Humanist

“Today, in 1977 they killed Steve Biko, cowards of the apartheid system, because they hated his mind.

He was a proud black man, with an independent mind… he had written in one of his essays, that:

“The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.”

This already means the oppressor no longer needs physical violence to subjugate you, no. Your mind is in their hands, and not yours.

Let us ask, where is your mind?

For freedom is first and foremost this insistence to be responsible for our mind. To insist on our ideas. Insist on thinking for ourselves.

Africa, where is your mind?

When Africa is so rich a continent with mineral resources for the industrial technologies that define the entirety of modernity, and yet remains trapped in underdevelopment, disease and poverty, we must ask, where is our mind?””

Extract from a post on X by Mbuyiseni Ndlozi (@MbuyiseniNdlozi); while the emphasis is mine.

As a blogger, in my quest to actively contribute to the greater good via civic activism rooted in humanism, I am a leader among the led.

I would like to think that I have made an informed choice to allow my mind to be led and to function within the ideology of the black consciousness movement as it was conceived and articulated, in word and in practice, by late Biko.

I follow the lead of scholars, activists, politicians, in ideas of black consciousness as an intellectual paradigm, which goes beyond discourse of the physical color of our skin.

Those who interrogate ways in which the color of our skin is used for the purpose of psychological subjugation are leaders that I follow; and at the same time I would like to think I am among them.

Leaders such as Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, who is nearly two decades younger than I in age, by the way. I follow him still for he is among the ‘younger generation’ who have breathed life into the Biko version of the black consciousness movement.

Effectively interpreting the wisdom of our African ancestors and transitioning it into relevant application in our times is the goal. I search for those who take the lead in doing so; while I also do so.