DATE: 12 February 2022
VENUE: 1433 Orient Circle Full Gospel Church Freedom Park
We have come to commemorate a colossal figure, Onkgopotse Abram Tiro, president of SASM (Southern African Student Movement), leader in the South African Student Movement (SASM), leader in South African Student Organisation (SASO) and permanent organizer of the Black People Convention (BPC). Tiro was brutally assassinated by letter bomb on the 1st of February 1974 in Botswana by the South African racist and capitalist regime through concerted efforts of a joint counterintelligence program between the racist nationalist regime in South Africa and some agents or enablers in Botswana. On that day the regime murdered Tiro but immortalised this revolutionary figure. Therefore, 48 years later this colossal figure captures our imagination, material and existential demands in the context of refocusing a lack of fear in struggle—an obliteration of fear firstly, in the vanguard organisation and secondly, in reinstalling courage and revolutionary confrontation back into the psyche of the people. We are honoring this figure who fearlessly attacked the system through his famous speech later dubbed the Turfloop Testimony, a testimony that encompassed his selfless deeds (as SASO active member) in Turfloop, futuristically in Soweto as an inspiring and conscientising political teacher—an interlocutor of students while simultaneously conveying the revolutionary philosophy of Black Consciousness. In Botswana, Tiro never ceased to be engaged in struggle, his notoriety was not an impediment to the aspirations of the Azania people for Tiro given the fact that by 1973 to 1974 he had been among the key well-known BC cadres did not mean he had arrived, instead, Tiro’s was the revolutionary of the people. His effectiveness led to his untimely sacrifice for the Azanian people, however, Tiro was unphased throughout his life. I am not going to talk about his biographical details because those are readily available, however, I am going to focus on what Tiro means to us or should mean to us in the Black Consciousness Movement-United (BCM-U) and the Azanian people. Tiro’s image more so after the graduation speech at Turfloop represents a figure that has not only grasped theoretically the fundamental tenets of black consciousness philosophy around fear being an Important Determinant in South African Politics as articulated by FrankTalk (in the SASO Newsletter September 1971 volume 1 number 4, pgs. 10-12) but Tiro is a larger than life figure, in the sense that his speech is a climax of a psychological and intellectual response to bondage and servitude, so much so that his speech provoked the intelligentsia and intelligence agencies to send a very strong message to Tiro and BC cadres. It is significant to acknowledge the meaning of FEAR in the 1960’s leading up to the formation of BC, which deliberately sets itself up among other things to eradicate fear, therefore, the eradication of fear was a deliberate intention by SASO and Tiro and others in BC they did not arrive at that by mere chance or coincidence and even through the attempt to be heroes/sheroes. It was understood that BC philosophy was not liberating in only aesthetic manners but pertinent to it is the mental paradigms shift, which sets one apart in articulation and deeds. The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) understood the need for a response, a defeating and victorious response, to psychological bondage that thrust the liberator to formulate new conceptions of themselves, images and fundamentally their ideas/deeds—influx of ideas acting on a liberated mind that cannot be suppressed. As Huey P Newton in his published piece The Genius of Huey P Newton 1968 put it: “Walls, bars, guards and guns cannot suppress an idea.” The impact of Black Power and Black Consciousness to the youth of that time is significant in understanding and interpreting the ideas and deeds of cadres. Tiro speech and his active status in the movement completes the syllogism of the impact of untangling the albatross of bondage and psychological oppression intellectually and in deed—the fact that he could have read the speech he initially submitted, which was accepted for graduation only to do the opposite underpins the revolutionary’s intentionality and deliberateness. In fact, one can argue reading the atmosphere of what made one a selfless and fearless BC cadre, Tiro speech requires in this sense a different set of eyes, reading and hermeneutic, which suggests to me that the essence of Tiro’s speech begins in the end in order to understand the structuring of the beginning, when he asserts:
“We Black graduates, by virtue of our age and academic standing, are being called upon to bear greater responsibilities in the liberation of our people….Our so-called leaders have become the bolts of the same machine which is crushing us as a nation. We have to go back to them and educate them. Times are changing and we should change with them. The magic story of human achievement gives irrefutable proof that as soon as nationalism is awakened among the intelligentsia, it becomes the vanguard in the struggle against alien rule.”
