About the episode
In this podcast Ciara McCombe speaks to Professor Hlonipha Mokoena about the radicalisation of resistance and the mental revolution in South Africa during the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Together they discuss the ANC’s move to armed struggle and their time in exile, as well as the role that the Black Consciousness movement played in strengthening anti-apartheid sentiment within South Africa.
Podcast length: 54 min 38 sec
Use the Drop-down menu below to view the Questions posed by Ciara McCombe to Professor Hlonipha Mokoena in this episode.
Questions and Podcast Timings
00:00 Introduction
02:03 Why was it so hard to continue the struggle for Freedom in the 1960’s?
07:01 What was the political climate for those who had Africanist ideas?
10:34 Why was there a wariness of white liberal involvement in the fight for freedom?
17:51 What was some of the ideas that Steve Biko advocated for and some of his philosophies?
26:42 Why were some of these ideas not confined to universities and why did they spread across the country?
30:34 What was the 1976 Soweto uprising and how was it inspired by Black Consciousness?
34:52 Where else was there resistance in South Africa and what motivated it?
”“This was the radicalism of the Black Consciousness movement. You do not have to confront the apartheid state militarily. We are not ready for that. What we need to do is to conscientise ourselves; change the way that we think about ourselves as black people. Start to think of ourselves as good enough, start to think of ourselves as human beings, start to bring back life into the idea that we are valued, we are relevant, we are intelligent.”
Hlonipha Mokoena
The front cover of I write what I like by Steve Biko, photographed against a white background.
Jonny White / Alamy Stock Photo
Biography of Historians
Hlonipha Mokoena is a South African historian at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research of the University of the Witwatersrand. She is a specialist in South African intellectual history. Her book, Magema Fuze: The Making of a Kholwa Intellectual, explores the life and works of the first Zulu-speaker to publish a book in the language.
Further reading
- Gail M. Gerhart, Black Power in South Africa The Evolution of an Ideology (University of California Press: 1979)
- Gail M. Gerhart, From Protest to Challenge, A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882–1990, Challenge and Victory (Indiana University Press: 2010)
- Baruch Hirson, Year of Fire and Ash, The Soweto Revolt: Roots of radicalisation? (Zed Books: 1984)
- Xolela Mangcu, Biko: a Life (I.B.Tauris: 2013)
- Hugh MacMillian, Chris Hani: Ohio Short Histories of Africa (Ohio University Press: 2021)
- Denis MacShane, Martin Plaut, David Ward, Power! Black workers, their unions and the struggle for Freedom in South Africa (South End Press: 1999)
- Mbulelo Mzamane, The Children of Soweto (Ravan Press: 1982)
- Noor Nieftagodien, The Soweto Uprising (Ohio University Press: 2015)
- South African Development Education Trust, The Road to Democracy in South Africa, volume 2 (1970-1980) (UNISA Press: 2006, multiple authors)
General further reading
- William Beinart, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford University Press: 2001)
- William Beinart and Edward Teversham, ‘South Africa, 1948-1994: From Apartheid State to Rainbow Nation’ in Edexcel AS/A-Level History Textbook, Searching for Rights and Freedoms in the Twentieth-Century (Pearson Education: 2015)
- Steve Biko, I Write What I Like (Harper & Row: 1979)
- David Goldblattt, Fifty-one Years (ActarD inc: 2001)
- Connie Field, Have You Heard From Johannesburg (Clarity Films: 2010) Documentary Series
- Peter Hain, Sing the Beloved Country (Pluto Press: 1996)
- Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Black Bay Books: 1995)
- Thula Simpson, History of South Africa from 1902 to the Present (C. Hurst & Co: 2022)
- Leonard Thompson and Lynn Berat, A History of South Africa (Yale University Press: 2014)
- Nigel Worden, The Making of Modern South Africa: Conquest, Apartheid, Democracy (Wiley-Blackwell: 2011)
