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On 9/12

I write this in remembrance of another event that occurred in September, but a day later. Stephen Bantu (Steve) Biko, founder and martyr of the Black consciousness movement in South Africa, died of brain damage following police torture on September 12, 1977, on the floor of a cell in the Pretoria Central Prison. Biko was a symbol of Black resistance to the oppressive apartheid regime. In a scene in Richard Attenborough's film on Biko, Cry Freedom, a judge asks him during the trial: "Why do you people call yourselves black? You look more brown than black." Biko's reply is stunning: "Why do you call yourselves white? You look more pink than white."

Rajesh Gajra,
Mumbai

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