Bantu Biko lives...12th, September 2005

I was in a bus ride to work one morning, and it's always fascinating when I listen to some of the conversations- and probably 80% of us are women, so you can imagine the gossip that goes around.

Anyways - some weeks back, it was a rather solemn morning and everybody was complaining about their aches and pains and all sorts of things... and as we went about our normal route, the bus slowly went past a house under renovation. And we were all sorta looking on seeing these 2 men work so hard in the early hours of the day.

One of the ladies blurted out: "Hei - umuntu omnyama uyakha!"... and the bus went into a silent mode - with no usual loud responses. Just silent nods and inaudible murmurs - cos it was a heavy statement:

"Umuntu omnyama uyakha!", simply translated as "a black man builds"...

'See, this black man builds, this black man that now travels the dusty gravel roads to his hometown Umbumbulu to give money to wife and kids - he built that smooth tarred freeway; the N3, N2, the M4 to Umhlanga... and forgot his dreams in the process.

This black man who stays in a 'mjondoro', i-shack, a little squatter home - walls made of tin and CocaCola bottles if only to keep the cold away - he built that fancy double storey home with 180degree seaviews... and destroyed his family in the process.

This black man - who is my father, my uncle, my brother, my son now taking a 2hr ride back to his township in a congested taxi 5'oclock in the evening - he built that air-conditioned mercedes benz you now drive... and crippled his own aspirations in the process...

see this black man makes me wanna weep and cry, cos he might have built this country, LITERALLY! but has this country built him anything at all? and well... if he still can build and maybe speak abit of english, he might in the new democratic South Africa BEEmpowered - Vukani-Cronje Consolidated...

so everyday he will keep on building - but when will this black man build his own dreams made of tar, black and strong ? if only to bring light to his nation?
and everyday he will forget, destroy and cripple himself - because u see... Umuntu omnyama uyakha!'

And as Biko said - ' the black man has to free his mind and see himself as a being, entire in himself and not as an extension of some machine...' and perhaps one of the quotes that have stood out through time is: "... the most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."

I am convinced that the struggle towards Black Consciousness is far from over, and Biko still lives...