Dear Steve Biko

Thank you.

Thank you for dedicating your life, short as it was, to standing firm for what you believed in. Because of you, I’m proud to be a smart black woman. Because of you, I don’t have issues with being a “clever” black.

I understand the power of knowledge and continue to learn. The world has changed tremendously since you were of this world but the problems are not that different. But I understand that the change starts with me. Because I claim to know better, I need to do better.

I was introduced to your works and your story by my mother, a product of Black Consciousness. I’m fully aware of my blackness and the power it holds.
Although the focus of the world is how you would not be pleased with the current state of affairs, many miss that there are many black youth and adults who are living your teachings.

Through reading, writing and teaching – they too understand their power. The fight continues. You promoted mental emancipation. Hence today I question everything and don’t just accept things just because everybody thinks it is ‘fine’.
I believe that when you said black people must move away from thinking they are inferior you meant we should have a “can do” attitude to life. And that is precisely what my mother enforced in me through your teachings.

I’m not inferior because of my gender or my race. In fact I am powerful because I hold them dear to my heart.
Your spirit lives on. I’m optimistic about the black condition. We are less than 20 years into the democracy – mistakes are being made but we will rise from the current state of affairs.

Thank you again for your teachings. Today as I write this: I am alive and proud.

By: Tokiso Molefe

Genocide of Hope

By Thami Prusent

My stolen love drips from ink-stained fingers
with which I crossed my heart and hoped to die
My swindled love bleeds torn like birth tissue
nourishing the roots where x marks the spot of smoke-screened smiles
and forgotten declarations
My menstrual love leaks of mangled hope and forcibly taken innocence
My severed love gushes to the beat of stomping heads, kissing batons
and rubber bullets
My plundered love reeks of fits of promises served with a sprinkling of teargas
and reshuffling of posts
My bleeding heart died on the concrete bed of El Tahrir
South bound and seething
the smoke of my discontent smoulders in hunger
of hollow-eyed babies and half-lived lives
Poisoned in love, my dream deferred in opulence and blood
A genocide of hope
where I don’t like what I write
My people angry and weeping
as my bleeding heart died in the platinum belt of Marikana

The Steve Biko Centre: A Living Memorial

by Alicia M. Sanabria

The much anticipated day was before me and I felt honored to be part of the official opening of the Steve Biko Centre in the Ginsberg township of King William’s Town in the East Cape of South Africa. My colleague Michel Chagas and I were invited guests of the Steve Biko Foundation and the South African department of Arts and Culture. We were representing the Steve Biko Cultural Institute in Salvador, Bahia in northeast Brazil. Upon arrival to East London we met the other international guests of the Steve Biko Foundation which included Mireille Fanon and Omar Benderra of the Frantz Fanon Foundation and Alison Navarra and Tracey Gore of the Steve Biko Housing Association Liverpool. Later in the day Ivy and Alex Amponsah of Ghana/United States completed our international delegation. This group of Pan-Africanist human rights activist would forge a strong bond over the five days that we spent together.
The Steve Biko Foundation and the Steve Biko Cultural Institute have been actively collaborating on lectures, exchanges, and articles in this millennium. Black rights and consciousness activists in Brazil, as in other parts of global Africa (Africa and the African Diaspora) had protested and fought for the end of human rights violations under the apartheid regime of South Africa. Independent of language differences, there is an affinity and proximity socio-culturally, economically, historically and politically between Blacks in South Africa and Brazil. There is the common history of the marginalization and oppression of the Black majority.

A growing number in the Black population of both countries have overcome and triumphed in attaining education and preparation to provide leadership nationally and internationally for socio-cultural and economic development and empowerment of global Africans. Therefore, November 30, 2012 the official opening of the Steve Biko Centre was a day of triumph and celebration not only for Bantu Steve Biko’s family, friends and extended community but for all global Africans as well as non-Black worldwide supporters of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle, victory and present day restructuring and redefinition.

The Steve Biko Centre Official Opening Weekend encompassed three rich and full days and nights of political, cultural and spiritual programming. In the South African tradition of generously hosting and caring for guests there were outstanding meals and attention bestowed to the local, regional, national and international guests.
I am part of the Ilê Asipá egun (ancestral spirits) society in Salvador, Bahia and was happy to be present at the Steve Biko graveside in the Garden of Remembrance. The spirit of Bantu Steve Biko was first to be visited and reverenced. The voices of the Zwelitsha Adult Choir sang by the graveside accompanied by heavy winds and rains. Steve Biko’s family: Mrs. Biko, Nobandile Biko, his children (represented by Nkosinathi Biko), Dr. Mamphela Ramphela, Steve Biko Foundation board members, President Zuma and other government representatives paid tribute to his spirit by placing wreaths on his grave.

