The Black Consciousness Reader

By OR Books

There is a current revival of Black Consciousness, as political and student movements around the world – as well as academics and campaigners working in decolonization – reconfigure the continued struggle for socio-economic revolution. Yet the roots of Black Consciousness and its relation to other movements such as Black Lives Matter have only begun to be explored.

Black Consciousness has deep connections to the struggle against apartheid. The Black Consciousness Reader is an essential collection of history, culture, philosophy and meaning of Black Consciousness by some of the thinkers, artists and activists who developed it in order to finally bring revolution to South Africa. A contribution to the world’s Black cultural archive, it examines how the proper acknowledgement of Blackness brings a greater love, a broader sweep of heroes and a wider understanding of intellectual and political influences.

Although the legendary murdered activist Steve Biko is a strong figure within this history, the book documents many other significant international Black Consciousness personalities and focuses a predominantly African eye on Black Consciousness in politics, land, women, power, art, music and religion. Onkgopotse Tiro, Vuyelwa Mashalaba, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Assata Shakur, Marcus Garvey, Neville Alexander, Thomas Sankara, Malcolm X, Don Mattera, Keorapetse Kgositsile, W.E.B. DuBois, Walter Rodney, Mongane Wally Serote, Ready D and Zola are among the many bold minds included in this amalgam of facts, ideas and images.

• Language: English
• Publisher: OR Books
• Release date: Aug 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781682191729

Book preview

Introduction

Ishmael Mkhabela

Questions swirl and grow about the relevance of Black Consciousness in post-apartheid South Africa. But my response to those questions comes with one of my own: why do commentators, analysts, academics and activists seem confused when black students of today mobilise? What is it that inspires their radicalism and, for some, their militancy? My contribution to an answer is informed by my development as a student activist, national leader and, later, professional community organiser. And that, as it is for so many other people, begins and ends with Black Consciousness – a resistance and an interrogation of centuries-long shared experiences lived through domination. The fact is that the role, relevance and contribution of the BC philosophy is more warranted now than ever. Black Consciousness does not die. It remains vibrant even when it is apparently dormant. Its approach and method are always readily available to be used by the oppressed when the need arises to confront particular and universal challenges posed by institutionalised racism and violence. Black Consciousness emerged because black people’s social and economic status, our potential for development and advancement and our meaningful contribution to society were often, if not always, ignored, devalued and frustrated. Meanwhile, the relationships between black and white people were and are institutionally defined as that between the ‘inferior’ and the ‘superior’. In South Africa, persistent high rates of unemployment, deepening inequality, grinding poverty, an unacceptable provision of public services, the plague of untamed greed and corruption among the elite, and unaccountable and patronising political leadership is the story of post-democratic life. And that story is a horror. Deep reflection on race relationships between people in the diaspora and colonies such as South Africa raised awareness of the painful position of black people. It reminds us that the only response was a justifiable programme against the entrenched socioeconomic order. But the relatively unchanged state of that order in a post-democratic South Africa has left black people, workers and students restless, and increasingly protesters, as they seek a re-examination of what was demanded of a new Establishment’s institutions and policies. More and not less was what was expected from a black-dominated administration. It is startling that the issues which lie behind our current public discontent are primarily the same as those that have long marginalised and disadvantaged black people. While it is true that established political and economic systems do not easily submit to change, this becomes more entrenched when the authors and beneficiaries of a new system believe in, work for and use culture, history, misinformation, corruption, law and force as tools. A new system becomes a threat when any rebellious impulse is condemned as counter-revolutionary and unpatriotic, if not seditious. How is the ANC likely to deal with the growing tide of black protest against the perceived betrayal of black aspirations by its government – one that was essentially installed by the black vote? It could use covert force, not to mention its internal party structures and processes, as a ‘legitimate’ means of dealing with growing dissent. It might – as it has in the past, out of desperation – resort to a vulgar and distorted version of Black Consciousness which relies on caricature. It may be laughable but it is also dangerous when black aspirations, black image and black dignity are displayed as grave ignorance. This is the worst form of racism. But we know that genuine black resistance is costly, and rare indeed is sincere support for black initiatives towards fundamental systemic change. Why shouldn’t the subjugated be suspicious? Their lived experience, instincts and discernment are reliable guides in choosing allies and strategies. Trust and mutual recognition must be earned. South Africa is one of the most informative case studies of militant radical black social and economic action for change. Afrikaner administrations failed because they assumed they ‘knew’ black people. And black resistance was aimed at frustrating those imposed symbols, leaders and institutions, and that political and social engineering. But it was also a struggle against a clear dramatisation of power used to abuse, dehumanise and degrade. Above all, it was the students and the youth of the 1960s and 1970s who promoted, intensified and sustained an all-embracing programme to end economic and social injustice in our wounded and fragmented country, well-endowed in natural resources as it was. We were not surprised that the second-last apartheid president, PW Botha, described the war which white South Africa waged against black people as ‘a total onslaught’. The society which racism created was abnormal and inhumane, despite its righteous Christian proclamations. Black people’s initiatives against domination, dispossession and oppression had to be nuanced and sophisticated. The philosophy maintained a mission to be simple, relevant and clear, and a defensive, constructive and life-enhancing ideology emerged, nourished in the black soil by grief and blood. Black Consciousness bloomed as it bravely assaulted and ultimately defeated the ‘rationale’ of a racist ideology. How did it do that? We believed that critical dialogue, reading, exposure to real situations and carrying out corrective actions served awareness. Combative and rigorous questioning was an essential element in our peer and participatory education. A deepening of knowledge and personal agency in the advancement of self and community were at the centre of our endeavour, and Black Consciousness became a way of life. This was a deliberate process in which each individual was expected to commit, to show personal responsibility, in order to be truly free while striving to expand broader human potential. One had to be consciously self-critical and ceaselessly engage in education and radical social analysis. At the same time, to remain relevant, one had to be effective, helpful and astute towards others, whether this was in the family, a trade union, a club, a choir, a church or a political or student organisation. It has to be emphasised that we never saw ourselves as the exclusive custodians of truth and wisdom. The act of raising consciousness was properly considered a two-way process. We all benefited. We affirmed ourselves and each other as we utterly rejected the notion that black people were inferior. Our free thinking directly challenged the racially and tribally engineered plans of colonialism and apartheid. I thank my friends and close associates as well as some teachers, lawyers, health workers, youth club members, and theologians that we walked together. Our shared life stories increasingly compelled us to take drastic action for change. Hope was aroused and fear banished. Ours was a spiritual and mental awakening. That stage in my life equipped me for the long haul. Theory was particularly tested in fierce rural land disputes in areas like Mgwali near Stutterheim, Driefontein in Mpumalanga, Tshikota and Madimbo in Limpopo and Mogopa in the North West. Yet some paid the ultimate price in their fight for safe and affordable housing. Although conversations about these kinds of issues have to be approached with extreme circumspection, our political education would have been meaningless if it had remained disinterested, impartial or aloof from society. That is how I found myself living, thinking and practising Black Consciousness among people subjected to harsh lives especially on the mines, in factories, on farms, in hostels, in townships and in discarded rural areas. Conscious and motivated, we could not resist grasping every available strategic opportunity to work for change also in hospitals, places of worship, and social and sports clubs. We resisted tribal authorities and the bantustans. Racially and tribally segregated universities became hotbeds of activism, and we must remember that it was not only black students who were affected. Black staff and tutors were not sheltered from the indignities of the Group Areas Act, ‘influx’ control and the enforcement of the pass laws either. All these served to fuel discontent and nurtured a peculiarly powerful black liberation movement which was irrevocably changing minds, bodies and souls – from the inside. Black Consciousness was at first dubbed a platform for misguided black malcontents, deviants, misfits, and dropouts. We were also confused with the Black Power and civil rights movements in the United States. Others claimed we were communists, thus creating a social shield around police brutality and the state-sanctioned murders of people who included some of our role models such as Onkgopotse Abram Tiro. But it was not only the apartheid state which opposed us. The deaths of Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) leaders like Robert Sobukwe and Zeph Mothopeng were celebrated even among sections of the rest of the anti-apartheid movement who knew we, as Black Consciousness adherents, recognised and supported them. I still believe their premature deaths were intended. They were too dangerous to too many people on different sides of ourselves. Despite all attacks on us, we maintained our independence of thought and operations. We spoke openly about the shortcomings of established nationalist, capitalist or communist orders. We supported wars of independence, resistance to military conscription, resistance to increased production and to the spread of weapons for mass destruction. We supported peace movements. But while acts of heroism at that time are often credited for shaping the direction our student movements are taking today, a rigorous re-look at the history is, I believe, urgently needed. This would afford other legitimate voices being heard, and useful lessons might just be gleaned from making valuable challenges on the past with such an uncertain future ahead.

