FollowSeptember 12 is Biko Day*, which historically marks the start of the PASS intervention. This year the live-station is temporarily in the dock for maintenance (Back soon. Watch this space for the relaunch) but we continue to celebrate Biko by revisiting Songs for Biko, and other stomps, screams and prayers: the 24-hr marathon praise party held to launch PASS in 2008, 2009, 2010.
Watch Songs for Biko 2008 staged and captured by Lesedi Mogoatlhe and sliced by Lila Earth
View pics from Songs for Biko 2009
Beads for Biko 2010
We got these beads from Sis Malika Ndlovu. We give praises and thanks.
*Biko was detained and interrogated four times between August 1975 and September 1977 under Apartheid era anti-terrorism legislation. On 21 August 1977 Biko was detained by the Eastern Cape security police and held in Port Elizabeth. >From the Walmer police cells he was taken for interrogation at the security police headquarters. On 7 September “Biko sustained a head injury during interrogation, after which he acted strangely and was uncooperative. The doctors who examined him (naked, lying on a mat and manacled to a metal grille) initially disregarded overt signs of neurological injury.” By 11 September Biko had slipped into a continual, semi-conscious state and the police physician recommended a transfer to hospital. Biko was, however, transported 1,200 km to Pretoria – a 12-hour journey which he made lying naked in the back of a Land Rover. A few hours later, on 12 September, alone and still naked, lying on the floor of a cell in the Pretoria Central Prison, Biko died from brain damage.