After the Garden of Remembrance graveside homage to Bantu Steve Biko the family and guests went to the Biko home for the customary washing of the hands. The ritual entailed washing ones hands outside the house after visiting the grave of a departed loved one. There I met Mrs. Biko who immediately expressed her interest in visiting the Steve Biko Cultural Institute in Salvador, Bahia. We await her visit with open arms and hearts.

President Zuma also visited the Biko house. The guests were then taken to the outside space of the Steve Biko Centre to partake in the commemorative cultural manifestations and listen to various homages to Steve Biko by the opening panel members including the keynote address by President Zuma. The ribbon cutting of the Steve Biko Centre was performed by President Zuma. We were then able to walk through the museum that documents Bantu Steve Biko’s life and work and also gives homage to other Pan-African black rights defenders and African liberation leaders including Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and Malcolm X to name a few.

The afternoon was filled with numerous activities including tours of the Centre, book readings, theatre and musical performances; documentary screenings and the filming of social history interviews for the Steve Biko Centre archives. I took the time to meet and dialogue with some of the immediate neighbours of the Steve Biko Centre and others that had known Steve Biko. These proved to be among the most valuable of moments during my stay. I had been in South Africa in 2011 for an African Union meeting and since then had been pondering over present day South Africa color and class dynamics. I was touched by the warmth and kindness of the South Africans and the spirit of purpose, victory and patience with the development of Nelson Mandela’s proposed rainbow nation and Steve Biko’s quest for a true humanity where all citizens would be guaranteed their human rights. Yet, it was perceivable that the patience and wait could not and would not go on forever. Black South Africans want change and continue to want to be protagonists in their self-determination and equitable distribution of lands and wealth.

Throughout the three day official Opening Weekend, I was able to interact with members of the Steve Biko Foundation board of directors which expressed interest in the work of the Steve Biko Cultural Institute in Brazil and the hope to visit us soon. In the true African spirit there were numerous meals to partake in, music, dialogue and laughter. Ideas were exchanged, links were forged and the commitment to Black Consciousness and human rights activism were renewed.

An outstanding moment in the Day two program was the Steve Biko and Black Consciousness panel featuring the international activists from the Frantz Fanon Foundation, the Steve Biko Cultural Institute, and the Steve Biko Housing Association. Each spoke of the work with and on behave of blacks in their country and challenges faced in continuing the work. The audience actively participated in a lively question and answer session highlighting housing, education and the need for further elaboration of exchanges among the organisations.

During the morning of the third day I was able to re-visit the museum and I spent hours reading and re-reading each panel and watching the videos of Steve Biko speeches and funeral. It was a time of reflection for me. Since I was a child the anti-apartheid struggles of South Africa had marked my being and had set my course to be a Pan-African human rights activists that would take me to numerous global African communities to learn and to teach; to align in solutions to our common challenges; and to think, create and act on ways of linking global Africans knowing that united across national borders, languages and ethnicities we are much stronger than addressing our challenges individually.

I had come to the opening event representing the Steve Biko Cultural Institute, that is full of vigor after celebrating 20 years of existence in July of this year, with a very specific agenda to address and solidify long term bi-lateral socio-cultural and educational exchanges between the Steve Biko Foundation and the Steve Biko Cultural Institute. There was also the issue of the Steve Biko Cultural Institute and a Brazilian publisher wanting to release a new Portuguese language version of Steve Biko’s book “I Write What I Like”. Now I see that there is a need for a think tank meeting that would also include the Steve Biko Housing Association in a triangular exchange of ideas, culture and knowledge that would empower our respective local and national settings.

It has been such a blessing to be a part of the commitment of empowering blacks over the years. It is evident that all the progress and change that has occurred for global Africans is due to the vision, perseverance and sacrifices of the ancestors. On December 18, 2012, I praise Bantu Stephen Biko and am happy that the greatest tribute that is possible to him has been erected. The Steve Biko Centre is a living and breathing memorial to a man, Bantu Stephen Biko that was raised by his community and in turn raised and changed his community, his country and the world. The Centre is a space that will prepare future black South African leaders that will keep Steve Biko's legacy alive locally, nationally and globally.