To read this as essence might be an absurd formulation in terms of maybe logical flow of syntax, linguistic formulation and writing in general but; it is our minds at work and as FrankTalk would have it We Right What We Like. To elucidate my hermeneutical proposal, I imagine if Tiro had open his speech with these words from the citation above he would have not succeeded in finishing his speech because this citation is a CLARION CALL to revolt and rebellion to those who have finished the process of miseducation now waiting for credentialisation. In fact, it is not that Tiro or BC cadres did not know about the conditions of black students, especially someone in the fold as Tiro, but Tiro takes them through from the particular to the general that climaxes into ultimacy, which is his clarion call that places emphasis on the liberation of the people than issues of universities students, especially in Turfloop. Perhaps, Cornel West is correct in saying “there is a difference between Education and credentialisation” or as he put it in another place “America praises intelligence but fears intellect.” Therefore, Tiro in his speech moves with the crowd to this initial stance of a revolutionary duty and posture of the black graduate, who must dialectically move to be a black revolutionary if he or she has learnt anything through reading but more fundamentally in a material reading of the world, the country and all other empirical signals that result in their deplorable treatment at Turfloop. This outlook to knowledge accumulation and praxis is in fact a SASO/BPC stance. On the other hand, Fanon (1963; 1760) argues:
“…the native intellectual has thrown himself greedily upon Western culture. Like adopted children who only stop investigating the new family framework at the moment when a minimum nucleus of security crystallizes in their psyche, the native intellectual will try to make European culture his own.”
Both Tiro and Fanon challenge the false consciousness and intellectuality that the so-called black intellectual or educated class holds as a sign of comprehension of the world and its problems. For Tiro true education through the lenses of Black Consciousness and a material reading of the world belongs to the revolution against the ruling class; it is symbolic that Tiro calls them out on graduation to subvert any bourgeois morals that have been bequeathed to them in an unchanging racist, exploitative and capitalistic regime. Both Tiro and Fanon bemoan the complacency inherent even in the so-called educated “blacks” or educated class. It was significant for Tiro to place the challenge of liberation among the educated so-called blacks, firstly, to expose the fallacy of bourgeoise education in solving the problems of the oppressed, as Huey lawyer’s remarked that the emphasis on formal education, transformation and liberation has to lead us to the conclusion that: education is over rated. Secondly, in the current sphere where there is emphasis on education as the key, a logic against real empirical evidence that proves that it is not so e.g. the number of unemployed graduates, the unemployability of those graduation, fees must fall and the call of decoloniasation and decoloniality, Tiro harmers in the position of SASO that: “Education is the accumulation of knowledge first, secondly, knowledge that can be used in the world.” Stockley Carmichael once argued that the imperialist will convince us in the classroom that 4+4=8 then turn around in the same classroom and say people are different because their individuals and therefore they cannot always agree. Stockley Carmichael would then prove the fallaciousness of that view in noting that they make us agree that 4+4=8 but we should not agree on our problems as the oppressed, which are a collective experience of oppression world over—of course Carmichael is not dismissing the scientific aspects of mathematics but simply proves the point that the logic of mathematics is sufficient even in the revolution. Fanon (1963: 36) asserts:
“Now it so happens that during the struggle for liberation, at the moment that the native intellectual comes into touch again with his people, this artificial sentinel is turned into dust. All the Mediterranean values –the triumph of the human individual, of clarity and of beauty—becomes lifeless, colourless knick-knacks. All those speeches seem like collections of dead words; those values which seemed to uplift the soul are revealed as worthless, simply because they have nothing to do with the concrete conflict in which the people is engaged.”
Yes, we might possess as revolutionaries and the people great ideas on different things, however, when it comes to the liberation of our people, i.e. RECONQUEST AND REPOSSESSION OF LAND we speak as one voice with a shared experience of the havoc that capitalism, slavery, colonialism, imperialism and institutionalized racism has done and continues to do to the oppressed. Tiro and Fanon agree that what is central in the minds of revolutionaries and liberators is the PEOPLE. Therefore, there is credence in the Black Consciousness scientific and philosophical definition of blackness as not being a mainstay of individualised identity but a group identity in response to the system. Thus, Biko (1978:37) and the black consciousness philosophy as expressed in their manifesto defined blackness in the following manner:
“We have in our policy manifesto defined blacks as those who are by law or tradition politically, economically and socially discriminated against as a group in the South African society and identifying themselves as a unit in the struggle towards the realisation of their aspirations.”
