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| Xolela Mangcu: Biko |
In this extract from his new book, ‘Biko: A Biography’, Xolela Mangcu looks at Steve Biko’s extraordinary gift of leadership
STEVE Biko’s approach to leadership has lessons for
contemporary discussions of leadership and succession in South African
politics.
His friend and priest from the Community of the
Resurrection, Aelred Stubbs, has described Steve’s “extraordinary gift of leadership”
as consisting in his ability to develop layers of leadership under him.
This empowering of leaders started from the very beginning
of the movement when he insisted that Barney Pityana should take over as
president of the South African Students Organi sation (Saso ).
According to Stubbs, “it was an integral part of Steve’s
greatness as a leader that he could step down and give loyal service to someone
as yet very little known outside the Eastern Cape”.
Stubbs made a similar observation in his memoir, Martyr of
Hope, that “if Steve had been the kind of leader who kept everything in his own
hands, the whole thing would have collapsed. But full scope was given to every
individual for initiative, and the supportive spirit of the King [William’s
Town] community buttressed the shortcomings an individual might be afraid of in
him or herself”.
Stubbs further observes that “whereas other leaders tend
almost insensibly to become leaders with a capital L, I never saw any sign at
all of this happening with Steve. He remained, to the end, on all fours with
us, an example of what we all could be, above and beyond us only in his vision,
and in the depths of his commitment as his death in detention showed”.
Steve’s wife, Ntsiki, describes Steve’s leadership as a “gift,
I think, he got from God, so he would be able to work with all sorts of people
… so much that, most of the time, you would find that even the family was not
coming first.
“I’ll give you an example of what I am saying. Sometimes,
you know, when we were staying here [Ginsberg] when he got banned in 1973,
people would come with problems. There’s money problems or family problems.
Somebody would come and say ‘I don’t have money to send my child to school’, or
‘I haven’t got food at home’. You know what he used to do? He would take our
bags and actually empty our bags so that he got whatever he wanted to help that
person … He was always wanting to do something for people.”
His long-time friend and comrade Bokwe Mafuna describes the
atmosphere when Steve was around. He remembers the day of their first
encounter: “So there I was, in front of this hovering black man with an
unbelievable presence. Steve shone in any gathering because of his deep
interest in people, his sharp intellect and eloquence. He was a gifted speaker
and could spellbind any audience – black or white, intellectuals, working class
or rural folk, young or old.
“I was immediately attracted to his intellectual handling of
our main preoccupation, the evils of apartheid and the challenges to our
community. But he could also talk about economics, literature, jazz or Marabi
music. He was knowledgeable about African traditions and the history of our
people. I was amazed at the range of his abilities.”
Stubbs similarly remembers walking into a room at St Peter’s
College at the Federal Seminary in Alice: “During my last year at the seminary
I did not see much of Stephen, but I remember entering the students’ common
room at St Peter’s one day and seeing him sprawled in an armchair, as usual the
centre of attention. He looked like one of the large feline animals – a tiger
maybe – with an animal grace and an insolent ease and a sense of immense latent
power. ‘Hello there’, he greeted me, not rising from his chair, but with a
relaxed friendliness that was virtually irresistible. It was only much later
that I learned that this spontaneous informality masked his deep respect for me
as his ‘dear priest’.”
The emergence of Big Leaders – leaders with a capital L – in
contemporary South Africa shows how far we have veered from the kind of
leadership Steve embodied.
Nelson Mandela was also acutely aware of the dangers of
charismatic leadership and stepped down after one term in office, even though
the presidency was his for the taking for another term.
He was succeeded by Thabo Mbeki, who sounded hopeful notes
of a return to the cultural themes of empowerment that were the hallmark of the
Black Consciousness and Pan Africanist movements.
My former Black Consciousness comrade, Mojanku Gumbi, became
one of Mbeki’s closest advisers. Richard Calland described Gumbi as the most
important person in the country after Mbeki.
Mbeki advocated the idea of the African Renaissance as the
leitmotif for Africa’s cultural, political and economic revival. The
Renaissance held the promise of a new public philosophy. It could have
constituted what the American literary critic, Van Wyk Brooks, called the
“usable past”. This is the idea that in re-imagining themselves, societies
ought to turn to the treasure trove of their collective memory, and selectively
choose that which they think can be useful in the making of a new political,
economic and cultural order. Just as memory is needed to avoid the mistakes of
the past, it is equally needed to adapt what has worked in the past to meet the
challenges of the present.
Unfortunately, the African Renaissance became no more than
what Amilcar Cabral called “a cultural renaissance [that] was expressed in
European languages, which the indigenous people could not understand”.
What was supposed to be a public philosophy became a measure
of private loyalty and an instrument of economic gain for the politically
well-connected. A couple of conferences were organised in Sandton, and nothing
has been heard of the renaissance ever since. A Centre for African Renaissance
studies is attached to the University of South Africa but it is a far cry from
the mobilising leitmotif that some of us had hoped for, stripped of the organic
link to communities that was the central tenet of Black Consciousness
philosophy.
Jacob Zuma emerged as the classic charismatic hero, representing
the interests of the alienated masses and many of those who had been hurt by
Mbeki. That is how Zuma was able to put together one of the most remarkable
political alliances of the post- democratic era – from pimps and hooligans to
stripe-suited businessmen to trade unionists and opinion makers. Zuma thus
ascended to power less because he was loved and more because Mbeki was hated.
Even though I was excited about Zuma’s ascendancy, I still
felt room for doubt: “The question at the end of the day is whether the new
leadership under Zuma has the emotional temperament, the ethical-moral
commitment, the political willingness and the institutional resources needed
for the revival of democracy. If they do not, then we will be in no better
position than we were under Mbeki. In fact, we might even be in worse shape. In
the end Mbeki’s autocratic behaviour might simply be replaced by anarchy under
Zuma. The democratic moment would have been just that – a passing moment”.
It was indeed only a matter of time before allegations of
corruption against Zuma’s administration began to surface, and before the
president himself started to behave in pretty much the same way as his
predecessor, Thabo Mbeki.
In a nutshell, Zuma brings to mind the emperor Napoleon’s
frustration at the checks and balances imposed on him by the institutions of
the French Revolution.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu captured the spirit of our times –
the essence of our public philosophy – when he responded to the government’s
refusal to grant the Dalai Lama a visa to attend his birthday party. Tutu’s
response seemed to capture how interests instead of values have taken over in
our political culture: “You do not represent me, Mr Zuma, you represent
yourself and your interests”.
This emphasis on interests over values seems to be a far cry
from Steve Biko’s approach to politics.
