Introduction

Publishing essays in memory of Steve Biko is not only a fitting way of commemorating the 30th anniversary of his cruel murder, it is also evidence of how not even death has been able to curtail his influence.

I am grateful to have been invited to contribute an essay to this project, and to be afforded an opportunity to bear testimony, along with others, about how Steve touched my life. Because I have been requested to write about Steve's impact on a specific aspect of my life I have to speak about myself, which is not a comfortable thing to do. Hopefully the reader will focus on what Steve did for me and see that this essay is about him and not me.

To understand what Steve did for me you have to see me before I was exposed to him.

Background

I grew up in Middelburg in what was then the Transvaal (now Gauteng). Although we never had to worry about where our next meal would come from, we were not well-to-do. My father drove one of those little Ford Prefect cars. Our horizons did not allow us to imagine that an ordinary car might have a transmission system with four forward gears, let alone six!

My father's little jalopy was wont to jump every now and then out of top gear into neutral. To get its transmission system to function properly would have set the family budget back a few months. So my father's solution to the problem was very practical: once you reached driving, as opposed to accelerating, speed (not that the difference was always perceptible!), you simply kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear lever to ensure the car stayed in top gear.

This was not the only problem we had with my old man's car. My parents came from Herschel in the Eastern Cape. Often when they were on leave they would bundle all six of us kids up and throw us into the Ford Prefect and take us on an enjoyable long drive to Herschel. I still drive there every once in a while to stay connected with my ancestral roots.