Happy 72nd birthday Biko!
“Being black is not a matter of pigmentation but a reflection of a mental attitude”
You said, Comrade, that “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”
Yes, Brother you said that “we reject any attempts to make the black man an alien in his country of birth”
They thought they had killed you like Kwame Nkuruma, like Patrice Lumumba, like Amilca Cabral, like Samora Machel, like Dele Giwa, like Anton Lubowski, like Pio Gama Pinto and Tom Mboya, like Deyda Haydara, like many anonymous writers, poets and revolutionaries buried in Egypt, Libya, DR Congo, Angola and Liberia…
But like Christopher Okigbo, poets never die
Like Thomas Sankara revolutionaries live on…
Like Yatuta Chisiza, poets never die
Like Ken Saro Wiwa…
Viva black consciousness!
Viva the freedoms you fought for!
Viva the ideals you propagated!
Viva the lives you were to protect with your aborted career!
Viva the poet and the revolutionary!
Viva the soil that soaked your blood as apartheid hounds slit your throat!
Viva students’ power!
Viva peoples’ power!
Viva Azania!
Viva Africa!”