As I’ve mentioned here before, my own political consciousness was largely awakened during the early 1980s. This was a time before Wikipedia, of course, when trivia had to be collected where it might be found, rather than downloaded at any opportunity. We English-speaking young people of the Reagan-Thatcher years were largely enlightened as to the state of the world by musical artists, drawing our ears by the millions on mainstream FM radio and then our eyes as well, through that great homogenizer of popular culture, MTV.
Although there were many pressing political issues — brinksmanship with the Soviets overshadowing all others — popular music homed in on the apartheid regime of South Africa as ripe for change. Many artists railed against the minority South African government, taking cues from Jamaican singing star Bob Marley’s hugely successful mixing of African and Western music along with a substantial dash of politics learnt from Bob Dylan and rendered white hot by Joe Strummer. While others were more successful in selling albums and filling football stadiums, perhaps no white man contributed a more somber statement to the popular polemic on apartheid than a child of the left-leaning English upper class, Peter Gabriel, with his song of protest in honor of Stephen Biko.
“Biko,” the final song on the second side of Gabriel’s 1980 eponymous record, was never a big hit, but it was an enduring one, inspiring others, including Americans Stephen Van Zandt and Paul Simon to write on and be influenced by Africa. Clocking in at 7:22 with three brief verses, “Biko” honors the life of Stephen Biko, leader of the South African Black Consciousness Movement, who died in police custody after his Aug. 18, 1977, arrest in Port Elizabeth. A minor hit in 1980, Gabriel’s live recording of “Biko” moved up the U.S. charts in 1986. The song then received more airplay when it was included in the soundtrack of the film “Cry Freedom,” which chronicled Biko’s relationship with dissident journalist David Woods.
So why am I writing about Peter Gabriel’s song about Steve Biko? Mostly, in this time of recent revolutions, to recollect. Last week, Gabriel performed in Houston, including a rendition of “Biko.” As the amphitheater emptied out, one concertgoer asked, “Who’s Biko?” A friend’s reply, “Some South African guy.” I wished to interrupt, but did not, for whatever reason — the lyrics tell the story better than I could have summarized. Stephen Biko was a South African, a husband, a father, a human rights activist, an expelled medical student, a speaker of Xhosa, English and Afrikaans, and a Christian. He was also banned — forbidden to meet with more than one person, speak before an audience, write publicly, speak to the media, or even be quoted by any other individual. When he died, he was just 30.
Biko’s death — he was arguably the martyr of the anti-apartheid movement — and Gabriel’s anthem led to wider censure of South Africa, including divestment first by universities, and eventually by major corporations, in South Africa’s economy. Through his songwriting craft, music video mastery, and hundreds and hundreds of performances, Gabriel kept the plight of South Africa’s prisoners of conscience, including Nelson Mandela, in the mainstream of public consciousness until the de Klerk government ended minority rule.
So much is different now, and we can only wonder what turbulence awaits, but hopefully we will see reason than rather than unreasonableness in the weeks and months ahead. In this time of revolution and protest, we should hope that, as was the case three decades ago, “the eyes of the world are watching now.”
Christopher Bronk is the Baker Institute fellow in information technology policy. He previously served as a career diplomat with the United States Department of State on assignments both overseas and in Washington, D.C.