What Biko Means to Me, Today

By: Nompumelelo Zinhle Manzini

Steve Biko often said: “black is beautiful” and in our day I still believe that black is indeed beautiful. Not only is black is the colour of coal in which diamonds where formed but, black is the colour of power and class. The colour of the original ink!
Throughout the 1970s Biko urged for man to be happy with whom they are and to further look at ourselves as human beings rather than objects of the earth. For me his philosophy is not an object of the past but rather an object of the day. Even though the geographic context may differ, the contextual concept is still relevant to our contemporary society that we reside in today. People often claim that Steve Biko’s philosophy is no longer for our times, however I greatly beg to differ. As Black people or “Africans” (to those who prefer to sound politically correct) we still feel inferior in our own skins. We tend to try so hard to look “western” with all the make-up, weaves, eyelashes and not forgetting the artificial nails. Even though these may help enhance ones beauty, I greatly feel that we do not need all these artificial things to make us feel beautiful in their own skin. In order for you to be beautiful, you need to first accept yourself in your own skin and be happy with who you are. Furthermore as Steve Biko, Marcus Garvey and Bob Marley said, we need to be conscious of who we are, and be aware of our surroundings, liberate one’s mind and always empower oneself in order to empower those around you as well!

This is the message that needs to be sent to our fellow brothers and sisters that we share this beautiful country with. Not only that but we also need to start living “self-consciousness” instead of merely acknowledging the great things that were done and said by people like Steve Biko. When I look at the streets today I see black people who argue that racism still exists, yet they are the first to cast stones to the Ethiopians and Somalians that rent out our garages in order to open small stores. These people may be of a different nationality, however they are still a part of you as much as you are a part of them. We are all Africans and need to stop discriminating against one another. The aforementioned serves as another model why Biko is still relevant to today’s society.

Biko’s philosophy is one that I feel that is never-ending and remains with us. Thus in order to honour him on his birthday, let us revisit what he left for us. Let us read all his writings such as I Write What I Like. Not only that but we should also start thinking in a more liberated manner and stop repressing other people!

FAQ's on Bantu Stephen Biko

1. What could have motivated Steve Biko's involvement in the Black Consciousness Movement?

In 1963, at the age of 15 years Steve Biko was admitted to Lovedale College, a missionary institution at which his older brother Khaya had enrolled a year earlier. Later that year, the two brothers along with 50 other learners were arrested on the suspicion that they were supporters of the outlawed Pan African Congress (PAC) aligned Poqo. Steve was interrogated by the police and despite the lack of evidence that he had any political inclinations, he was subsequently expelled and black listed from all government schools. Khaya was imprisoned for being a member of the banned PAC. Thus began Steve Biko’s resentment for authority and, according to Khaya, “the great giant was awakened”. By Steve Biko’s admission, when he was called as a witness for defence in 1976 at the trial of his colleagues in the Black Consciousness Movement, “from that moment on, I hated authority like hell!”

The 1963 incident had a truly profound influence on Biko’s political outlook. He had spent considerable time after he was expelled from school delivering food and other supplies to his brother and his comrades in prison. The developments of 1963 were Steve’s baptism by fire that led to the messages from Khaya and others finding resonance on a hitherto carefree and politically indifferent Steve.

2. Which aspect of Steve Biko's legacy is relevant now more than ever?

By placing emphasis on the individual as well as the collective, Biko’s legacy is far reaching in highlighting the inextricable link between history and biography between the struggles of society and the role of the individual. Further, Biko died at the tender age of thirty. Almost as many years later, his legacy continues to stand the test of intellectual inquiry, as South Africa continues to define itself as a nation. Particularly because of his young age, the substantive qualities of Biko’s legacy speak to the responsibility facing youth as custodians of our democracy, perhaps more so than with any other of the founders of our democracy.

3. What type of personality, hopes and dreams did Steve Biko have while growing up?

"Bantu" in the iSintu languages that are spoken in Southern Africa means "people". As a personal name, "Bantu" means: "the one for the people". True to his African name, Biko was popular in the community playing rugby and other sports with boys his age. Academically, he performed well, earning places at Lovedale College, St Francis College and eventually the University of KwaZulu Natal. At the Black Section of the Medical School of the University of Natal, Biko enrolled to become a medical doctor, and although that dream was not fulfilled, as his friend and colleague Barney Pityana noted, “While he didn’t become a medical doctor, he became a doctor for the soul.”

