Tafelberg Short: I remember Steve Biko. Xolela Mangcu
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our township to visit the Biko family, and as children we were fascinated by the idea of whites coming to the township. This was particularly so with the Woods family, whose little children played ball with us while their parents sat in the house with the adults.
The Right Reverend Desmond Tutu delivered the sermon and former Robben Islander Fikile Bam, later judge president of the Land Claims Court, made a not-so-veiled threat that “we are not helpless”. Other speakers on the dais included representatives of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), the South West Africa National Union (SWANU) and foreign diplomats. The prominent medical doctor and community activist Nthato Motlana also gave a rousing speech.
Steve’s coffin was taken to the cemetery – which has since been renamed the Steve Biko Garden of Remembrance – on an ox-drawn cart. This was a deliberate break with the tradition of fancy limousines. The coffin had a fist in the form of a black power salute on it, and was engraved with the words One Azania, One Nation. Everyone walked to the graveyard, led by dashiki-wearing (a dashiki is a bright, loose, coloured shirt) militants such as the president of the Black People’s Convention, Hlaku Rachidi.
I had always suspected that Steve Biko was an important figure in the world. I kept a secret makeshift album made up mostly of pictures from newspaper cuttings, many of which featured his numerous courthouse appearances. I went along with him to some of the community projects he was running, including the famous Zanempilo Health Clinic he ran with Mamphela Ramphele. Black doctors were rare in those days, and black female doctors even rarer. As children we were not allowed into the clinic but we peeped through keyholes and windows nonetheless. Sometimes we would go down to the township entrance to wait for Steve to drive back from his offices which, to our puzzlement, were also in town. The Black Community Programmes, for which he was working, was renting backroom offices at the Anglican Church on Leopoldt Street in the “white” town. At other times we would spend the afternoon sitting in front of the church on Leopoldt Street watching the comings and goings of the men and women in black and gold dashikis. Among them were Peter Jones, Malusi Mpumlwana, Thoko Mpumlwana (nee Mbanjwa), Mzwandile Mbilini, Mamphela Ramphele, Thenjiwe Mthintso, Kenny Rachidi, Mapetla Mohapi, Nohle Mohapi, Thami Zani, Mxolisi Mvovo and his wife Nobandile (Steve’s younger sister). There was a sense of fearlessness and urgency among them, and they had a deep connection with the community. Steve, in particular, was always surrounded by a group of Ginsberg youngsters who called themselves the Cubans and who in turn called him Castro. This was in apparent reference to both his political and physical stature. He was a big man in all senses of the word.
No one seemed more fearless to me than Mzwandile Mbilini, who lived in the shebeen directly opposite my home. The shebeen was run by his cousin, Skhweyi Mbilini, who was a childhood friend of Steve’s. There was drama whenever the security police came to arrest Mzwandile. He was always dressed in military fatigues and would defiantly raise his clenched fist in the air before they drove him away. Zolani Mtshotshisa, who was a youth activist in the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in the 1970s before crossing over to the ANC – as many BCM youth would later do after going into exile in 1976 – quotes how Mzwandile would describe those heady days in our township: “I had Jones on my left and Biko on my right, and we had the country on our shoulders.”
The last time I remember seeing Steve was from the vantage point of my home’s verandah. As usual, he was going to meet up with his friends at the Mbilini shebeen opposite our home, dressed in his brown suede jacket. Maybe he had other jackets but that is the only one he ever seemed to wear. He was not a man known for his sartorial elegance, quite the opposite. In fact, among the many nicknames he picked up as a child, two stand out – Goofy and Xwaku-Xwaku – the latter a reference to his unkempt manner.
I do not recall ever seeing Stephen Bantu Biko again.
[1] Jimmy Kruger’s statement in Millard Arnold (ed.) (1979). The Testimony of Steve Biko (London: Maurice Temple Smith Publishers), 283.
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