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Some of Steve Biko’s contemporaries say his Black Consciousness philosophy is central to making South Africa a more humane society. They include the former presidents of the Azanian People’s Organisation Mosibudi Mangena and Lybon Mabasa respectively.
Speaking to the SABC, they lamented the fact that 30 years into democracy, black people remained poor, with most of them living in squalor in informal settlements.
Mangena says although the 1994 democratic breakthrough was meant to improve the lives of black people, they still live in abject poverty. He says the current government should be ashamed of seeing black people living in squalor.
“It is ingrained here in our heads that black people do not deserve better. So they deserve to mekhukhu (shacks), they deserve to be in the townships, they deserve to be in the villages and they deserve the kind of education they have and so forth. So it doesn’t matter unless the black community gets rid of colonial or the slave mentality and they have the consciousness that gives them pride in themselves and their own people and want to serve them to the best of their abilities, we will not go anywhere.”
SA’s 30 years into democracy I Calls for Black Consciousness amid poor living conditions:
The former president of the Socialist Party of Azania, Lybon Mabasa, has accused the ANC-led government of lacking the spirit of Ubuntu. He has decried the fact that 30 years into democracy, black people in South Africa still live in abject poverty.
Mabasa has told the SABC that it is shameful that the political class sees nothing wrong when people who put it in power live in informal settlements.
“Those who go to Parliament, the fact that they see no contradiction in giving people the R350 when for them it is okay to earn more than one to two million rands a year. How do you justify that because you are supposed to be working for these people? Ubuntu comes from the core of black consciousness; it is possible to restore the humanity of people who have been dehumanise and I think it is only black consciousness today that can do that.”