Biography of the Week: Bantu Stephen Biko

Bantu Stephen Biko was born in Tilden on the 18th December 1946. In 1968, he and his colleagues founded the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) and Biko was elected its first President. SASO's primary engagement was to address the inferiority complex that was the mainstay of passiveness within the ranks of Black students. Biko’s political activities resulted in his banning in March of 1973. He was restricted to King Williams’ Town where he set up a Black Community Programmes (BCP) office and amongst other achievements built Zanempilo Clinic and the Ginsberg Crèche. He was arrested near Grahamstown on 18 August 1977. During torture at the Security Branch headquarters in the Sanlam building (Port Elizabeth) he sustained massive brain haemorrhage. On 11 September he was transported naked, without medical escort, to Pretoria – a twelve-hour journey - in the back of a police Land Rover. He died on the floor of an empty cell in the Central Prison on the 12 September and thus became officially the 46th victim of torture under the State Security Laws.

Call for Reflections: Contemporary Relevance of Steve Biko

As December 18 marks Biko's 66th birthday, the Steve Biko Foundation is calling for reflections for the 2012 celebration of the legacy of the South African freedom fighter, Steve Biko. The topic is The Contemporary Relevance of Steve Biko. Submissions may follow any theme of significance to the legacy of Steve Biko. Submitted contributions will be published on the Steve Biko Foundation’s website and Blog.

Contributions should be submitted to Ms. Dibuseng Kolisang at dibuseng@sbf.org.za by no later than Friday December 14, 2012.

For more information call Dibuseng on (011) 403 0310.

Biography of the Week: Frantz Fanon

The Algerian political theorist Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) analyzed the nature of racism and colonialism and developed a theory of violent anticolonialist struggle.

Frantz Fanon was born in the French colony of Martinique. He volunteered for the French army during World War II, and then, after being released from military service, he went to France, where he studied medicine and psychiatry from 1945 to 1950. In 1953 he was appointed head of the psychiatric department of a government hospital in Algeria, then a French territory. As a black man searching for his own identity in a white colonial culture, he experienced racism; as a psychiatrist, he studied the dynamics of racism and its effects on the individual.

In his first book, Black Skin, White Masks (1952), Fanon examined the social and psychological processes by which the white colonizers alienated the black natives from any indigenous black culture; he showed that blacks were made to feel inferior because of their color and thus strove to emulate white culture and society. Fanon hoped that the old myths of superiority would be abandoned so that a real equality and integration could be achieved.

Alienated from the dominant French culture, except for that represented by such radicals as the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, Fanon deeply identified with Algeria's revolutionary struggle for independence. He had secretly aided the rebels from 1954 to 1956, when he resigned from the hospital post to openly work for the Algerian revolutionaries' National Liberation Front (FLN) in Tunis. He worked on the revolutionaries' newspaper, becoming one of the leading ideologists of the revolution, and developed a theory of anticolonial struggle in the "third world."

Using Marxist, psychoanalytic, and sociological analysis, Fanon summed up his views in The Wretched of the Earth (1961), arguing that only a thorough, truly socialist revolution carried out by the oppressed peasantry (the wretched of the earth) could bring justice to the colonized. He believed that the revolution could only be carried out by violent armed conflict; only revolutionary violence could completely break the psychological and physical shackles of a racist colonialism. Violence would regenerate and unite the population by a "collective catharsis;" out of this violence a new, humane man would arise and create a new culture. Through all this Fanon stressed the need to reject Europe and its culture and accomplish the revolution alone.

Fanon, the antiracist and revolutionary prophet, never saw the end result of the process he described: full independence of his adopted Algeria. In 1960 he served as ambassador to Ghana for the Algerian provisional government, but it was soon discovered that he had leukemia. After treatment in the Soviet Union, he went to the United States to seek further treatment but died there in 1961.


This Biography was retrieved from http://www.bookrags.com/biography/frantz-fanon/

Ubuntu is Alive and Well in South Africa

By Nompumelelo Zinhle Manzini

“Umuntu umuntu ngabuntu.” But to what extent?

