Steve Biko > Quotes

“The greatest weapon in the hand of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
― Steve Biko

“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die”
― Steve Biko

“The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.”
― Steve Biko

“Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression.”
― Steve Biko

“The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”
― Steve Biko

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”
― Stephen Bantu Biko, Black Consciousness in South Africa

“At the time of his death, Biko had a wife and three children for which he left a letter that stated in one part: “I've devoted my life to see equality for blacks, and at the same time, I've denied the needs of my family. Please understand that I take these actions, not out of selfishness or arrogance, but to preserve a South Africa worth living in for blacks and whites.”
― Steve Biko

“Instead of involving themselves in an all-out attempt to stamp out racism from their white society, liberals waste a lot of time trying to prove to as many blacks as they can find that they are liberal.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“What Black Consciousness seeks to do is to produce real black people who do not regard themselves as appendages to white society. We do not need to apologise for this because it is true that the white systems have produced through the world a number of people who are not aware that they too are people.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“I would like to remind the black ministry, and indeed all black people, that God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people’s problems on earth.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like

“I write what I like”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“A game at which the liberals have become masters is that of deliberate evasiveness. The question often comes up `what can you do?`. If you ask him to do something like stopping to use segregated facilities or dropping out of varsity to work at menial jobs like all blacks or defying and denouncing all provisions that make him privileged, you always get the answer - `but that's unrealistic!' While this may be true, it only serves to illustrate the fact that no matter what a white man does, the colour of his skin - his passport to privilege- will always put him miles ahead of the black men. Thus in the ultimate analysis, no white person can escape being part of the oppressor camp.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“Double consciousness is knowing the particularity of the white world in the face of its enforced claim to universality. Double consciousness is knowing the history offered up to black people—its many interpretations and echoes of white superiority and black inferiority, of white heroism and black cowardice, and even the temporal and geographical location of history’s beginning as a step off of the African continent—is a falsehood that blacks are forced to treat as truth in so many countless ways. Double consciousness, in other words, is knowing a lie while living its contradiction.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.”
― Steve Biko

“The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of the liberal ideology must be cracked because it makes people believe that something is being achieved when in reality the artificially integrated circles are a soporific to the blacks while salving the consciences of the few guilt-stricken whites.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“Amabhulu azizinja”
― Steve Biko

“The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look but the great gift still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face.”
― Steve Biko

“L'arme la plus puissantes entre les mains de l'oppresseur est l'esprit de l'opprimé.”
― Steve Biko

“Thus in South Africa it is very expensive to be poor. It is the poor people who stay furthest from town and therefore have to spend more money on transport to come and work for white people; it is the poor people who use uneconomic and inconvenient fuel like paraffin and coal because of the refusal of the white man to install electricity in black areas; it is the poor people who are governed by many ill-defined restrictive laws and therefore have to spend money on fines for 'technical' offences; it is the poor people who have no hospitals and are therefore exposed to exorbitant charges by private doctors; it is the poor people who use untarred roads, have to walk long distances, and therefore experience the greatest wear and tear on commodities like shoes; it is the poor people who have to pay for their children's books while whites get them free.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die." - Steven Biko”
― Steve Biko

“No group, however benevolent, can ever hand power to the vanquished on a plate.”
― Steve Biko

“We regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting endless competition among us but as a deliberate act of God to make us a community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life. Hence in all we do we always place man first and hence all our action is usually joint community oriented action rather than the individualism." - Steven Biko”
― Steve Biko

“You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can’t care anyway.”
― Steve Biko

“A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine. Their [Page 30 ] emotions cannot be easily controlled and channelled in a recognisable direction. They always live in the shadow of a more successful society.”
― Steve Biko, I write what I like

“In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.”
― Steve Biko

“Thus in adopting the line of a nonracial approach, the liberals are playing their old game. They are claiming a "monopoly on intelligence and moral judgement" and setting the pattern and pace for the realisation of the black man's aspirations. They want to remain in good books with both the black and white worlds. They want to shy away from all forms of "extremisms", condemning "white supremacy" as being just as bad as "Black Power!". They vacillate between the two worlds, verbalising all the complaints of the blacks beautifully while skilfully extracting what suits them from the exclusive pool of white privileges. But ask them for a moment to give a concrete meaningful programme that they intend adopting, then you will see on whose side they really are. Their protests are directed at and appeal to white conscience, everything they do is directed at finally convincing the white electorate that the black man is also a man and that at some future date he should be given a place at the white man's table. The myth of integration as propounded under the banner of liberal ideology must be cracked and killed because it makes people believe that something is being done when in actual fact the artificial integrated circles are a soporific on the blacks and provide a vague satisfaction for the guilty-stricken whites. It works on a false premise that because it is difficult to bring people from different races together in this country, therefore achievement of this is in itself a step forward towards the total liberation of the blacks. Nothing could be more irrelevant and therefore misleading. Those who believe in it are living in a fool's paradise.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“The fact that apartheid has been tied up with white supremacy, capitalist exploitation, and deliberate oppression makes the problem much more complex. Material want is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty it kills. And this latter effect is probably the one that creates mountains of obstacles in the normal course of emancipation of the black people.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“The integration they talk about is first of all artificial intelligence that it is a response to conscious manoeuvre rather than to the dictates of the inner soul. In other words the people forming the integrated complex have been extracted from various segregated societies with their inbuilt complexes of superiority and inferiority and these continue to manifest themselves even in the "nonracial" set-up of the integrated complex. As a result the integration so achieved is a one-way course, with the whites doing all the talking and the blacks listening”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“Basically the South African white community is a homogeneous community. It is a community of people who sit and enjoy a privileged position that they do not deserve, are aware of this, and therefore spend their time trying to justify why they are doing so. Where differences in political opinion exist, they are in the process of trying to justify their position of privilege and their usurpation of power.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“No longer was reference made to African culture, it became barbarism. Africa was the "dark continent". Religious practices and customs were referred to as superstition. The history of African Society was reduced to tribal battles and internecine wars. There was no conscious migration by the people from one place of abode to another. No, it was always flight from one tyrant who wanted to defeat the tribe not for any positive reason but merely to wipe them out of the face of this earth. No wonder the African child learns to hate his heritage in his days at school. So negative is the image presented to him that he tends to find solace only in close identification with the white society.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings