The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

statue of Steve Biko. As a public monument, it had been made possible through an alliance
between the Biko family, the national and local state and a cohort of Biko representers
ranging from journalist Donald Woods to the director and lead actors of a controversial
Hollywood movie on Biko’s life. It is indeed a double irony that those who had turned
Bikoʹs life into “a white man’s tale” 102 in print and on screen, subsequently participated in
commissioning and funding a new biographic depiction of Biko: a public monument in
the medium of statuary. In the process Biko, who had undergone “transcendence from a
martyred corpse into a celluloid hero”, acquired new commemorative meaning: that of
“hero of the [new] nation”. 103
The Biko statue also became a focus of public controversy. The Afrikaner
Weerstandsbeweging moved quickly to deface the new sculpture with rightwing graffiti
hours after its unveiling, 104 while discussion and debate ensued almost immediately in the
Eastern Cape and elsewhere in South Africa over its artistic merit and aesthetic qualities.
The press reported that many people had complained that the statue was “uninspiring”
and bore “no resemblance to the Black Consciousness leader”. Most people canvassed had
felt that “a true likeness of Biko should have been portrayed” and that a “local sculptor”
should have been commissioned. 105 A Johannesburg reader of The Sunday Independent
complained that the style of the sculpture was “colonial realism”, the cast bronze
materials “archaic”. The “white, middle aged” artist was not able to honour Biko’s
memory through “African aesthetics and African values”. 106
A number of art critics and “experts” echoed this view that the value of the sculpture had
been diminished by the statue’s lack of resemblance to Biko as well as the
inappropriateness of the sculptor. Border Technikon teacher, Nombi Mpako, felt that the
body was out of proportion and saw “no likeness whatsoever to Biko”. Rhodes
102 See the discussion of the cultural politics of Cry Freedom in Mandla Langa, ‘Why Biko Film Became a
White Man’s Tale’, Sunday Independent, 31 August 1997.
103 The inscription on the seven‐ton marble plinth, which bears the statue of Steve Biko, reads: “Steve
Biko. Sikahlela Indoda Yamadoda. We salute a hero of the nation”.
104 See report in Sunday Argus, 13/14 September 1997.
105 Weekend Saturday Argus, 20/21 September 1997.
106 The Sunday Independent, 28 September 1997.
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