I miss the era of Black Consciousness.
I miss the towering political, moral and intellectual presence of Steve Biko and Barney Pityana; the political lessons I received at the feet of Muntu Myeza, Saths Cooper, Strini Moodley and Peter Jones; the black feminism of Mamphela Ramphele, Thenjiwe Mtintso, Nohle Mohapi, Phumla Jobodwana and Thoko Mpumlwana (nee Mbanjwa); the charisma and camaraderie of Khehla Mthembu, Kabelo Lengane and Sesi Lengane; the quiet fortitude of Zithulele Cindi and Lybon Mabasa and Pandelani Nefolovhodwe. The risk of pointing out names is that you inevitably leave some out.
Over the years I have asked myself the counterfactual question: what if? What if these men and women had had the opportunity to shape the course of our country and the content of its character? Counterfactual questions are by definition unanswerable, because we do not know if dead people would have conducted themselves otherwise. But counterfactuals can also spur the imagination. I am a product of counterfactual thinking.
When my parents wanted me to go to Fort Hare I asked myself, what if I just showed up at Wits? When Lusiba Ntloko gave me a card from a Harvard professor I asked myself, what if I resigned and took up the opportunity? What if this instead of that is the most important question you can ask yourself as a young person.
I miss men such as Lusiba and his younger brother Phambili because they embodied black selflessness. And so when I say I miss these individuals I really mean I miss their ability to translate these ethical instincts into political values. The first is their sheer integrity. By that I do not mean that they were saints or infallible. I simply mean they had character - a sense of moral purpose. Could they have been corrupted? I don't know.
I don't know if Biko or Myeza would have avoided the skullduggery that has come to characterise our leaders, but their deaths means they can be useful mythical figures who can inspire us to be those angels that Abraham Lincoln imagined.
The second quality about Black Consciousness I miss is the reverence the leadership had for education. This may be due to the fact that the movement started at universities. Be that as it may, as young people we wanted to be like them. I remember going with Biko to the clinic he was running with Ramphele. The clinic was quite literally built by his fellow students from the medical school at the University of Natal. I would like to think that education would have been at the top of a government that they ran. I cannot imagine otherwise because that is the memory they left me.
The third quality was their sense of culture. As Biko wrote in his essays, a people without a cultural identity is like a car without an engine. Culture was not what colonial anthropologists and racial nativists who pose as radicals imagined it to be - a static concept in which Africans were stuck in the past before the arrival of Europeans 500 years ago . I can imagine the movement putting the study of African history at the heart of the curriculum.
It is absurd for the present government to think SA can become a stable and successful society without a well-educated citizenry. Their conceit is the notion that somehow you can sustain society by having a small elite.
It is absurd for the present government to think SA can become a stable and successful society without a well-educated citizenry. Their conceit is the notion that somehow you can sustain society by having a small elite
The fourth quality I miss is the Black Consciousness emphasis on self-reliant development. Biko and his comrades went into rural areas to set up community projects. I witnessed this first-hand when Biko used his banishment to our township to build projects such as a bursary fund to send young people to university.
Outside of my family, the first batch of graduates came from that scholarship. When US President Joe Biden proposes child care so people can go to work, I am reminded of the créche Biko set up in our township.
Fifth, I miss Black Consciousness because of its emphasis on leadership development. The movement produced the most diverse group of leaders in our country's history. Almost everyone I know speaks about the leadership-formation schools that Biko and his comrades ran at Wilgespruit. Pityana described the leadership programmes as the "Black Consciousness mill".
What do we have now? A recycling of the same individuals for the past 30 years, as if they would bring something new to the table.
Finally, Black Consciousness provided an approach to race that is hardly understood by the nativists who claim to be the movement's progenitors. In the past Black Consciousness was restricted to black people, and for good reason. But Azapo, the movement's flagship organisation, opened its membership because of the new realities of a nonracial society and constitution.
Given this reality I have been arguing for a new approach to race that I call the Consciousness of Blackness. By that I simply mean that it is only when white South Africans come to grips with the experiences and perspectives of black people that they can liberate their children from the trappings of colonial and apartheid racism.
To liberate themselves they must learn African languages and cultures. This will not solve the country's racial inequalities but it will be a significant step towards what Biko called a joint culture.
I am conscious of the fact that I am not as radical today as I was in the 1970s and '80s. I would forgive today's radicals for calling me a sellout for urging us to expand the vision of the movement to fit the new times. But as Chinua Achebe said when I invited him to SA in 2002: "It is not me that you should worry about, I will be OK. It is you that you should be concerned about."
Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have told the younger generation of America's founding fathers that he was leaving them a republic if they could keep it. People such as Nelson Mandela and Biko left us a republic but we have lost our grip on it. Thugs in suits now define the range of our moral and political imagination - just like Hendrik Verwoerd did in the 1960s.
But, lest we despair, we should also remember that the black community had given up hope when Biko and his comrades emerged to rescue us from the doldrums. It takes young people to turn the tide, if they will ride it.
• Mangcu is a professor of sociology and history at George Washington University in the US
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