I am against the superior-inferior white-black stratification that makes the white a perpetual teacher and the black a perpetual pupil (and a poor one at that). I am against the intellectual arrogance of white people that makes them believe that white leadership is a sine qua non in this country and that whites are divinely appointed pace-setters in progress. I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people…

I am not working. I am persecuted for my political beliefs or mental beliefs. I have not done anything which is against the law, and I have got no profession as such. So if a guy in a round table is asking, what is your profession? I always say, freedom fighter, precisely because this is what the ‘state’ wants me to do, to sit at home and think about my freedom rather than be involved in creative work…

To understand me correctly, you would have to say that there were no fears expressed.


Excerpts from S. Biko. No Fears Expressed.Edited by M. W. Arnold. Mutloatse Heritage Trust. 2007.