Steve Biko

The Testimony of Steve Biko (eBook, ePUB)

Redaktion: Arnold, Millard

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

What comes first to mind when one thinks of political trials in South Africa are the Rivonia Trial of 1956-61 and the Treason Trial of 1963-64. Rarely, if ever, is the 1976 SASO/BPC trial mentioned in the same breath and yet it was perhaps the most political trial of all.

The defendants, all members of the South African Students Organisation, or the Black People's Convention, were in the dock for having the temerity to think; to have opinions; to envisage a more just and humane society. It was a trial about ideas, but as it unfolded it became a trial of the entire philosophy of Black Consciousness and those who championed its cause.

On 2 May 1976, senior counsel for the defence in the trial of nine black activists in Pretoria called to the witness stand Stephen Bantu Biko. Although Biko was known to the authorities, and indeed was serving a banning order, not much about the man was known by anyone outside of his colleagues and the Black Consciousness Movement. That was about to change with his appearance as a witness in the SASO/BPC case. He entered the courtroom known to some, but after his four-day testimony he left as a celebrity known to all.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Pan Macmillan South Africa
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Oktober 2017
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781770105591
• Artikelnr.: 67464106

Autorenporträt

Steve Biko was born in Tylden, Eastern Cape, South Africa in 1946. As a medical student, he founded a black student organisation in 1969 and created a national 'black consciousness' movement. The movement's aim was to combat racism and the South African apartheid government. He was banned in 1973, which prohibited him from speaking in public, writing for publication and any travel. Biko was arrested by police in September 1977 and died in detention, naked and manacled, from extensive brain damage, six days later. He left a widow and two young children. His death caused international protests and a UN arms embargo. Biko became a symbol of the antiapartheid movement. An inquest in the late 1980s found no one responsible for his death, but in 1997 five former policemen admitted being involved.