Lifetime Achiever Award

Event: Lifetime Achiever Award
Date: 29 April 2006
Venue: Vodaworld, Midrand

Steve Biko was awarded the Vodacom Lifetime Achiever Award, at Vodaworld, Midrand on 29 April 2006.

The Lifetime Achiever Award is presented to an individual who has spent their lifetime making an exceptional contribution to the media industry in South Africa. Among the general criteria are that this person must be a well-respected leader, revered among peers - someone who has lived up to the principles that are fundamental to the sanctity of journalism.

His life was in itself a profound statement. He was a visionary whose thinking and philosophy is relevant now as it was then. It will continue being relevant to future generations. I would not be accused of melodrama if I listed his name alongside that Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi. Such was the transformation he brought to South Africa and indeed the world.

The country had gone through unprecedented political upheaval - the women’s march of 1956, the Alexandra bus boycott, the potato boycott, the Sharpeville massacre and then the Treason Trial. The political leaders were either imprisoned or served with banning orders. People were demoralised, brutally silenced by the apartheid regime. There was a political lull and a leadership vacuum.

With courage and conviction he championed a movement which brought the political struggle back to life and changed the face of politics in this country. What he wrote proved beyond doubt the power of the written word. Where there was no platform, he created one. He defied a banning order and wrote relentlessly. He gave a voice to the voiceless.

The Vodacom Lifetime Achiever Award is given to a person - man or woman –who has made a valuable contribution to journalism. Some people may ask why the judges have decided to give the award to someone who was strictly not a journalist.

Defining the different parts of newspaper one American editor once said that: the heart of a newspaper remains its news section, the personality of a newspaper its columnists. The soul of a newspaper however is its editorial pages, which as a rule cover political and social commentary. The person we are honoring tonight was certainly not a news hound, but he was part of the soul of the publications he wrote for. He was the soul of the country. A friend once described him as “a man born with unusual leadership qualities and an unrelenting dedication to the liberation of his people”.

Writing under a pseudonym, and sometimes through his friends, he published numerous articles. His banning order meant he could not be quoted or published - hence the pseudonym. His writing contributed to political and social dialogue. He wrote about development, race relations, religion, and cultural politics. He thought, he challenged, he debated, and he proposed solutions. His writing sought to liberate the mind of the black person. His vision of South Africa and indeed that of the world was that of a liberated black mind. Observing that:

'The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.' To that we can add that the surest way to self destruction is a mind which is not liberated. Built into his argument of liberating the black mind was the liberation of all people, including white people. Archbishop Desmond Tutu had this to say about this man: “He worked to make us realise that…we were human and not inferior, as the white person was human and not superior”. Indeed, how does one describe the oppression of one human being by another, if not bondage of the soul? Greed, corruption, violence against women and children, discrimination of any kind - these are all characteristics of a trapped mind, from which this man wanted all people to be liberated. With this Life Time Achiever Award we honour his legacy. However, he would have demanded more from us. This man was no fence sitter; neither was he an armchair critic. He had an incisive mind, which he used to good effect, analysing issues for those less gifted or educated to do so for themselves. He described this role in evidence at his 1976 trial: ”We try to get blacks … to grapple realistically with their problems, to attempt to find solutions to their problems, to develop what one might call an awareness, a physical awareness of their situation, to be able to analyse it, and to provide answers for themselves.
“ To appropriate this man for ourselves as journalists would be chauvinistic and selfish; however we do claim a part of him. Without a doubt, he showcased the power of our profession. We honour those who gave him the platform to express his thoughts. Let this award serve as a reminder to editors that editorial pages can serve as a platform for debate, social and political discourse which are so needed in this country, Much as it is the editors’ responsibility to scout for talent, our thinkers, scholars and business people need to get out of their armchairs, to debate, to challenge, to give guidance on behalf if voiceless and powerless who have neither the ability or the tools to do so for themselves. Remembering his life today should be a call to action. We cannot be spectators in a country which is, in some aspects, on fire. There is much, much too much work to be done. Ladies and Gentlemen , the Vodacom Lifetime Achiever Award this year posthumously goes the creator of FrankTalk a column published in the journal of the South African Student’ Organisation (SASO) and later in the Daily Dispatch between roughly 1969 and 1977. And the winner is: The father of Black Consciousness, Stephen Bantu Biko.