Imagining Ignacio Martin-Baro Steve Bantu Biko In Conversation About Imagination

For Biko the subtle and overt acts and utterances of self- denigration, self-hatred and self-destructiveness that linger in our collective psyches are marks of internalized oppression. In Biko’s critical Intellectualism, a term used by Nurina Ally and Shireen Ally (see Mngnitama, Alexander Gibson, 2008. Biko Lives. Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko: New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press), in their writings on Black Consciouness, liberation is an enactment of generative agency, a break from the over-reliance on imaginary saviours, suspicion of the supposed benevolence of dominant structures, and introspection about the internalized oppressor, as well as resistance to the influences of dominant values in marginalized people’s affairs. Liberation is both a vision and the practice of freedom, a call to reflexive action, and an insistence on intellectual independence and self- affirmation.

( The writer; Professor, College of Graduate Studies; Head, Institute for Social and Health Sciences; Director, MRC-UNISA Violence, Injury and Peace Research Unit. University of South Africa, Pretoria.)

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