Steve Biko

6. Choices and dilemmas

112 6 Choices and dilemmas In spite of not having been in agreement with the decision to defy the ban on the Curries Fountain meeting, it must have been a relief for Biko to have performed his task well at the Saso–BPC Trial. When those in the trial had begun to be arrested in 1974, Biko expressed in a letter to Father Stubbs that he felt ‘a strange kind of guilt’; he felt a responsibility that ‘so manyfriendsof minehavebeenarrestedforactivitiesin something I was most instrumental in starting’, a lot of them ‘blokes I spoke into the movement’. He comforts himself somewhat by saying that nobody knows why some of them were included and also that no trend in the movement warrants the ‘terror act’ being invoked. He then reminds himself that ‘one does not think this way in political life, of course’. Casualties are expected and should be bargained for. ‘An oppressive system often is illogical in the application of suppression’, he wrote to Stubbs in a letter. 113 In the same letter Biko admitted that for himself the going had been ‘tough under the present restrictions’. Again, he qualified this with his usual optimism and confidence:‘I am nowhere near despair and frustration but can understand only too well why some of our guys are.’ He saw the positives in his life: ‘a supportive and defensive township’, ‘reasonably fulfilling work’ and ‘I live with a very supportive family, one which is fully committed to my commitment if not to the cause itself’. Biko seldom revealed his fears openly. Both his sister Nobandile and his colleague Thenjiwe Mtintso say that if banning did get him down, it never showed. Emotionally he took on the mantle of the father to his extended family. Once he had a job he became joint supporter with his elder sister Bukelwa in looking after his mother, insisting that she stop working. After the sudden and tragic death of Bukelwa of a heart attack, in his mother’s house in September 1975, he and Ntsiki carried the responsibility. He also displayed a responsibility to everyone with whom he worked, including those he had worked with, now banned or banished. It was only to the very few that he revealed doubts and his own inner misgivings. Father Stubbs was one of these people and the evenings he spent with David Russell, he wrote, ‘were very good palliatives to the 114 mentaldecaythatsoeasilysetsin’.ToNtsikiheexpressed the expectation that she would be widowed before he was 30. When his frustration occasionally burst into uncontrolled rage, to the shock of those around him, because it was rare and so uncharacteristic, Ramphele was one of the few people who could calm him down and get him to go away to some quiet place. He shared many of his innermost thoughts with her as well. He talks of his supportive family being committed ‘to my commitment if not to the cause itself’. Biko was surrounded by women who loved and nurtured him, and Mamcethe, Ntsiki and Nobandile, his younger sister, complemented his life with their dedicated care. Women’s inclusion by men in the ‘just causes’ to which they are dedicated has often assumed that those women will always perform the functional tasks in the preparation of food and drink, provide a safe base, love and comfort. With this goes also the assumed superiority of the man’s intellect and choice of work, which is given time and space to be expressed. In spite of her key role as doctor in charge of the clinic, Ramphele also did her fair share of this kind of nurturing support for all the visitors who came to see Biko there. (He sometimes ate two meals, one there and one at his mother’s home, and he put on weight.) However, women in the BC movement were aware that it was exploitative. Mtintso remembers that ‘there was 115 no way you could think of Steve making a cup of tea or whatever for himself’. She herself once refused to do so for him and met the consequences. Biko did, indeed, expect this ‘traditional’ support, but he and others also assumed an equality of purpose andcapabilityfromthewomenwhoworkedwiththem. Biko was filled with admiration after Mtintso had withstood very rough treatment and torture in prison. Mtintso comments wryly: ‘We would have our revolts. They do want women to be political, to be active, to be everything, but they still need...