Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist who was instrumental in the development of Black Consciousness in South Africa. He was a man of dignity and poise, who was a beacon of hope and inspiration to so many. In 1987, after seeing the movie Cry Freedom, I was inspired by Steve Biko. A few years later, I stumbled across his biography in an old book collection and I reached out to Dr. Mamfela Ramfela, who had been a colleague of Biko's and a friend of his, to see if she could help me find out more about him.
00:00:00.340Hi everybody, this is Gatsad. Some of you may have heard me mention in the past the name Steve Biko, B-I-K-O, but you may not know who he is.
00:00:13.520So a recent story happened that I thought I would mention who he is and on the small world problem, how we are all connected in so few links.
00:00:26.920So Steve Biko is someone that I first learned of in 1987, I believe. So I was a young man. I went to see a movie called Cry Freedom, which recounted the story of how Donald Woods, who became a friend of, he was a white South African, became a friend of Steve Biko.
00:00:51.940And Steve Biko was an anti-apartheid activist who was developing the movement of black consciousness.
00:01:04.320And I remember I'd seen the movie. I was very, very inspired by Steve Biko.
00:01:10.600So, I mean, yes, of course, because he was fighting against a very cruel regime, apartheid.
00:01:18.040But because as you, if anybody who follows my work, I always implore people to be honey badgers.
00:01:25.300And in 1987, here I was seeing this honey badger that became a, an exemplar of what it is to speak out, knowing that things can go wrong for you.
00:01:43.140As you may know, Steve Biko was eventually tortured and killed by the apartheid regime.
00:01:53.500And the movie Cry Freedom recounts that story.
00:01:57.780And I ended up picking up shortly after seeing the movie, a book called I Write What I Like, which I referenced, by the way, in The Parasitic Mind.
00:02:08.440I write what I like. I mean, it can't be more simple than that, right?
00:02:12.280You're not going to stop me from speaking my mind.
00:02:15.720And so he struck me as someone who just had this incredible dignity, poise.
00:02:32.300So here, if you could see Biko, the biography by Donald Woods.
00:02:38.520My wife and I had gone to see a person that we know we'd originally met at one of the local cafes.
00:02:45.460She has a book antiquarian business, and she had kindly invited us, invited me to go there and see if there were any books that I was interested in.
00:03:06.740So she said, here is, so this is a book from, you know, maybe 45 years ago, which I'm now devouring.
00:03:14.240You could see I'm right here in the book.
00:03:16.240And as I was reading the book, which, by the way, is fantastic, I came across a, an individual in the book.
00:03:26.180Her name is Dr. Mamfela Ramfela, who is a medical doctor, but also a PhD.
00:03:33.680I think she was the chancellor of the University of Cape Town.
00:03:38.140And Donald Woods, who has since passed away, is recounting how he first met her.
00:03:44.020She was a colleague of Steve Biko's in, you know, in the, in the 70s.
00:03:48.980Uh, and so I thought, wow, I, I want to look up this, uh, this individual, uh, and maybe reach out to her.
00:03:59.000And so I sent her an email, uh, within, you know, a few hours, her, uh, assistant wrote back to me and said that, uh, she was traveling, but that once she comes back, uh, you know, she'll, she'll put it on her calendar.
00:04:14.540So, 1987, I read a book, well, I read a book by Biko after seeing the movie, uh, of, you know, his, uh, his trajectory fighting apartheid.
00:04:28.240I mentioned Biko in The Parasitic Mind.
00:04:33.860We're rummaging through all these incredible antiquarian books.