ANTI-APARTHEID

Steve Biko, an ideological African socialist and nationalist, had a leading role in an anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement in 1960s-1970s. Steve Biko attended the University of Natal to study medicine after being expelled from high school due to his political activism.  He later joined the Multiracial National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), which was an organization that had been fighting for the rights of blacks for a long time. Later, he became the president of the all-black South Africa Student Organization (SASO) and helped black people to discover their self-value and dignity through the philosophy of black consciousness. In addition, Biko started the Black People’s Convention, an umbrella organization under the black consciousness group with some other co-founders (Dellios).
Steve Biko was portrayed as a brave and intelligent young man who stood out from all other people. In addition, he managed conflicts by resolving issues and problems along with building relationships with important white figures, just like he built his relationship with top editor Donald Woods. In addition, Biko's speech and voices on the football stadium evoked and echoed black citizens to come to an agreement and support him. Apart from previous points, Biko as well promoted the non-violent movement. He has been expelled from high school because of his political activism and he also experienced the separation and discrimination between blacks and whites. It is to be feared that the government ruled by white people will do harm to the social activists and anti-apartheid supporters during the time. The thing that is struggling against in the movie for Biko is that he was under the surveillance of policies, and he had to hide the draft of his speech inside his baby’s underwear to not be troubled or even arrested by police officers. Also, his all-black hospital was burned and devastated those bad policemen. But what to be dreamed about? The equality and friendliness between black and white races to compose a peaceful and harmonious society (Vinson).

DONALD WOODS: STEVE BIKO’S CLOSE FRIEND, REVEALED TRUTH OF BIKO’S DEATH AND THE FATAL FLAWS OF SA’S FATAL APARTHEID SYSTEM.

Donald Woods, however, has different stages of playing different kinds of leadership roles. In the beginning, He was just a regular final editor for a newspaper corporation and posted ordinary stories about trivial events. In this stage, even though he was already the head of a newspaper, but he was only an ordinary leader and an indirect leader. This kind of leader only tells stories that are contemporarily acceptable in a consistent and cohesive way. The second stage after building a relationship with Steve Biko was being an innovative leader (still as an indirect leader). Donald Woods started to hire black employees to work for his newspaper business and tried to post the story about racial equalities to readers to convey his ideas (Boddy-Evans).

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 However, his plans and works were soon interrupted and stopped by polices and he himself and his family had to escape to the United Kingdom for political asylum and protection. The final stage was the transformation of Woods’ leadership role - becoming a visionary leader (also a director). He gave away his fame, his career, and even his personal safety. Woods gambled everything he had aiming to achieve the goal to let people in the world find out what really happened to his friend Steve Biko and what is going on in South Africa. He even dressed up and pretended like a priest to avoid the danger of getting arrested. But he successfully fled to England and finally published the book Biko in 1978. And the book had a huge and direct impact to pressure the South Africa government to abolish the apartheid system (Boddy-Evans).

NELSON MANDELA IN ANTI-APARTHEID

Nelson Mandela, to most of the South Africans, is considered the father of South Africa. He was an anti-apartheid promoter, who fought for the justice and equality of the colored races in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was also the first president in South Africa that was voted and elected democratically.

Grew up dealing learning about the South African history and witnessing the discriminated treatment toward non-white South Africans, Mandela decided to help to abolish the unequal policies just so every citizen can have a free and fair living condition. So he continued pursuing higher education at the University of the Witwatersrand, in which he met up fellow anti-apartheid activists, to major in law ("Nelson Mandela: Father of the Nation").

"Mandela joined the ANC (African National Congress) in 1944 and was elected President of the ANCYL (African National Congress Youth League) in 1951. He first encouraged nonviolent protests as he wanted to follow Mahatma Gandhi's example but this did not work and later on, they used more violent tactics. The apartheid government then labeled Mandela and the other civil rights activists as terrorists." ​("Nelson Mandela: Father of the Nation")

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The battle against the apartheid government was a victory because of both native and international pressure that compelled apartheid to end. “On the 11 February 1990, F.W. de Klerk, who was South Africa’s president at that time, released Nelson Mandela from jail. Together they worked to end apartheid by abolishing apartheid laws, freeing civil rights protestors and unbanning political parties.” ("Nelson Mandela: Father of the Nation").