#steve biko

[forever70s]

Steve Biko, anti-apartheid Xhosa activist and founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, circa mid 1970s

[arinzeture]

[seethesound]

In September 2022 Mahsa Amini, a young woman from Iran’s oppressed Kurdish minority, visited Tehran with her brother. She was stopped and arrested by Iran’s “morality” police (gasht-e ershad), who routinely arbitrarily detain women who do not comply with the country’s abusive and discriminatory compulsory veiling laws.

Eyewitnesses said that police pushed her into a van and beat her, taking her to Vozara detention centre in Tehran. Mahsa/Zhina Amini and her brother were told that she was being transferred to Vozara for an “educational” class aimed at “reforming” the behaviour of women and girls who violate the country’s rigid Islamic dress code. Her brother was also beaten when he protested.

Hours after her arrest, credible reports arose that the “morality” police had subjected her to torture and other ill-treatment inside the police van, including through beatings to her head. She fell into a coma, and was transferred in an ambulance to Kasra hospital in Tehran.

She died in custody three days later in hospital, on 16 September 2022.

She was just 22 years old

[questcequecestqueca]

[garadinervi]

Room 619, Sanlam Building Security Police Headquarters, Port Elizabeth (then Gqeberha) [Steve Biko Foundation, Qonce]

[respectyourlegacybooks]

Thinking about Steve Biko today

In this extract from "I Write What I Like" his words hit different every single time

The way he talked about psychological liberation being just as important as political freedom... that's the kind of revolutionary thinking we still need

Biko understood that real change starts in the mind - breaking down internalized oppression before you can tackle the external systems

Rest in power to a true visionary

[tilbageidanmark]

Black is beautiful

[theperfectquestion]

Thinking of Steve Biko having a brief episode where he somehow becomes aware that, in the 21st century, his essay about how expensive it is to be poor is primarily attributed to a fictional policeman created by an Englishman. He gives one loud, rancorous laugh to the empty room and then the strange notion fades.