s I distribute issues of the New Frank Talk in Durban in I get asked two questions. The first is whether the New Frank Talk is a revival of the Frank Talk journal which used to be published by the Azanian People’s Organization in the 80’s. The other question is whether Andile Mngxitama’s use of Biko’s pen name for a publication that mainly features his opinion-pieces suggests that he posits himself as the new Steve Biko. The latter question is often related to the observation that not only does he disdain party politics and chastises parliamentary politics, but that Mngxitama present as a fact his opinion that Biko would not be associating himself with any of the current political parties upholding the philosophy of Black Consciousness. Readers also pointed to me the fact that Mngxitama seems to be putting it as a fact rather than his perception that Biko would be part of small energy points such as the counter-culture group, Blackwash of as well as the loose group of individuals and collectives of election boycotters. The fact that Mngxitama is effectively the main voice and mind behind Blackwash and that he is part of the so-called principled boycotters informs the view that he postures as the new Steve Biko or presents his idea of how BC adherents should locate themselves in the current political scenario as the only authentic representation of what Biko stood for.

My perspective is that academic, literary, cultural and political activists and organizations can and may claim to continue with and / or to update the traditions and idea(l)s of their predecessors but they cannot be their duplicates, replicas and / or the only authentic representations of their legacies nor can such a claim hold water. We can all quote from Das Kapital and / or I write what I like to give credence to our perspectives on what would have been the position of Karl Marx / Steve Biko in a specific situation at a particular moment in history as much as Christians / Muslims / Muslims / Hindus of divergent schools can quote the Bible / Quran / Bhagavad-Gita to substantiate why their particular practices are correct. But Das Kapital, I Write What I like, and the Quran / Bible and Bhagavad-Gita are books, written between two covers. They need interpreters, and interpreters are human beings. And human beings’ interpretation of historical and textual sources of references of any way of living or way of thinking is in most instances informed by subjective realities and experiences and specific preferences and choices and decisions made by individuals and collectives. As a result individuals’ interpretations of sayings and actions of personalities regarded as authorities of the ideology and philosophy they follow will vary. There will never be a single understanding or a sole authentic representation of any philosophy / ideology or of the works / ideas of any thinker / activist because people’s application of historical and textual references / sources to specific contexts is informed by a variety of factors including socio-economic experiences and specific choices and decisions that they make as individuals and as collectives.

I therefore prefer to view the name New Frank Talk as a symbolic act of continuing with and updating Biko’s / the BCM’s / Frank Talk’s (the journal) tradition of fearless critique of power and social relations in a society in which there is a strong interplay and interrelationship between the politics of class and race and in which both the national and class questions are far from being resolved. For me, Mngxitama’s positioning of Biko outside party politics and outside parliamentary politics, reflects disillusionment with the elitism of representative democracy whereby political parties claim power on behalf of the people but exclude people from being involved in the deciding, making and implementation of policies and programs in a participatory, active and genuine manner. It reflects disenchantment with the careerism of parties and skepticism towards government and is in itself a call and demand for grassroots-action oriented, society-centred participatory modes of democraticizing the allocation of power and resources. It is a call for organic transformation centred on social action by people through collective and participatory democratic processes established by themselves in the struggle and through struggle. The disillusionment with representative bourgeoisie democracy and with the clientelism of the neo-apartheid state, and the search for a revolutionary people-based alternative, is shared by many adherents of the philosophy of Black Consciousness including in my view at least one Black Consciousness political party- Socialist Party of Azania (SOPA).

As one of the Black Consciousness activists and adherents with affinities to the Socialist Party of Azania I am in agreement with Mngxitama that Biko acknowledged class dynamics but argued that in the context of Azania there is a marriage of class and capital. It is the recognition of the realities of class that made Biko alive to the possibilities of a neo-colonial, neo-apartheid arrangement whereby the Black elite and political classes will be transformed into a comprador bourgeosie class, running a clientele state on behalf of the local and international bourgeoisie. However, Biko’s caution regarding possibilities of a neo-colonial, neo-apartheid dispensation wherein the Black elite is merely assimilated into the capitalist class did not stop him from having hope in and working for the possibility of a revolutionary transformation that completely overhauls apartheid-capitalism to usher in an egalitarian society. The egalitarian socialist society that Biko envisaged is the one in which integration is achieved by closing all doors of prejudice thereby building a country of one people rather than of minorities and majorities. But unlike Mngxitama, our contention is that Biko would not necessarily search for solutions / alternatives outside the framework of political parties nor would he have been averse to contesting for power via electoral processes or the parliamentary route. On the contrary we believe that Biko would have opted for a total package strategy that includes critical challenge of the establishment from below through radical activism inclusive of civil disobedience; boycott and protest action, self-reliance community development initiatives, counter-culture initiatives such as the New Frank Talk and Blackwash as well as challenging and contesting dominant discourses through legal-constitutional processes such as class action, court cases, petitions, public hearings; and contesting for political power through the ballot and the parliament. Or at least he would NOT condemn those who have chosen the latter part the frozen and he the ONLY chosen if per chance he were to operate outside party-political spaces.

