This week’s events induced our emotions as we remembered our martyr, Steve Bantu Biko, who was brutally killed by the racist apartheid government on September 12, 1977. Biko is not only the founding leader of the South African Student Organisation (SASO) but was also elected as its honorary president.
Some 43 years since his brutal killing, black people have been grappling to identify leaders with suitable leadership traits to lead them to greater heights.
Biko himself, with the assistance of his contemporaries, was able to fill the leadership void unceremoniously left by the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and African National Congress (ANC).
The two oldest liberation organisations were summarily banned after the Anti-Pass Campaign led by Robert Sobukwe’s PAC, which culminated in the bloody massacre of more 69 people in Sharpeville.
Political activism among black communities became a thing of the past, and was criminalised.
Biko’s teachings will remain relevant for, as long as the material conditions of the majority of black people remained unchanged, and black people are still subjected to all forms of oppression in the land of their birth.
We must ask, what has the ANC done to change the livelihoods of the black majority in this country? Is the ANC not enabling racism to take place?
We all accept that the original sin which was committed in 1652 dispossessed land from the owners and that has not been addressed.
Condemning white supremacy should not be equated with hatred against white people.
We are against a system, not a race.
Kenneth Mokgatlhe is a One South Africa activist.
* The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
The Star