Ubuntu is having humanity, the willingness to share all you have with the society at large. The African philosophy further narrates that “it takes a community to raise a child”. However in the modern society one can no longer trust family let alone the society at large. As a result of South Africa’s intricate past, the philosophy of Ubuntu moved with our forefathers from our dusty rural areas to our sub-urban concrete paths, also known as the ‘townships'. Due to the circumstances of those times (in the apartheid era) trust was built and the communities had unity, humanity and support. A child was raised by a community. People shared what they had because not only was it a humane act but it was also looking after one another, for everyone then shared the same struggle. Furthermore the act brought forth the notion of sharing success, in as much as the Christian doctrine states that the more you give, is the more your tree shall bear much fruit “what you sow, you reap”.

South Africa is a developing country; therefore we (citizens) have also had to develop. Even though, that development has meant that we adopt the liberal way of doing things, which to me seems somewhat Eurocentric. The process of our ‘development’ has led to the loss of some of our morals, values and culture. The worlds mission has been to create ones own name and fortune in an individual way, even if it may lead to being unethical and this is something that is evident in the headlines of our newspapers.

Since South Africa is such a diverse country, cultures have integrated and some blacks have evolved into living a more westernized lifestyle, which is characterized by living in isolation. Poverty rates have increased, people have forgotten one another and all these social issues are really encompassing and some have greatly led to crime. Some issues include a fellow black brother stealing and raping his own black brothers’ wealth and family. As citizens we further watch our fellow people go hungry in the streets of Hillbrow and even brush it away, or could not be apprehensive because it is not direct family. Surely that can’t be the spirit of Ubuntu?

Perhaps it is time that we as Africans reassess the definition of Ubuntu. Even so perhaps it is time that we are reminded as a society holistically what having Ubuntu is. All I have seen in my nineteen years of living is people talking about Ubuntu to the American tourists that come by. Yet in practice we are building higher walls within our homes, and we further do not even know our neighbours names anymore, let alone greet them. It is great and all that we as a country are moving forward, however that does not mean that we have to lose our culturally principles.

Going Back to Consciousness!

Biko, the Thorn, The Flame

By MATHATHA TSEDU – Daily Dispatch, 30 November 2012

THE policemen and their political masters who killed Bantu Biko in prison on September 12 1977 had at least two aims in mind. First, to remove the man who was a trouble-maker, a thorn and a "communist", who was threatening white supremacy with his black consciousness (BC) ideology. Second, to stem the tide of resistance through the subjugation of BC because the philosophy and ideology had created what was effectively the only resistance instrument operating above board in all spheres of life across the country. And it was towards the fulfilment of the latter that a month and seven days after killing Biko, they banned everything that had any connection to him.

They sat back and expected the black population to be cowed and relent and buy into the tribalisation of Africans which was the underpinning point of bantustans. It did not happen, because, as Peter Gabriel sings in his song, Biko, "You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire; once the flames begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher." Biko at 29 had started the flame and the wind of resistance was just blowing higher.

It was to turn into an avalanche of recruits for the ANC, PAC and later BCMA, in exile, thus rejuvenating what was in all seriousness a moribund armed struggle. The liberation of Mozambique two years before Biko was killed had added impetus to the hope of victory. And after Biko was laid to rest, it took Zimbabwe only three years to overthrow Ian Smith and his Rhodesia and the creation of a democratic Zimbabwe under Zanu. Zimbabwe's liberation was a "yes-wetoo-can" moment, energising South Africa. The energy of the youth, both in the training camps in Angola, Libya, Tanzania and Zambia, and inside South Africa through different youth formations, testified to the flame lit by Biko, who was himself a youth when he was killed, according to the age limit of political organisations, which is 35. But Biko was no ordinary youth.

The clarity of thought and the totality of commitment, judged against the youth leadership of today, is mind boggling. Whether it was politics or culture or rugby, he knew his stuff. His writing even today speaks to what T D Allman, an American journalist, calls getting not only the facts of today right, but "the meaning of events right. It [the writing] is compelling not only today, but stands the test of time. It is validated not only by reliable sources but by the unfolding of history." Indian writer Vandan Shiva speaks of "subjugated knowledge" that fights for space against "dominant knowledge". Biko was the epitome of both. His analysis of the black condition and what needed to be done then, over 30 years ago, stands even more relevant today as those in power behave as if 1994 and liberation still have to happen.

