BIKO
THE BRAIDED STREAM
Stephen Bantu Biko the founder of
the black consciousness movement in
South Africa died on September 12, 1977
He was 30 & had been shackled naked for
days No hunger striker was he Autopsy
revealed brain hemorrhage from head injuries
Died on the floor of Pretoria prison hospital No mercy
The holy grail of paleoanthropology posits :
human evolution is a braided stream and not
a simple march of progress In 2008 north-west of
Johannesberg in the Cradle of Humankind a nine yr. old
boy discovered a 2 million yr. old hominid skeleton a transitional ancestor
with a small brain not much bigger than a chimpanzee’s
Much likely a more humane creature built for climbing trees
with fierce capacities for compassion especially for their young
Memorized their mother’s voices They did not prey on each other
Nor were they prone to: terrorism mass-psychosis or torture
Those were simpler times The Mother-ship hovered The light
at the end of the tunnel was ON And the last one standing had an alibi
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*in 1997 5 former police officers confessed to the Biko killing
to a Truth & Reconciliation Commission. The men were never tried.
Fall 2013