One must not have not any misgivings concerning our commemoration of Tiro under the theme of Free & Decolonised Education in memory of Onkgopotse Tiro, the arguments presented above seek to prove that Tiro is no student leader in simple terms but a revolutionary—a black revolutionary through and through. In fact, BC did not believe in bourgeoise discourse of wanting to have qualitative change in the educational system without overthrowing the present system. Perhaps, drawing from Tiro’s religiousness and Black Liberation Theology we can argue that: “Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved (Matthew 9: 17 KJV).” We are in some sense telling the students and so-called radical academics not to share with us the crack-pipe of gradual progressionalism (orthogenetic evolution) within the system. Tiro in his speech and deeds did not share those sentiments but rather placed the aspirations of black/oppressed people at the center.
Dr. Hlulani Mabasa
What are these aspirations? Chief amongst them is Liberation at any cost; it is interesting that Tiro speech starts off by him referring to former prime minister Vorster speech in the preceding year, who apparently said to the A. S. B [ Afrikaanse Studenteond] Congress that: “No Black man has landed in trouble for fighting for what is legally his. ” Tiro further adds “Although I don’t know how far true this is, I make this statement my launch pad.” Tiro knew very well that he well get into trouble, trouble such as killings of any voice of dissent against this system but Tiro proceeds forth guided by his own analysis that: “IT IS BETTER TO DIE FOR AN IDEA THAT WILL LIVE THAN TO LIVE AN IDEA THAT WILL DIE.” Or as Khotso Seatlholo put it: “LIBERATION IS AN NOBLE CAUSE WHICH WITHOUT IT I CAN NOT LIVE.” It is said that Tiro’s speech was not something new but he said what needed to be said, in our current context Tiro is a revolutionary and intellectual critique to us as many even posturing “revolutionaries” fear to say things that ought to be said based on material conditions and facts. What needs to be said, namely is that:
1. CODEASA has failed indeed Cassandra was right that the Trojan Horse of CODESA would destroy Azania, no amount of budget speeches, structural adjudgments, pay cuts, amendments of the constitution and international loans can resolve this situation. Reformism and revisionism cannot supplant oppression, Revolution is the only answer.
2. Secondly, while it beats the logic of liberals and flat-footed black nationalists it must be said that: this is not a black government but a sell-out, bourgeoise, and pathologically coerced into perpetuity non-white government. The assimilados who are overseers of capital.
3. Thirdly, corruption is the least of our problems capitalism is our chief problem because the logic of capital is the need for a colony of the unemployed in order to have access to cheap labour, which is linked to fickle salary scales (you are paid what you agreed on whereas the bosses extract surplus value to continue to recreate a system of oppression embedded with exploitation as its psyche). Furthermore, the means of production, primarily land remains unchained and only controlled by the few whereas the assimilados are beneficiaries of enclave economics and its benefits.
4. Fourthly, this is a sell out government in the real sense of the word, from selling institutions—courts, government institutions etc. to the highest bidder and providing a space for “lucrative” deals of our natural resources for kickbacks, no amount of moral persuasion will change this, self-determination is paramount to the realisation of a liberated Socialist Azania.
5. Lastly, we must say boldly as BCM-U that we have no time for division black unity and black solidarity are fundamental in the liberation struggle and in building a political revolutionary vanguard organisation, therefore, BIKO’S MOVEMENT MUST BE ONE!
The points above could not be kept in hush hush tone if Tiro was around but fortunate for us we have around us both the movement and philosophy in which he served and lived in and ultimately died for, to lead us and guide us to say the uncomfortable. Tiro in his speech also then touches on a personal, political, material and historical note concerning white supremacy and power. Tiro asserts:
“Right now, our parents have come all the way from their homes only to be locked outside. We are told that the hall is full. I do not accept the argument that there is no accommodation for them. In 1970, when the Administration wanted to accommodate everybody, a tent was put up and close-circuit television was installed. Front seats are given to people who cannot even cheer us. My father is seated there at the back. My dear people, shall we ever get a fair deal in this land? The land of our fathers.”
