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Biko: A Biography
"The first comprehensive biography of an exceptional and inspirational leader who changed South African history. As leading anti-apartheid activist and thinker, Biko created Black Consciousness, which has resonance to this day. His death by torture, at the hands of the police, robbed South Africa of one of its most gifted leaders. Biko’s intellectual legacy cannot be overestimated."
348 pages, Paperback
First published September 17, 2012
15 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Xolela Mangcu
17 books6 followersXolela Mangcu is the executive chairman of the Platform for Public Deliberation, a think tank that promotes open dialogue on political, cultural, and economic matters affecting South Africa. He is the author of Visions of Black Economic Empowerment and To the Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 10, 2012
Found myself trudging in the beginning. But in the end I can with pride give this book a 4 star.
The author, henceworth Xolela he be, likes to repeat himself far to often. And the current Honorable High Commissioner to the Republic of Mozambique, Charles Nqakula never served in the cabinet of President Jacob Zuma...
The book has alot of witty comment (black doll vs. white doll), great family photos (esp. the photo off Steve with his youngest Samora) and Xolela provides a new part of history to us as he was a young neighbor of Steve.
This book is a fitting tribute to the memory of Steve Biko. Someone that could have played a major part in the new Democratic South Africa. May his soul rest in peace. Amabhulu azizinja
The author, henceworth Xolela he be, likes to repeat himself far to often. And the current Honorable High Commissioner to the Republic of Mozambique, Charles Nqakula never served in the cabinet of President Jacob Zuma...
The book has alot of witty comment (black doll vs. white doll), great family photos (esp. the photo off Steve with his youngest Samora) and Xolela provides a new part of history to us as he was a young neighbor of Steve.
This book is a fitting tribute to the memory of Steve Biko. Someone that could have played a major part in the new Democratic South Africa. May his soul rest in peace. Amabhulu azizinja
September 22, 2015
I had several reasons for wanting to read about the South African anti-apartheid martyr, Steve Biko (1946-1977). First of all, I knew little about him and the reasons for his murder by the South African security forces. Secondly, he was born and lived in the township called Ginsberg, which is part of town of King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape, where many of my mother’s family lived. One member of her family, her grandfather, was the late Senator Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936), in whose honour Biko’s township was named when it was founded in the early part of the 20th century. Thirdly, Biko was a friend of my cousin Geoff Budlender, who, as a student-leader in Cape Town became an important white anti-apartheid activist. Finally, this particular biography was written by Xolela Mangcu who arranged for me to visit Ginsberg Township in 2003, where I had the honour of meeting Biko’s elder brother Khaya briefly after having visited the house where Steve lived whilst under a banning order.
At an early stage in his book, Mangcu quotes Christopher Hitchens’ view of writing a biography in which he points out that a good biography should leave the reader wishing that he or she had been able to meet the individual being described. Mangcu managed to achieve this in his book. From what he wrote about Biko, it would seem that he got on with most people, and that along with his brilliant mind accounted for some of his success as a politician who appealed to the ‘masses’. Indeed, although very busy with matters of national importance, Biko found time to do things, such as founding a crèche and a clinic, to ease the lot of his neighbours who lived under difficult material conditions in Ginsberg.
Mangcu’s biography traces the development of Biko’s intellectual ideas back to the years when Europeans first began landing in what is now South Africa and started harassing its indigenous inhabitants. Mangcu then describes the influence of religious establishments and Biko’s acquaintances in Ginsberg, a ‘hotbed’ of anti-apartheid thinkers and activists, on Steve’s gradual politicisation. One of these activists was his elder brother Khaya. He also describes in great detail the importance of student groups in South Africa in the development of movements to counter apartheid. Biko, who was not entirely comfortable with the main white-dominated student union, NUSAS, developed a ‘black’ students’ union SASO.