Our knowledge and understanding of Biko tell us that he would have hoped and worked for the possibilities of mass uprising, even mass insurrection against neo-colonial, neo-apartheid and neo-liberal dispensation while also working hard to build a strong sociopolitical movement and / or political party that could use electoral / parliamentary processes to use political power as a leverage for transformation of social and power relations in a manner that addresses racial and class disparities and ensures the ushering in of an egalitarian society. The Biko we know would fight the exclusion of people and monopolization of power by elite-controlled political parties and a bourgeosie liberal-democratic government by being part of a collective initiative to build a truly people-centred democratically controlled Black Working class-led political party and towards an alternative to market fundamentalism rather than by putting his hope in loose association of protestors and boycotters. We believe that Biko would have found a creative way of linking up with the boycotters and of making the disillusioned masses to swell the ranks of a sociopolitical movement and party geared at seizure of power by any means necessary and making strategic uses of avenues and platforms available. Above all, based on his political practice when he was alive, Biko would have applied his mind on the current political scenario as part of a collective, subjecting his views to the critical engagement by the collective and subjecting himself to the decisions and resolutions of a collective. We strongly believe that Biko would invest his energies into reclaiming the best philosophical and organizational traditions of Black Consciousness and Socialism, combating dictatorial, bureaucratic centralists tendencies and the cult of personality and promoting collective leadership and active participation of the masses in designing policy-programmes and strategies and tactics of their organizations instead of resigning and handing over the sphere of party politics and the arena of parliamentary politics to careerists.. Most importantly, Biko would never have gotten tired of facilitating and working for the unity of the various sections of the Black Consciousness Movement.

Our argument that Biko would have been an organizational / movement / party person rather than an independent activist is supported by the very reason he gave for using the pseudonym, Frank Talk. Responding to the question in the Saso-BPC trial as to why he did not stand for another term as president Biko replied that he wanted to focus the attention of the people to the message of the movement than to individuals and personalities and he personally believed if the same individuals occupy same positions for long people begin to identify the message with individuals rather than the movement and also begin to identify with personalities than with the message. He went on to say the desire for the message to be identified with the collective than with individuals prompted him to write his column under the nom de plume of Frank Talk.

It is critical to highlight this reason because nowadays a lot of young writers use Biko’s pen name and dictum “ I write what I Like” and Frank Talk, respectively to advocate writing and art for the sake or an expression of an individual voice detached from social reality or disregarding social concerns and collective interests and collective aspirations of society. There are also attempts by political officialdom, state intellectuals and academia and the corporates to de-link Biko from radical activism and to present him as freelance thinker-writer / and community activist. But Steve Biko was not loner. His Black Community Projects were officially a component of the programs and structures of SASO-BPC and his writings and saying were located within the framework of the collective efforts of the BCM to develop the philosophy of Black Consciousness and to attune socialist theories to the Black Azanian experience. He was a loyal member of a movement (BCM) and a political party and subjected his writings and views to collective criticism and democratic decisions of structures of a political party: Black Peoples Convention. He wrote his I write what I like opinion pieces under the frank talk moniker as contributions to the official newsletter of the South African Students Organization and as a member of the Black Peoples Convention, a political party. The newsletter had an editorial team which was accountable to the leadership and membership of the South African Students Organization and the Black Peoples Convention. This means that Biko’s writings were handed in to an editorial team which had the final decision of publishing and editing the articles. In other words, Biko reclaim the write to critically express himself on social reality and to speak truth to power as part of a collective that asserted the right of Black People as a collective to express themselves in their terms rather than as individual / personal heroics.

We must defend, promote and celebrate the initiative of counter-culture groups like Blackwash and the New Frank talk to continue with the legacy of Biko and to update the philosophy of BC to current discourses and struggles on issues such as service delivery, governance and participation and accountability, social policy, the economy, the environment, gender and gay lesbian bi-sexual and transvestites rights. We must resist the temptation to pronounce ourselves as the only true disciples of Steve Biko or to appropriate the philosophy of Black Consciousness and socialist theories as only the domain of political parties. But we must equally not be fooled into believing that Black Consciousness and grassroots-expressions of socialism can only happen in the sphere of “small energy points” nor must we hold the relations between these and political parties that claim to raise the voice and interests of the Black Working class must be necessarily dichotomous. This we say while at the same time echoing the criticism that Mngxitama against the political trajectory pursued by the current leadership of the Azanian People’s Organization, which has unfortunately turned this once vibrant radical Black organization into a party that advocates for a political field that operates within the liberal constitutionalist framework. It is sad that today's AZAPO pins its hope for socioeconomic reconstruction on a competitive economy, technological innovation and entrepreneurism and presents disarming the population as a solution to crime. However, it is our belief that not every single member of the Azanian People’s Organization subscribe to this liberal trajectory. That the majority of rank-and-file members of Azapo and a great number of leaders and activists who operated in that organization before 1994 share the vision of a socialist egalitarian society and a political program that acknowledges the racialised nature of inequality in Azania as a result of the history of Apartheid-Capitalism and neo-colonial, neo-apartheid nature of the current dispensation. One hopes that with enough efforts towards creative ways of maintaining dialogue, relationship and unity in action with the socialist elements of AZAPO and towards either a merger or unity-in-action of the two political parties advocating Black Consciousness – SOPA and AZAPO (the BCP did not survive beyond the launch congress) we may find way of reclaiming the participatory democratic traditions and the radical activism traditions of SASO-BPC and the pre-1994 AZAPO. I believe that the greatest obstacle to this is individual and organizational egos. For instance, SOPA and Azapo and the then Black Peoples Convention signed documents that outlined a shared ideological and political program and shared principles, but failed to unite only because of disagreements over artificial stuff such as the name of the new organization and the sickness of everyone wanting to be in the leadership position. There is no reason why the two formations cannot simply operate as AZAPO-SOPA. As far as leadership positions are concerned, it is a matter of putting the collective interests of oppressed people above individual and factional interests.
Mphutlane Wa Bofelo is a writer, activist, life-skills facilitator and performance poet who has been published in several journals, websites and anthologies and has performed at various events.