Excursus: Black Consciousness in South Africa

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Black consciousness in its philosophical and thought-out form as a liberationmovement arose in South Africa after the ANC was banned, and Nelson Mandela imprisoned. The first great thinker was Steve Biko, who espoused non-violent struggle and was killed before the end of apartheid.

Biko became a medical student in 1966 and became a member of their Christian movement. He formed an alternative, and more radical, black union of students and wrote articles encapsulating his views. He became a "banned" person - he was confined to his home town, but nevertheless became well known.

In 1976 Biko was held for 101 days under the terrorism act. In 1977 he was interrogated and killed during this. Biko created a new consciousness which, unlike armies, could not be banned nor prevented, even though its founder had been murdered.

Biko was critical of the liberal white anti-apartheid movement, which was seen as a "safe" leadership for black people. He also rejected the white analysis of South Africa's proble, - that the problem was apartheid and the solution, non-racialism. Biko said the problem was white supremacy, and the solution was black consciousness. Only black consciousness would give black people pride and dignity.

Similarly to American black thinkers, Biko pinpointed the most powerful weapon of oppression as being teh way in which black people were made to believe in the racist ideology and therefore have no desire to become free. This problem could not be solved by moral hectoring by liberal whites and western governments. Biko also rejected integration/assimilation, saying that both white and black needed to surviv as distinct peoples, without oppressing each other.

Black theology in South Africa was masterminded both by Biko (who wrote a kind of starting-point book for it) and his friend Stanley Ntwasa. At this point Christianity had been discouraging the search for justice in favour of upholding present law. Black radicals were asking whether Christianity (notable the Dutch Reformed Church) was part of the problem in South Africa, Biko and others gave hints on how to mould African Christianity to the people. There were three waves of black theology:-

• Stanley Twasa in 1972 wrote (with others) "Essays in Black Theology", which was banned. This was not a success because the black theology movement had only just begun, and its thought had not matured.


• Allan Boesak, in 1976 wrote "Farewell to Innocence", although he was seen as coloured, not black, because he was mixed-race. Boesak dedicated his book to Steve Biko and made mention of Biko's idea that black people had become complicit in their own oppression and were not innocent of the evils of apartheid. He formed a theology of refusal - God is not the status quo in any given area and a black person who rejected the so-called Biblical base for oppression of black people was no less a Christian. He also identified apartheid as a pseudo-gospel as the main architects of apartheid utilised theological terms for setting up white supremacy. This meant fewer people opposed apartheid as it was presented that to be against apartheid was to be against God (as Dr FF Malan pointed out). Anti-apartheid could also become a pseudo-gospel (or an ideology) and theology must follow neither course. Boesak dealt with the problem of whether black liberation should use violence (the ANC had agreed it should) and asked what would have happened in the story of the good Samaritan if he had been present when the traveller was being attacked - would he, from love, have fought? Boesak realised, like Albert Cleage, that black people are not good because they are black and criticised some of the American theologians who claimed this. He said there was a distance between theology and the black situation - theology is not just something focussing on a particular situation at a particular time, but a transcendent reality. American black writers generalised about black people throughout the world based on their experience - the same criticism that has been levelled at feminists. However, Boesak did see his work as an internationally valid one, as worldwide president of the Dutch Reform Mission Church. When apartheid ended, black theology could also have ended if its analysis was entirely about apartheid and it is largely due to Boesak and others like him that it did not.


• Mokgethi Mothabi wrote "Black Theology and Authority" which was the only far-sighted and mature analysis in Ntwasa's book, in which he looked to the end of apartheid. He said the problem was supremacists, not apartheid and it could continue as black supremacy or elitism.