Steve Biko developed the Black Consciousness Movement (‘BCM’). In brief, as I understand it, he wanted ‘Black’ people (and in Biko’s mind this included not only Black Africans but also Indians and also ‘coloured’ people) to shed their feelings of inferiority to the white people, and to recognise that they were equal, but maybe different in outlook and aspirations, to the white people who had been suppressing them for several centuries in South Africa and elsewhere. During Steve’s lifetime, the non-white - and especially the black - man was considered by most white people in South Africa as being inferior to the white man. I find it hard to understand the kind of arrogance that led white people in South Africa (and also in other colonial societies such as British India) to believe in such nonsense, but they did. Another factor encouraging belief in superiority was the white man’s fear of the black man’s potential for competition and opposition. It is possible that the feeling that the ‘man of colour’ was inferior to the white man engendered, at the best, the (paternalistic) feeling that it was the duty of the white man to help the coloured man to strive for the benefits of the white man’s civilisation, or, more likely, at the worst, to suppress him so that he remained a source of cheap and easily dominated labour. Whatever the reason, Steve Biko felt that the black people of South Africa could not expect to liberate themselves from domination by their white neighbours until, to quote him “…whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.”
Steve Biko’s ideas and influence were not only taken seriously by the ‘black people’ in South Africa, but also by the ruling ‘white’ regime. The latter considered him such a serious threat to the status quo of apartheid, that they arrested and killed him without trial, and in the knowledge that they would not be held account for their brutal treatment of him. The details of Steve’s tragic demise, so far as they are known, are described in Mangcu’s fascinating biography.
My cousin Geoff Budlender expressed Biko’s political desire to change ‘his’ peoples’ attitudes well in an interview that he gave after the end of apartheid, and long after Biko’s murder: “…I came from this white liberal background where the premise was that if only black people were like us everything would be fine. Steve Biko showed that black people didn’t want to be like us, they wanted to be like them. They wanted a liberation of a kind which was much more fundamental than simply becoming integrated into white society.” Would they have achieved this if Steve Biko had lived long enough to experience post-apartheid South Africa? Mangcu feels that they would have had a better chance of doing so had Biko not been killed. In the final pages of his interesting and thought-provoking book, he laments the current South African leadership’s betrayal of the hopes and dreams that the black people harboured when Nelson Mandela shook hands with De Klerk at the end of apartheid.
At an early stage in his book, Mangcu quotes Christopher Hitchens’ view of writing a biography in which he points out that a good biography should leave the reader wishing that he or she had been able to meet the individual being described. Mangcu managed to achieve this in his book. From what he wrote about Biko, it would seem that he got on with most people, and that along with his brilliant mind accounted for some of his success as a politician who appealed to the ‘masses’. Indeed, although very busy with matters of national importance, Biko found time to do things, such as founding a crèche and a clinic, to ease the lot of his neighbours who lived under difficult material conditions in Ginsberg.
Mangcu’s biography traces the development of Biko’s intellectual ideas back to the years when Europeans first began landing in what is now South Africa and started harassing its indigenous inhabitants. Mangcu then describes the influence of religious establishments and Biko’s acquaintances in Ginsberg, a ‘hotbed’ of anti-apartheid thinkers and activists, on Steve’s gradual politicisation. One of these activists was his elder brother Khaya. He also describes in great detail the importance of student groups in South Africa in the development of movements to counter apartheid. Biko, who was not entirely comfortable with the main white-dominated student union, NUSAS, developed a ‘black’ students’ union SASO.
Steve Biko developed the Black Consciousness Movement (‘BCM’). In brief, as I understand it, he wanted ‘Black’ people (and in Biko’s mind this included not only Black Africans but also Indians and also ‘coloured’ people) to shed their feelings of inferiority to the white people, and to recognise that they were equal, but maybe different in outlook and aspirations, to the white people who had been suppressing them for several centuries in South Africa and elsewhere. During Steve’s lifetime, the non-white - and especially the black - man was considered by most white people in South Africa as being inferior to the white man. I find it hard to understand the kind of arrogance that led white people in South Africa (and also in other colonial societies such as British India) to believe in such nonsense, but they did. Another factor encouraging belief in superiority was the white man’s fear of the black man’s potential for competition and opposition. It is possible that the feeling that the ‘man of colour’ was inferior to the white man engendered, at the best, the (paternalistic) feeling that it was the duty of the white man to help the coloured man to strive for the benefits of the white man’s civilisation, or, more likely, at the worst, to suppress him so that he remained a source of cheap and easily dominated labour. Whatever the reason, Steve Biko felt that the black people of South Africa could not expect to liberate themselves from domination by their white neighbours until, to quote him “…whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.”