Others have postulated that Tiro speech addresses the question or politics of space in Azania from land dispossession, separation (separate development) and then what is acted out in Turfloop April 1972 were black graduates’ parents are either at the back of the hall or outside because the hall is full—full of white people looking at black graduates in a supposedly black university. My postulation concurs with this view; however, I turn my attention to the hall being full of white people looking at black graduates. My materialist reading of the situation is that the whiteness of the hall is symbolic of what really goes on in the world. Firstly, those whites are observing the credentialisation of a new incoming fleet of cheap labour. In fact, in 1976 it would be one of Onkgopotse Tiro students, a young comrade full of the black consciousness philosophy, Tsiesti Mashinini who would point out that the educational system we are getting is preparing us to join the workforce. Therefore, on top of the politics of space is the fact that in the market for slave purchases in the auction box there were relatively few whites and overwhelming black majority, who would not even though in the majority think on that moment and assessing the odds see the dazzling horizon shining out the possibilities to overthrow the system. Tiro saw tomorrow, thus his speech begins in the end—an evocation to overthrow the system by a concerted, collective, revolutionary and deliberate effort of blacks, i.e. black graduates in the hall, in this sense Tiro reverses the logic of the helpless branded slave paraded before white masters as a signifier of passing the test. Tiro adds:
“Of what use will be your education is not linked with the entire continent of Africa it is meaningless. Remember that Mrs. Suzman said, “There is one thing which the minister cannot do: He cannot ban ideas from men’s minds.”
Secondly, university graduations were never parading blocks for black achievements and celebration to imperialists because some of them were simply observers scouting in such events. Thirdly, there is no intellectuality or intelligence that cannot comprehend the prerogatives of liberation to the oppressed who is black in Azania. Thus, even when they articulate that a certain individual has obtained distinction in this and that if such intelligence fails to grasp the real condition of the world then it is useless. As the Romantic Poet John Keats put it: “Do you not see that a world of suffering is necessary in order to transform an intelligence into a living soul.” While I cannot agree with the necessity of a world of suffering one can deduce that indeed when intelligence is confronted by a world of suffering it cannot remain the same. Fanon (1963: 37) was correct in arguing that:
“…the more the intellectual imbibes the atmosphere of the people, the more completely he abandons the habits of calculation, of unwonted silence, of mental reservations, and shakes off the spirit of concealment. And it is true that already at that level we can say that the community triumphs, and that it spreads its own light and its own reason.”
Fanon (1963: 36) further asserts:
“Individualism is the first to disappear. The native intellectual had learnt from his masters that the individual ought to express himself fully. The colonialist bourgeoisie had hammered into the native’s mind the idea of a society of individuals where each person shuts himself up in his own subjectivity, and whose only wealth is individual thought. Now the native who has the opportunity to return to the people during the struggle for freedom will discover the falseness of this theory. The very forms of organization of the struggle will suggest to him a different vocabulary. Brother, sister, friend—these are words outlawed by the colonialist bourgeoisie, because for them my brother is my purse, my friend is part of my scheme of getting on. The native intellectual takes part, in a sort of auto-da-fe, in the destruction of all his idols: egoism, recrimination that springs from pride, and the childish stupidity of those who always want to have the last word.” (Fanon: 1963:36)
Indeed, Tiro and BC cadres through their philosophy destroyed the idols of supremacy, deceit and fear. This is the legacy of Onkgopotse Abram Tiro, a revolutionary who died so that we may live. Again, we cannot speak of Tiro without his deep religious conviction, which was further cemented by Black liberation theology, Tiro pushed both his politics and religious conviction to its logical end, which is steadfastness and selflessness in the struggle, as Cone put it: “We do not want the God of the sweet by and by, pie in the sky but the God of the bitter and the now.” Tiro exemplified this commitment and today we commemorate such a figure. The BCM-U is committed to the liberation of Azania through Reconquest and Repossession of the land for a liberated Socialist Azania. We will say what needs to be said no matter the cost.
“TUTASHINDA BILA SHAKA (We shall conquer without a doubt)
BLACK POWER!
ONE AZANIA ONE NATION
Prepared and presented by: President Dr. Hlulani Mabasa
