Rightful Power and an Ideal of Free Community: The Political Theory of Steve Biko

• Published date: 01 June 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231199711
• Author: Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí
• Date: 01 June 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/00905917231199711

Political Theory

2024, Vol. 52(3) 459 –489

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00905917231199711

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Article

Rightful Power and

an Ideal of Free

Community: The

Political Theory of Steve

Biko

Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ

́ Ṣóyẹmí1

Abstract

Steve Biko is one of the most important liberation activists of his time.

Yet, his theoretical contribution is not well understood or appreciated. This

article reconstructs Biko’s political ideas and introduces a new integrated

reading and interpretation of his writings, speeches, and recorded interviews.

It argues that Biko’s Black consciousness ideal should not only be read as

engaging an activist movement or programme but, also, as encompassing an

original theoretical framework grounded in a communalist ethos of Biko’s

own conceptual development. It argues that Biko’s Black consciousness ideal

sought to relate racialised oppression to a historically centred communalist

solution framed by two interlocking structural elements—rightful power and

free community. The article argues that only by a theoretical and normative

consideration of these elements, on Biko’s own conceptual terms, do we

get a coherent understanding of Biko’s distinctive view of free postcolonial

society.

Keywords

Steve Biko, power, communalism, freedom and historical liberation,

racialised oppression, Black consciousness

1University of Oxford Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford, UK

Corresponding Author:

Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ

́ Ṣóyẹmí, University of Oxford Blavatnik School of Government, 120

Walton Street, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK.

Email: Eniola.soyemi@bsg.ox.ac.uk

1199711PTXXXX10.1177/00905917231199711Political TheoryṢóyẹmí

research-article2023

460 Political Theory 52(3)

1. Pityana notes that while it “was not for nothing that the Provincial Synod of the

Church of the Province of Southern Africa . . . discussed a motion . . . for Steve

Biko to be remembered in the Church’s liturgical calendar,” this “was accompa-

nied by calls for him to be declared a martyr” (Pityana 1988, 3).

2. Given increasing attention to anti- and postcolonial thought and to thinkers like

Gandhi, Fanon, Césaire, Du Bois, Cabral, and others, it is surprising that theo-

retical scholarship on Biko remains wanting (Ahluwalia and Zegeye 2001, 455).

For some key representative texts see, Achille Mbembe, Out of the Dark Night:

Essays on Decolonization (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2021);

Anthony Alessandrini (ed.), Fanon: Critical Perspectives (New York, NY:

Routledge, 1999); Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, trans. Joan Pinkham

(New York, NY: Monthly Review Press, 2000); Bhikhu Parekh, Gandhi’s

Political Philosophy: A Critical Examination (South Bend, IN: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1989); Adom Getachew, Worldmaking After Empire: the Rise and

Fall of Self-Determination (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019);

Introduction

Pityana (1988) has noted that one “can hardly do justice to a political analysis

of South Africa today without mentioning Steve [Biko]. That is because

Black Consciousness ushered in a new era of political awareness, whereby

the oppressed were themselves taking responsibility for their political des-

tiny” (8). In fact, many programmes—like the Black Community Programmes

and Black People’s Convention—that formed a core of Black cultural and

political organization in 1970s and 1980s South Africa arose out of Biko’s

activism (Hadfield 2017; Hill 2015, 117–22; Pityana 1988, 11–12;

Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research 2021). As cofounding president

of the South African Student’s Organization (SASO) from July 1969, and as

chairman of SASO Publications from July 1970—when “the monthly SASO

Newsletter began to appear carrying articles by [Biko] . . . called ‘I write

what I like’” (Stubbs CR 1988a, 33)—Biko developed many of his Black

Consciousness ideas through his activism. It is likely why they quickly devel-

oped into a broader movement (Hadfield 2017; Pityana 1988, 12–15).

We would, most certainly, be bereft of much of Biko’s contribution had he

not been one of the most important activists of his time and had he not

expressed, through his activism, the imaginative depth of his political thought.

Nevertheless, the tendency to condense his legacy purely into his activism

underscores Pityana’s (1988) observation among many of those to whom

Biko is a cultural and political inspiration—of an “uncritical” glorification of

Biko as more than human (3).1 This tendency also explains why, despite

steady documentation of Biko’s political activism (Pityana 1988, 3), our the-

oretical, critical understanding of his ideas remains poor.2 This article