Steve Biko’s ideas and influence were not only taken seriously by the ‘black people’ in South Africa, but also by the ruling ‘white’ regime. The latter considered him such a serious threat to the status quo of apartheid, that they arrested and killed him without trial, and in the knowledge that they would not be held account for their brutal treatment of him. The details of Steve’s tragic demise, so far as they are known, are described in Mangcu’s fascinating biography.
My cousin Geoff Budlender expressed Biko’s political desire to change ‘his’ peoples’ attitudes well in an interview that he gave after the end of apartheid, and long after Biko’s murder: “…I came from this white liberal background where the premise was that if only black people were like us everything would be fine. Steve Biko showed that black people didn’t want to be like us, they wanted to be like them. They wanted a liberation of a kind which was much more fundamental than simply becoming integrated into white society.” Would they have achieved this if Steve Biko had lived long enough to experience post-apartheid South Africa? Mangcu feels that they would have had a better chance of doing so had Biko not been killed. In the final pages of his interesting and thought-provoking book, he laments the current South African leadership’s betrayal of the hopes and dreams that the black people harboured when Nelson Mandela shook hands with De Klerk at the end of apartheid.
August 21, 2019
As someone whose understanding of Biko had mainly been shaped by Mamphele Ramphele, this perspective was refreshing, well and simply written and well researched. It made me keen to explore Black Consciousness more, I would give it 5 stars if the love triangle between Steve, Mamphele and Ntsiki had been more extensively explored.
May 9, 2017
The book gives insight, not only into Biko's life, but other aspects of ordinary people's lives during the dark days of apartheid. Professor Mangcu also delves into the history of amaXhosa, which I found to be quite enlightening.
December 4, 2020
This wasn’t an easy read, coming from an academic, but it ended up being a rewarding experience. I learnt a lot about South African history and Bikos’ pivotal role. All the facts, figures and names came together in the end providing a well-rounded analysis.
October 3, 2013
I gave the book 3 stars because in terms of style and language it is excellently written, really top notch. However, the book goes into an inordinate amount of detail regarding student meetings and campus politics and one almost wants to say “this is too much.” In terms of Biko’s life, the author is obviously a huge fan of Biko and he admits that much. He is honest throughout the book and makes no bones about Biko’s shortcomings e.g. his late night drinking, his extramarital affairs, his liking for white girls etc. One subject I would have liked him to explore more was what drove the police to killing Biko? What were their reasons other than the fact that he broke his banning order by leaving Ginsberg? What were their perceptions about Biko and why did they regard him as so dangerous?
It is clear that one can’t sever the man, Steve Biko, from the political landscape in which he moved. One almost gets the underlying message throughout the book that the white man is to be blamed for every inconvenience ever suffered by the black man in South Africa and that democracy should have come in the 1960’s. I won’t blame anyone for thinking initially that the underlying message throughout the book was that. However, on pg 299 the author highlights the shortcomings of the current ANC government and doesn’t try to hide their inadequacies. So once again he is being honest. Of course where South Africa would have been if democracy came in the 1960‘s is difficult to speculate. On pg 249 Mangcu states how the Cape Branch of the Black Consciousness Movement “rejected anything short of a socialist/communist vision for the country”. My view is that if the leaders of the Struggle had their way and SA became a democracy in the 1960’ we would have definitely experimented with communism (resulting in civil war like our neighbours Angola and Mozambique), no doubt.
Obviously what happened to Steve Biko was a tragedy and so was petty apartheid, the homelands system and forced removals. South Africa would have been so much better off without it. However, after reading the book (and many others on SA politics) and the daily barrage of reports on corruption in the papers, I am inclined to think that perhaps those grey haired men in the NP had a point when they said “Listen Boetie, solving South Africa's problems and running a country is not as simple as just giving every man a vote”.