The need to shake off inferiority complexes amongst blacks that keep many of us in awe of whites, is a demand made for 2012 South Africa, as we see government officials loot state coffers, fail to deliver books to their own children, and use state resources to build resorts for their large families. Biko could have gone middle class but didn't. He could have cut a deal with Colonel Piet Goosen and his torture team, but didn't. Instead he fought for subjugated knowledge, the need for blacks to be called blacks and not what they were not, like "non-whites", despite the fact that in both media and official policy, "bantu" and "non-whites" were the dominant knowledge and usage.

And so, beaten to a pulp, dragged dying on a 1 600km ride in the back of a van with water as his only provision, he was to die in Pretoria prison, being given Panado to heal brain damage. His killers hoped they would stem the tide, that they would obliterate him from the face of the earth and our memories. How wrong! The opening of the Steve Biko Centre in his home township of Ginsberg outside King William's Town in the Eastern Cape today is a testament of the staying power of Biko. The stone, as Bob Marley sings, that had been rejected by the builder, has become the cornerstone of our rehabilitation as a people.

TODAY our country marks yet another milestone in its cultural renewal. The Steve Biko Centre, in Ginsberg , will be officially opened. Built to honour, celebrate and promote Biko's legacy, the centre is the second of its kind, after the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Its successful construction of the centre is remarkable in more than one way. For one, it underscores the multiplicity of actors and diversity of moments that propelled South Africa into liberation. Some within South Africa's liberation movements have felt their role in liberation politics has not been sufficiently recognised. Official attention and prominence, they lament, has been lavished more on events and individuals associated with the party-in-government.

The unveiling of the Biko Centre not only sets the record straight, but goes a long way in bridging the schism among the liberation movements. The construction of the centre has been funded largely by the Department of Arts and Culture, following a decision by cabinet that the centre must be adopted as a legacy project, alongside Robben Island and Freedom Park. Of course, much more still remains to be done. PAC founder Robert Mangaliso Sobukhwe, has not been memorialised in any telling manner. At another level, the centre is befitting of Biko's acute appreciation of the importance of memory and identity in the life of individuals and a nation. A sense of selfworth is critical for self-agency. People develop self-confidence that they can do whatever they set their minds to do.

Self-confidence, however, comes from knowing oneself. Apartheid ideologues knew this. Hence, they erased pre-colonial history and distorted the history of Africans during colonialism and apartheid. Biko was alert to this distortion. People's identity is formed by what they know of themselves. Thus Biko insisted that, rather than believe what the Bantu Education curriculum told them, black people had to independently study their own history. Recalling the heroic history and civilisations of pre-colonial Africa would disprove racist assertions that precolonial Africa was without any achievements prior to the arrival of settlers. Consequently, blacks would develop a positive self-image.

The student uprising in 1976 validated Biko. Black students refused to be taught in a language - Afrikaans - that sought to make them feel inferior, and demanded equal education instead. Once they believed they were worthy of equal treatment, black students could never tolerate oppression. Their actions reinvigorated the liberation struggle and some left the country to join liberation movements in exile. South Africa was never the same. The centre, therefore, is more than a memorialisation of Steven Bantu Biko. It is a monument to memory and identity. The centre will boast of, among other things, a museum and an archival centre, as well as a commemorative garden "honouring human rights activists". The centre will be connected to other heritage sites linked to Biko such as the Biko Statue, Zanempilo Clinic and Biko's home, office and grave. Each of these sites tell a different episode of Biko's life.

Equally important is that the centre is part of the Liberation Heritage Route being spearheaded by the National Heritage Council. The route connects Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement to the broader anti-colonial struggle dating back to the wars of resistance at the close of the 18th century into the 19th century. The idea is to illustrate that resistance did not only start in the 20th century Union of South Africa. Biko is as much a part of that 18th and 19th century anti-colonial history, as he would be of the 20th century. Not only was he inspired by the heroic history of the anti-colonial warriors, but he was also a product of the missionary schools built as part of spreading colonialism. As the historian Noel Mostert tells us in his book on the Eastern Cape, Frontiers, Biko represented the last generation of missionary graduates. The Eastern Cape is indeed a "province of legends". We hope the centre will bring pupils, scholars and tourists from throughout the world to experience the life of Steve Biko, and that businesses too will take advantage of the facilities offered at the centre. This is a new beginning not only for Ginsberg, but our country as a whole.