The Ghost of Steve Biko

Today my group drove to King William's Town to visit Steve Biko's grave. Biko was an anti-apartheid revolutionary who died at the hands of the apartheid government. More about him here....

We paid a taxi cab driver to drive us three hours from Port Elizabeth to King William's Town, where Steve Biko grew up and died. Our cab van had a flast screen TV, and for the two hours of the ride, we watched this film called Apocolypse about a bunch of strippers getting attacked by zombies. People laughed but the movie wasn't bad in a funny way, so I'm not quite sure why they laughed...

The road from Port Elizabeth to King William's Town is a twisty, turny 2-lane mess of a highway and people drive 100mph right past each other. Since today we were traveling as a large group (the Cape Town study abroad group was here to study with us for a few days), we had to take four buses. The buses traded turns leading, some of our group members stuck their arms and asses out of the window, and our program director rightfully freaked a shit.

Steve Biko (who you really should go ahead and read about here ...I know you didn't read about it the first time around because it links to a wikipedia entry and wikipedia entries are sometimes a jumbled mess of over-thesearesed cliff notes, and yeah, the entry I referred you to probably does not actually capture the essense of Steve Biko but then again maybe you'll end up getting hooked by the story of his life and buy his book which actually is very interesting, especially if you enjoy Frantz Fanon....) was buried in a cemetery a couple minutes away from the house where he grew up. Here the bodies were laid on top of the earth and then covered with dirt. Surrounding the bodily mounds were cages that looked liked ghostly baby cribs, engraved with the names of the deceased. We walked down a path through the cemetary before we reached Steve Biko's memorial, which was covered with plastic flowers. I was hoping to have one of those "history coming alive" moments where I suddenly knew more about this famous figure by following his heritage trail but I was too distracted by hunger and constipation to have any moments where I felt his energy.

We talked with the foundation director for a bit; an intimidatingly intellectual african man who asked us whether we were going to vote for Obama or Hillary in the coming election. A few people in our group raised their hands and talked about how black people felt like they had to vote for Obama because he was black, while women felt like they had to vote for Hillary because she was a woman. The man asked us if we were hopeful that Obama would be able to transend race and truly unite our country. An Ethiopian girl from our group raised her hand and said, "I think if we've learned anything from reading Biko it is that race matters to people and you cannot change the system from the inside. You have to dismantle the system."

'System' talk sometimes sound like catchy college classroom mumbo jumbo to me, but I've been thinking more and more about how the system is set up in both America and South Africa to eradicate minority voices, disempowers the poor and make it hard to pass policy that actually helps the disadvantaged.

I caught up with the director after the Hillary Obama talk and asked him if he felt a progressive tax, like the tax in Denmark and Sweden, might spread more money around the country. He kind of chuckled at me and said, "I've never thought about that, but I don't think it would work."

An extreme progressive tax would force the rich to dole out thousands for a speeding ticket, while only charging the poor a few rand. In this country, where 13% of the population controls 87% of the wealth, a progressive tax would make it harder for the rich to stay rich. The money taken from the rich could then be funneled into, say, education, clean drinking water, housing, bajillions of condoms...

But the nordic states have racially homogenous populations (although more immigrants have recently come) and it's easier to convince people to share their wealth when they're not giving that money to a population that has been 'otherized' so viciously, so I can see why the Biko Foundation director would chuckle at the idea of white rich South Africans paying for township textbooks and water well projects.

Still- it is impossible to look at the differences between the advantaged and the disadvantaged and not be compelled into action

The rich in South Africa send their children to schools with flat screen TVs, spanking new science lab equipment, and teacher ratios of 15 to 1. The poor in South Africa send their children to schools were there is no clean drinking water, or air conditioning, or electricty. Here, one teacher teaches a classroom of fifty students (all of whom hope to grow up to be pilots, scientists, politicians and lawyers). The classroom is hot, it is dark, the textbooks are falling apart, there aren't enough chairs, and yet still the students have a desire to learn...

During the ride back home we watched the movie '300' which was gory, and oddly transfixing...but I don't think I really experienced the movie in full. I need cinema-quality silence to really absorb a movie. I kept on getting distracted by the glow of my iPod as it turned on and rubbed against my thigh when our van went over bumps. "Must find a song to capture the way I am feeling..."

This is always a hopeless situation in South Africa. Alas, my I-Pod is chock full of great indie music that sounds unbelievably out of place here. "Excuse me while I put on Belle and Sebastian as we drive by this township..."

Looking out at South African scenery and people demands a steady stream of real African music and all I have on my Pod is "Shoshalosa" by Lady Black Mumbaza.....

But what scenery! The ride is truly beautiful. The hills are green, the pastures, rolling, the cows, mooing somewhere in the distance. The scenery feels peaceful and serene while the road feels hectic and potentially murderous.

At our rest stop, there were images of a windshield splattered with blood underneath the words "Arrive Alive." Seeing the poster both made me glad that the South African government was taking steps to warn people about the dangers of reckless driving, and also scared that the issue of reckless driving was worthy of a poster with a blood-splattered windshield.

Anthony Kelley, one of the program directors, sensed my fear of death as we went through hairpin turns and up cliffs, and passed by slower cars, and he laughed at my terrified expression. Someone from the Cape Town group even took a picture of me.

This is funny to me because I was not trying to be dramatic at all. My expressions were a natural reaction to the situation at hand, and I was shocked that my expression was not plastered over the faces of everyone in the van. We were driving 80mph on cliffs! We were passing slower cars by driving on the wrong side of the road!

"Just close your eyes and go to sleep," Anthony said to me. "Are you crazy?"
"You'll die in your sleep. That's the most peaceful way to go."
"Who's going to yell at Sukwini (our driver)?"
"Don't worry about it. Stop stressing out."

Stressed out, stressed out. I'm always labeled as "stressed out" when I try to preserve my life. My beating heart. My soft fragile bones. One day, I'm convinced my nearly constant state of panic on the road will save my life. Then everyone will regret labeling me as "stressed out."