As for Biko himself he had the opportunity to study at an excellent school and achieved top honours throughout school - a very bright student no doubt. However, he finished neither medicine nor law and went back to Ginsberg without a degree despite his mother’s immense sacrifices to let him study. There he was involved in community projects with limited success. As for his morals Steve married Ntsiki in 1970 and their first child Nkosinathi was born in 1971. When moving back to King Williamstown, Mamphela Ramphele became pregnant with Steve’s child Lerato (who died after 2 months). Steve’s 2nd son with Ntsiki was born in 1975 named Samora Machel. Steve also had a relationship with Lorraine Tabane who bore his child Motlatsi in 1977 and Ntsiki filed for divorce. Hlumelo, Steve’s son with Ramphele was born in 1978 after his death.
Once again I don’t think it is so simple to judge the man. Certainly it is true that he endured hardship, torture and even death so that the black man could get the opportunity to raise his voice in South Africa. Perhaps if Biko had he lived, he would have grown to the stature of someone like Nelson Mandela? It would be unfair to judge a man who died so young. On the other hand one could perhaps argue that he was just a militant rabble rouser like Julius Malemma, who couldn’t keep his pants on and couldn’t finish a degree. I don’t know, that is what you have to decide for yourself.
It is clear that one can’t sever the man, Steve Biko, from the political landscape in which he moved. One almost gets the underlying message throughout the book that the white man is to be blamed for every inconvenience ever suffered by the black man in South Africa and that democracy should have come in the 1960’s. I won’t blame anyone for thinking initially that the underlying message throughout the book was that. However, on pg 299 the author highlights the shortcomings of the current ANC government and doesn’t try to hide their inadequacies. So once again he is being honest. Of course where South Africa would have been if democracy came in the 1960‘s is difficult to speculate. On pg 249 Mangcu states how the Cape Branch of the Black Consciousness Movement “rejected anything short of a socialist/communist vision for the country”. My view is that if the leaders of the Struggle had their way and SA became a democracy in the 1960’ we would have definitely experimented with communism (resulting in civil war like our neighbours Angola and Mozambique), no doubt.
Obviously what happened to Steve Biko was a tragedy and so was petty apartheid, the homelands system and forced removals. South Africa would have been so much better off without it. However, after reading the book (and many others on SA politics) and the daily barrage of reports on corruption in the papers, I am inclined to think that perhaps those grey haired men in the NP had a point when they said “Listen Boetie, solving South Africa's problems and running a country is not as simple as just giving every man a vote”.
As for Biko himself he had the opportunity to study at an excellent school and achieved top honours throughout school - a very bright student no doubt. However, he finished neither medicine nor law and went back to Ginsberg without a degree despite his mother’s immense sacrifices to let him study. There he was involved in community projects with limited success. As for his morals Steve married Ntsiki in 1970 and their first child Nkosinathi was born in 1971. When moving back to King Williamstown, Mamphela Ramphele became pregnant with Steve’s child Lerato (who died after 2 months). Steve’s 2nd son with Ntsiki was born in 1975 named Samora Machel. Steve also had a relationship with Lorraine Tabane who bore his child Motlatsi in 1977 and Ntsiki filed for divorce. Hlumelo, Steve’s son with Ramphele was born in 1978 after his death.
Once again I don’t think it is so simple to judge the man. Certainly it is true that he endured hardship, torture and even death so that the black man could get the opportunity to raise his voice in South Africa. Perhaps if Biko had he lived, he would have grown to the stature of someone like Nelson Mandela? It would be unfair to judge a man who died so young. On the other hand one could perhaps argue that he was just a militant rabble rouser like Julius Malemma, who couldn’t keep his pants on and couldn’t finish a degree. I don’t know, that is what you have to decide for yourself.
August 9, 2015
A remarkable man who made a mark in South Africa's struggle for freedom. Killed in detention on 12 September 1977, I always wonder how our country would've turned had he not been killed. He never met Nelson Mandela but they wrote to each other. Had they met and united their ideas, how would've apartheid turned out? Things I wonder about every time I see his name. He is my hero. Your efforts do not go by unnoticed Stephen Bantu Biko.
July 30, 2015
Well written. A good perspective from someone who grew up near the great man. Often strays and focuses more on himself. Chapters on Xhosa history almost stopped me from finishing the book. Redeemed himself towards the end of the book. The author clearly loved and looked up to Steve.
December 1, 2013
The life and times of Xolela Mangcu, disguised as a Steve Biko biography.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews