The 25th anniversary of the death of Steve Bantu Biko, the Black Consciousness leader, was marked with the cleansing of a Port Elizabeth police cell where he was detained prior to his death, SABC television news reported on Sunday.
Biko died at the hands of apartheid security police on September 12, 1977.
Biko was brought to the Port Elizabeth police cells in August 1977. He was always kept in chains, and slept in urine-soaked blankets, often naked and cold. He was tortured to death on September 12. Many leaders across the world remembered Biko’s death, which changed the political landscape of South Africa.
In a special supplement by the Steve Biko Foundation, Steve Biko 25 years on, former president Nelson Mandela said: ”His life was extinguished with more callousness and casualness than a person snuffing out a candle flame between calloused thumb and forefinger.”
Miriam Tladi, a well-known novelist said: ”Steve was one of those leaders who charted the course for our self-image and for their relentless efforts paid the ultimate price for doing so.”
Members of the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) visited the cells on Sunday as a symbolic restoration of their mentor’s dignity. The clergy cleansed it to remove the spiritual and physical humiliation Biko suffered.
”This is to us an emotional connection with Steve once more and to ensure that we don’t forget what happened to many of us who brought our freedom,” said Mosibudi Mangena, Azapo’s president.
Azapo insists that Biko’s legacy will always be relevant as long as the ideals he lived and died for are not fulfilled. ”Our country is not equal. Equal only in Constitution and in the ballot, we still have to struggle to build that,” Mangena said.
The event was also marked with a rally in Kwazakhele township where Azapo members re-committed themselves to building their organisation and fighting to eradicate poverty.
The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe arrived in South Africa on Sunday. He has been invited by the Steve Biko Foundation to deliver a commemorative lecture on the 25th anniversary of Biko’s death at the university of Cape Town on Thursday. The university is to confer an honorary degree on Achebe.
The African National Congress also paid tribute, saying: ”Our memories shall always remind us about the manner in which he was viciously and brutally assassinated by the oppressive apartheid forces,” ANC representative Smuts Ngonyama said.
”As we commemorate comrade Steve’s death, his sacrifice should serve as an inspiration to all those who are involved in the struggle for fundamental transformation…” – Sapa