Chairperson of Steve Biko Foundation and The Johannesburg Innercity Partnership

Preface

‘BEWARE THOSE WHO THINK liberation comes/ through noisy discussion:/ we must prepare ourselves,’ wrote Karen Press in her 1990 poem ‘Priorities’. A signal to the new nation, the words circle, then wrap themselves around and hoist up the meaning of Black Consciousness. In 1990, when South Africa started to be free with liberation movements unbanned and the prospect of negotiations between black people and the white oppressors, ‘priorities’ were everything. What were the priorities of Black Consciousness? Through love, it said black people had to redefine their entire outlook. Steve Biko said it was ‘the realisation of the need to rally together around the cause of oppression, to rid ourselves of the shackles that bind us to perpetual servitude.

‘It is a manifestation of a new realisation that by seeking to run away from themselves and to emulate the white man, blacks are insulting the intelligence of whoever created them black.

‘Black Consciousness therefore takes cognisance of the deliberateness of God’s plan in creating black people black. It seeks to infuse the black community with a newfound pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life.’

So much politics has happened since Biko spoke those words in the 1970s. Indeed, South Africans are free inasmuch as apartheid is over. The laws have changed to lay down the groundsheet of equality and we have had four black presidents. But have we achieved Black Consciousness – an internal transformation – and do we know the history sufficiently to understand why that matters more than a political solution in order to reach radical and intrinsic liberation?

In this book, we examine the history, culture, philosophy and meaning of Black Consciousness through the voices, art, religion, music, writing, politics, solidarity and dreams of some of those who developed it.

Since it is not an ideology like its enemy, capitalism, but a state of mind, the way its history is approached will be subjective – merely, as Karen Press said, a way to prepare ourselves. Many others created it, many more are still moving its shining particles in patterns in the sand.

The revolution is still unfolding, and it is beautiful and it is black.

Baldwin Ndaba

Therese Owen

Masego Panyane

Rabbie Serumula

Janet Smith

Paballo Thekiso

Johannesburg, 2017

[Biko, 1978: 53]

The history: The Black Consciousness timeline