write publicly or speak with the media. It was also forbidden to quote anything he said, including speeches or simple conversations.} {When Biko was banned, his movement within the country was restricted to the Eastern Cape, where he was born. After returning there, he formed a number of grassroots organizations....} {In spite of the repression of the apartheid government, Biko and the BCM played a significant role in organizing the protests} which culminated in the Soweto Uprising of 16 June 1976. In the aftermath of the uprising, which was crushed by a heavily armed police shooting of schoolchildren who were protesting, the authorities began to target Biko further. Death and aftermath On 18 August 1977, Biko was arrested at a police roadblock under the Terrorism Act No 83 of 1967 and interrogated by officers of the Port Elizabeth security police. The interrogation lasted twenty-two hours and included torture and beatings resulting in a coma. He suffered a major head injury while in police custody at the Walmer Police Station, in a suburb of Port Elizabeth, and was chained to a window grille for a day. On 11 September 1977, police loaded him in the back of a Land Rover, naked and restrained in manacles, and began the 1100 km drive to Pretoria to take him to a prison with hospital facilities. He was nearly dead owing to the previous injuries. He died shortly after arrival at the Pretoria prison, on 12 September. The police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike, but an autopsy revealed multiple bruises and abrasions and that he ultimately succumbed to a brain hemorrhage from the massive injuries to the head, which many saw as strong evidence that he had been brutally clubbed by his captors. Then Donald Woods, a journalist, editor and close friend of Bikos, along with Helen Zille, later leader of the Democratic Alliance political party, exposed the truth behind Bikos death. Because of his high profile, news of Bikos death spread quickly, opening many eyes around the world to the brutality of the apartheid regime. His funeral was attended by over 10,000 people, including numerous ambassadors and other diplomats from the United States and Western Europe. The liberal white South African journalist Donald Woods, a personal friend of Biko, photographed his injuries in the morgue. Woods was later forced to flee South Africa for England. Donald Woods later campaigned against apartheid and further publicized Bikos life and death, writing many newspaper articles and authoring the book, Biko, which was later turned into the film Cry Freedom. Speaking at a National Party conference following the news of Bikos death then–minister of police, Jimmy Kruger said, I am not glad and I am not sorry about Mr. Biko. It leaves me cold (Dit laat my koud). I can say nothing to you ... Any person who dies ... I shall also be sorry if I die. After a 15-day inquest in 1978, a magistrate judge found there was not enough evidence to charge the officers with murder because there were no eyewitnesses. On 2 February 1978, based on the evidence given at the inquest, the attorney general of the Eastern Cape stated he would not prosecute. On 28 July 1979, the attorney for Bikos family announced that the South African government would pay them $78,000 in compensation for Bikos death. On 7 October 2003, the South African justice ministry announced that the five policemen accused of killing Biko would not be prosecuted because the time limit for prosecution had elapsed and because of insufficient evidence. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was created following the end of minority rule and the apartheid system, reported that five former members of the South African security forces who had admitted to killing Biko were applying for amnesty. Their application was rejected in 1999. {A year after his death, some of his writings were collected and released under the title I Write What I Like.} Bikos relevance in the present In the present post-Apartheid South Africa, Biko is now revered across the political spectrum despite obvious ideological differences. Many of these people see Bikos philosophy as irrelevant after 1994. However, in 2004, he was voted 13th in the SABC3s Great South Africans. However, many present-day social movements, activists, and academics continue to stress the relevance of Bikos black consciousness. This includes a strong critique of voting by academic Andile Mngxitama who has said that if Biko were alive today, he would not be supporting any political party, would not even vote, but would be marching with the social movements against government. Tributes Biko is buried in King William Town, Eastern Cape Province in the town cemetery near the railroad tracks. Apart from Donald Woods book called Biko, his name has been honored at several universities. Locally, the main Student Union buildings of the University of Cape Town are named in his honor and each year a commemorative Steve Biko lecture, open to all students, is delivered on the anniversary of his death. Internationally, the University of Manchesters student union, the Steve Biko Building, on the Oxford road campus, is named in his honor. Ruskin College, Oxford has a Biko House student accommodation. The bar at the University of Bradford was named after Biko until its closure in 2005. Numerous other venues in Students Unions around the United Kingdom also bear his name. The Santa Barbara Student Housing Cooperative has a house named after Steve Biko, themed to provide a safe, respectful space for people of color. A street in Hounslow, West London, is named Steve Biko Way. At the University of California, Santa Cruz, there is a section of dormitories named Biko House located in the Oakes College Multicultural Theme Housing. The Steve Biko Institute was founded in Salvador, Brazil to support the education and pride of black Brazilians. The Pretoria Academic Hospital was renamed the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in 2008. Durban University of Technology has acknowledged Steve Biko’s contribution to South African Society by naming its largest campus after him. A bronze bust of Steve Biko was unveiled in Freedom Square on this campus as a tribute to him. Peter Gabriel and the Hip hop group A Tribe Called Quest each named a song after him in his honor.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:50:44 +0000
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