Steve Biko, the South African liberation struggle hero who considered dishonour worse than death

Steve Biko, the South African liberation struggle hero who considered dishonour worse than death

By Jacob Dlamini, Princeton University What happens when death becomes the ultimate marker of one’s commitment to one’s freedom? Jacob Dlamini explores this and other questions in his new book, Dying for Freedom: Political Martyrdom in South Africa. This edited extract, from the chapter Dead and Proud, focuses on Steve Biko’s attitude to martyrdom and to the political uses of death (30). Steve Biko’s death on 12 September […]

September 10, 2024 19

South Africa

Ordinary white South Africans and apartheid – bound to a racist system they helped prop up

By Neil Roos, University of Fort Hare In South Africa, apartheid was a divisive political system entrenched by a white minority who regarded other ethnic groups as inferior, creating townships on the outskirts of cities to house the black population and legislation to control their movements. Many academic studies have focused on black life under apartheid, but few on white life – and even fewer on […]

July 10, 2024 22