DELIVERING his Steve Biko Memorial Lecture on October 12 2007, former president Thabo Mbeki raised his concern about the prevalence of many negative developments in our new democracy.
Such developments, Mbeki said, included "an entrenched value system centred on the personal acquisition of wealth at all costs and by all means, including wilful resort to corruption and fraud".
Mbeki also spoke of a society captured by a rapacious individualism that repudiated the value and practice of human solidarity.
These developments, he said, went against the fundamental precept of ubuntu.
The question, Mbeki said, was whether the society that we had become was the one that the slain black consciousness stalwart visualised, fought and died for.
Reading through the reprinted (2009) edition of Biko's I Write What I Like one could only concur with Mbeki.
I Write What I Like is a collection of Biko's writing during the period 1969-72.
He was then president of the The South African Students Organisation (Saso), which he formed after breaking with the liberal-led National Union of SA Students (Nusas), and co-founder of the Black People's Convention (BPC).
In an essay entitled Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity,Biko wrote: "The philosophy of black consciousness ... expresses group pride and the determination by the blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self."
From this definition we can only agree with Mbeki that Biko did not imagine an "envisaged self" that is characterised by the rapacious and venal individualism our society is currently experiencing.
Biko's writings were aimed at mobilising the oppressed black masses against the racist apartheid system. But they were also about an envisioned South African society that is not only free of oppression and racism but also driven by humanity.
"We have set our quest for true humanity, and somewhere on the distant horizon we can see the glittering prize,'' Biko wrote.
"Let us march forth with courage and determination, drawing strength from our common plight and our brotherhood. "In time we shall be in a position to bestow upon South Africa the greatest gift possible - a more human face.
And contrary to those who always want to relegate Biko's writing to changing the mental attitudes of black people towards oppression, the BC stalwart had a view on the future economic relations in post-apartheid South Africa.
In an essay titled Our Strategy For Liberation, Biko explains what he meant by an envisaged egalitarian society.
"... I think there is no running away from the fact that now in South Africa there is such an ill-distribution of wealth that any form of political freedom which does not touch on the proper distribution of wealth will be meaningless.
"The whites have locked up within a small minority of themselves the greater proportion of the country's wealth.
"If we have a mere change of face of those in governing positions, what is likely to happen is that black people will continue to be poor, and you will see a few blacks filtering through into the so-called bourgeoisie.
"Our society will be run almost as of yesterday. So for meaningful change to appear, there needs to be an attempt at reorganising the whole economic pattern and economic policies within this particular country," Biko wrote.
Looking at the current situation in the country, revisiting Biko's writing is probably one of the tonics that we need as South Africans - regardless of race and class.
We should do so in search of the spirit of ubuntu that he preached. This is the ubuntu based on recognising the humanity in everyone.
The ubuntu that connects all of humanity irrespective of ethnicity or racial origins.
Biko preached ubuntu
DELIVERING his Steve Biko Memorial Lecture on October 12 2007, former president Thabo Mbeki raised his concern about the prevalence of many negative developments in our new democracy.
Such developments, Mbeki said, included "an entrenched value system centred on the personal acquisition of wealth at all costs and by all means, including wilful resort to corruption and fraud".
Mbeki also spoke of a society captured by a rapacious individualism that repudiated the value and practice of human solidarity.
These developments, he said, went against the fundamental precept of ubuntu.
The question, Mbeki said, was whether the society that we had become was the one that the slain black consciousness stalwart visualised, fought and died for.
Reading through the reprinted (2009) edition of Biko's I Write What I Like one could only concur with Mbeki.
I Write What I Like is a collection of Biko's writing during the period 1969-72.
He was then president of the The South African Students Organisation (Saso), which he formed after breaking with the liberal-led National Union of SA Students (Nusas), and co-founder of the Black People's Convention (BPC).
In an essay entitled Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity,Biko wrote: "The philosophy of black consciousness ... expresses group pride and the determination by the blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self."
From this definition we can only agree with Mbeki that Biko did not imagine an "envisaged self" that is characterised by the rapacious and venal individualism our society is currently experiencing.
Biko's writings were aimed at mobilising the oppressed black masses against the racist apartheid system. But they were also about an envisioned South African society that is not only free of oppression and racism but also driven by humanity.
"We have set our quest for true humanity, and somewhere on the distant horizon we can see the glittering prize,'' Biko wrote.
"Let us march forth with courage and determination, drawing strength from our common plight and our brotherhood. "In time we shall be in a position to bestow upon South Africa the greatest gift possible - a more human face.
And contrary to those who always want to relegate Biko's writing to changing the mental attitudes of black people towards oppression, the BC stalwart had a view on the future economic relations in post-apartheid South Africa.
In an essay titled Our Strategy For Liberation, Biko explains what he meant by an envisaged egalitarian society.
"... I think there is no running away from the fact that now in South Africa there is such an ill-distribution of wealth that any form of political freedom which does not touch on the proper distribution of wealth will be meaningless.
"The whites have locked up within a small minority of themselves the greater proportion of the country's wealth.
"If we have a mere change of face of those in governing positions, what is likely to happen is that black people will continue to be poor, and you will see a few blacks filtering through into the so-called bourgeoisie.
"Our society will be run almost as of yesterday. So for meaningful change to appear, there needs to be an attempt at reorganising the whole economic pattern and economic policies within this particular country," Biko wrote.
Looking at the current situation in the country, revisiting Biko's writing is probably one of the tonics that we need as South Africans - regardless of race and class.
We should do so in search of the spirit of ubuntu that he preached. This is the ubuntu based on recognising the humanity in everyone.
The ubuntu that connects all of humanity irrespective of ethnicity or racial origins.
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