Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- Timeline of Steve Biko's life
- 1 Dear Steve
- 2 Thirty years on and not much has changed
- 3 Steve Biko: 30 years after
- 4 Through chess I discovered Steve Biko
- 5 Biko's influence on me
- 6 Biko's influence and a reflection
- 7 The impact of Steve Biko on my life
- 8 He shaped the way I see the world
- 9 White carnations and the Black Power revolution: they tried us for our ideas
- 10 Steve Biko and the SASO/BPC trial
- 11 A white man remembers
- 12 King James, Princess Alice, and the ironed hair: a tribute to Stephen Bantu Biko
- 13 Biko's testament of hope
- 14 Black Consciousness and the quest for a true humanity
- Contributors
6 - Biko's influence and a reflection
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 April 2018
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Introduction
- Acknowledgements
- Timeline of Steve Biko's life
- 1 Dear Steve
- 2 Thirty years on and not much has changed
- 3 Steve Biko: 30 years after
- 4 Through chess I discovered Steve Biko
- 5 Biko's influence on me
- 6 Biko's influence and a reflection
- 7 The impact of Steve Biko on my life
- 8 He shaped the way I see the world
- 9 White carnations and the Black Power revolution: they tried us for our ideas
- 10 Steve Biko and the SASO/BPC trial
- 11 A white man remembers
- 12 King James, Princess Alice, and the ironed hair: a tribute to Stephen Bantu Biko
- 13 Biko's testament of hope
- 14 Black Consciousness and the quest for a true humanity
- Contributors
Summary
Introduction
Publishing essays in memory of Steve Biko is not only a fitting way of commemorating the 30th anniversary of his cruel murder, it is also evidence of how not even death has been able to curtail his influence.
I am grateful to have been invited to contribute an essay to this project, and to be afforded an opportunity to bear testimony, along with others, about how Steve touched my life. Because I have been requested to write about Steve's impact on a specific aspect of my life I have to speak about myself, which is not a comfortable thing to do. Hopefully the reader will focus on what Steve did for me and see that this essay is about him and not me.
To understand what Steve did for me you have to see me before I was exposed to him.
Background
I grew up in Middelburg in what was then the Transvaal (now Gauteng). Although we never had to worry about where our next meal would come from, we were not well-to-do. My father drove one of those little Ford Prefect cars. Our horizons did not allow us to imagine that an ordinary car might have a transmission system with four forward gears, let alone six!
My father's little jalopy was wont to jump every now and then out of top gear into neutral. To get its transmission system to function properly would have set the family budget back a few months. So my father's solution to the problem was very practical: once you reached driving, as opposed to accelerating, speed (not that the difference was always perceptible!), you simply kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear lever to ensure the car stayed in top gear.
This was not the only problem we had with my old man's car. My parents came from Herschel in the Eastern Cape. Often when they were on leave they would bundle all six of us kids up and throw us into the Ford Prefect and take us on an enjoyable long drive to Herschel. I still drive there every once in a while to stay connected with my ancestral roots.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- We Write What We LikeCelebrating Steve Biko, pp. 63 - 76Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2007