Capitalism Killed Biko

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Steve Biko was the 46th police since detention without trial was legalised in 1963.

All the other deaths in detention (including two which have occurred since Biko's death) happened quietly, with only the slightest mention in either the South African or European capitalist press.

Yet Biko's death reverberated throughout the liberal press, with calls for an inquiry coming even from an outraged London Times:

The South African author¡ties decided to hold a very püblic "inquest" into the circumstances surrounding Biko's death.

The inquiry was covered by the world and domestic press. This contrasts sharply with some of the "explanations" given for the deaths of the earlier prisoners.

Undisclosed

• No. 46-Steve Biko includes a list of details of the other 45 dead prisoners. The only information on No. 13 (given to the South African parliament on 28 January 1969) was that on an undisclosed date:

"an unidentified man died at an undisclosed time of an undisclosed cause at an undisclosed place"

Others apparently "slipped on a piece of soap and fatally injured himself" or "slipped down the stairs"

The decision to hold such a public hearing in the case of Biko was partly an attempt by Kruger, Minister of Police and his accomplices to silence suggestions at home and abroad that the South African justice system wasn't all that it could be.

The inquest failed pathetically to convince even the capitalist press that the judicial process was fair or the Security Police humane and gentle.

Kruger had to forcibly silence domestic critics, first by expelling Biko's friend, liberal newspaper editor Donald Woods and by closing down the black paper The World and then by introducing stringent new censorship laws.

The authorities were able to use the inquest for another purpose however. It was a method of putting Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness movement, of which he was the founder and spiritual leader, on trial.

For the benefit ofthe conservative whites, it proved the Security Police and the PHOTO: PHOTO: Mike Kahn, IFL Donald 1 oods judicial system were well equipped to deal with "terrorists" like Biko.

After his death the produced documents which "proved" that he had been inciting crowds to violence, ana advocating acts of terrorism against whites-allegations which they had been quite unable even to try and substantiate during his life-time.

In fact, the image of Biko as "terrorist" could not be further from the truth.

The Black Consciousness movement had been founded on twin principles; firstly an assertion of black national identity which transcended tribal divisions and excluded whites;

and secondly, the doctrine of non-violent resistance, derived from the movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

These positions, however, as events have shown, are contradictory.

Bernstein makes the point that any assertion of black pride or unity amongst blacks is bound to hit violently against the institutions of apartheid.

The 1976 events in Soweto where the school students were inspired by the Black People's Convention (the organised expression of Black Consciousness) to refuse to go to schools where they were taught in the language of their oppressors, brought the force of the state, with all the violence of its institutionalised racism, down upon them.

Any peaceful protest in South Africa is immediately met with the violence of the state, and the teaching of "nonviolence' . can only be utopian.

Dangers

The South African regime recognised the dangers to its stability posed by the Black People's Convention, and therefore took steps to get rid of its most prominent leader.

Biko had been 'banned" (a form of house arrest where the prisoner is unable to speak or be quoted publicly or to meet with more than one person at a time) since February 1973.

This did not prevent him from becoming an internationally respected figure.

As Bernstein points out in No. 46, his "non-violence" helped him to get the support of white liberals.

It was this support that made Biko's death different to that of the other murdered prisoners-he was known throughout the world. ' The Biko inquest raises interesting questions about the role of the judiciary in a capitalist state-not just that of South Africa, but in liberal democracies as well.

South Africa represents a form of capitalism, stripped of the liberal facade of bourgeois democracy, where the institutions are clearly seen to be the instruments of white capitalist rule.

Account It is obvious from reading Bernstein's account of the inquest, (which is largely composed of actual transcripts) that the whole charade was a means of legitimising the Security In a country like Britain, renowned for its equitable legal system the class nature of SAUR Crowds at Biko's funeral "justice" is obscured by the myth of "equality before the law' Hilda Bernstein does not investigate the wider significance of the Biko inquest in this way.

Her account aimed towards those liberals in Britain who will be morally outraged that the South African legal system is not like the good old British one.

the The most shocking aspect of the inquiry, both for Bernstein and the Biko family lawyer Sidney Kentridge, is the admission by Colonel Goosen, head of the interrogation team, that the Security Police are above the law. The cross examination went like this:

"Kentridge: What right did you have to keep a man in chains for 48 hours?

Goosen: I have the full power to do it. Prisoners could attempt suicide or escape.

Kentridge: Let's have an honest answer-where did you get your power?

Goosen: It is my power. Kentridge: Are you people above the law?

Goosen: I have full powers to ensure a man's safety.

Kentridge: I am asking for the statute.

Goosen: We don't work under statutes.

This admission, of something that was obvious already, is made much of in Bernstein's conclusions, as she analyses the role of the South African courts in controlling the police.

She points out with surprise that the legal system in South Africa is completely enmeshed in the repressive apparatus of the regime:

"The courts in South Africa are a part of that closed circuit of power that maintains white supremacy".

However, even while seeing this, she still assumes that an "independent 'judiciary" is a possibility, failing to realise that any judiciary is not independent but just one aspect of the institution of class rule.

She defines an 'independent judiciary"' as:

... one that functions where the rule of law exists and protects human rights"

Terrar This misses the essential point that where it is necessary for capitalist rule to infringe human rights the judiciary will simply collaborate.

The introduction in Britair of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the prosecution o Aubrey, Berry and Campell anc the papers that published the name of Colonel "B" all shov that the courts are actually used to violate civil liberties and are in no sense independent Defficiencies No. 46-Steve Biko is fascin. ating reading despite its political deficiencies. It reveals the methods of the Security Police, as Biko's story begins to unfold in the answers-or non answersto the lawyers' questions.

It is also full of small points that reveal the callousness of the police and their determined violence-such as one Freudian slip where Goosen refers to his interrogation team, as "my assaulting team"

It may not be essentia reading for socialists-but if you have any acquaintances whc think the South African regime "is not that bad" then refer them to this book.

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The Barcelona bull ring was overflowing on May 29 as over 25,000 people, mostly supporters of the The great "Eurocom-

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person known to have died mysteriously in the hands of the South African security