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Biko, Jazz and Liberation Psychology

Writer: Mphutlane wa Bofelo | Photograph: Supplied

Prepared for Psychology South Africa Congress 2024 – Emperors Palace, Jozi. 

Biko!

There are no notes for the jazz of your body, dancing Black love till the last drop of blood at the back of the Land Rover. In every drop of blood, a seed blooms, filling the land with red flowers of your triumph over fear.

To intone the holy name Bantu—Embodiment of the Essence of Being Human—Peter Gabriel summons a two-tone beat, Brazilian drum, vocal percussion, and a weighted guitar[1] The Johnny Dyani quartet invites the tongues of Badimo, free bop, and avant-garde jazz to call your name. Mandla Langa evokes wild storms and the cool breeze of the jazz of the wind at dawn.

Walking on sacred Bantu Biko Street, Simphiwe Dana mixes lullabies and savvy jazz, enchanting melodies resonate—Biko, Biko, Biko. Your life transcends settler-colonial horrors and neo-colonial nightmares, reverberating in Moses Molelekwa’s recall of your dream, the musopoetic resolve of iPhupho L’ka Biko, keeping your name alive[2], and the jazzoemphatic voice of Tlokwe Sehume reporting to you: “naga yafsa!” -the land is burning; summoning your omnipresent spirit to continue inspiring us beyond the material world.

Children worldwide sing your immortality with graffiti on ghetto walls, rhythm and poetry, soul, blues, reggae, and organic hymns. Jazz is your goofy teeth and xwaku-xwaku carefree posture, defying the smugness of the elites and the hoity-toity.[3] Every note of your Black ink on white paper sings boundless possibilities, challenging prescribed symbols and dictated terms.

Your redemptive music releases oppressor and oppressed from the prison of tradition, calling us to an inward journey of self-definition and outward action of self-assertiveness.

Biko,

what do you ask or tell us about psychology and society today?

you probe us to ask ourselves whether  the very fact that for  the People of the South, encounter with mainstream psychology, social practice, political practice and economic practice involves the experience of having to translate their thoughts and emotions from their mother tongue to a language that established and imposed itself as the language of instruction, communication and practice  through  physical and psychological  colonial violence does  not in itself have alienating, and traumatizing effects that instil a sense of otherness, smallness, and uselessness? Biko, yours are hard questions on the language of psychology and the psychology of language.

you ask us:

if language is the land on which we meet our roots and lineages, acquire our thoughts, emotions, values and traditions,

if language is the land that gives birth to our dreams,

if language is the land on which we grow the potential to rise beyond our dreams, and nightmares

if it is on this land of language that we acquire and develop the interpretation and reinterpretation of social reality,

 if land provide the language of real-life experience and the primary resources and spaces for social, political, and economic life,

if language is land and land is language, and philosophy, ethics, culture, history, traditions, wisdoms, and heritage reside in language and land,

how do you heal a landless people who must cut their mother tongue and mutilate their languages to please the god of English – French, Portuguese, and Spanish- to gain access to psychological, social, and economic services?

what will it take to arrive at a point where when we come to a conference such as this one, the presentation of papers in Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, isiNdebele, isiXhosa, isiZulu, sign language, and Makua, Tamil, Hindi, Sepulana, Gujarati, KheLobedu, and Urdu is not an exotic spectacle or rare phenomenon? Biko, yours are tough questions about the political economy of psychology.

you ask us to critically examine how socio-economic structures, historical contexts, and power dynamics shape psychological knowledge and practice, particularly in settings marked by inequality and cultural dislocation.

you ask us

what is the political economy of psychology in a country like South Africa where apartheid spatial arrangements and the structures of racial capitalism are still intact

you ask us,

what is the political economy of psychology in societies faced by the realities of an epistemological genocide that includes the deliberate and systemic undermining and elimination of the epistemological frameworks, traditions, and knowledge systems of the victims of colonial violence and structural racism,

Biko,

you remind us that Being is Belonging and Belonging is Being; that individuality and sociability are interconnected.

that individuality must facilitate rather than throttle cooperation, collectivity, and communalism,

that collectivism and communalism must provide room and space for expression of individuality and not be an excuse and mechanism for the suppression of individuality.

that for South Africa to truly become Azania, the land in which society is anchored on a strong social intent (Nia) to bestow upon the world a more humane face, our psychological, social, political, and economic practices must foster diversity, inclusivity, belonging, interconnectedness, and solidarity,

 that individually and collectively, we must move away from obsession with the barbarian at the door to a critical engagement and robust confrontation with the savage at the core[4]

Biko,

you tell us that healing begins within; that whatever happens in the consultation room, clinic, hospital , mental asylum, rehabilitation centre, is an exercise in futility if the school, university,  home, community, workplace and organization is not a place of care; that our biggest task must be the rediscovery of community and the re-communalization of the culture of care, that re-communalization of healing demand the re-embedding of psychology and sociology in society.

 Biko, you tell us,

in a society where the manifestations and patterns of systemic and structural violence, injustice and inequality still reflect that those most condemned and damned by unequal power structures and various forms of marginalization are the people at receiving end of class, racial and gender hierarchies, ableism, and heteronormativity, the key concerns and questions of psychology should be:

how do systemic and structural racism affect mental health and life opportunities?

 how do intersecting identities -race, gender, class, ability, and sexual orientation- compound experiences of oppression and marginalization? 

what are the mental health disparities among marginalized groups, and how can they be addressed?

how do power dynamics within societal structures perpetuate inequality and exclusion?

what are the mechanisms of resilience and coping among marginalized communities?

Biko,

you tell us the response of liberation psychology to these questions should start with a return to the basics:

developing inclusive and participatory community-based interventions,

developing critical consciousness to enable individuals and communities to recognize and challenge the systemic forces that contribute to their oppression

designing educational programs, workshops, and dialogues that encourage critical thinking and awareness of social injustices,

developing culturally relevant practices that enlist, and integrates the knowledge, norms, belief-systems and lived experiences of the dying and damned of the earth, 

focusing on healing from the trauma of oppression and building resilience through therapeutic practices that address both individual and collective trauma, community solidarity and mutual support networks,

advocacy and social justice activism working alongside marginalized communities to dismantle oppressive structures and advocate for policy changes that promote equity and justice,

capacity-building, skills training and leadership development programs aimed at strengthening the capacity of individuals and communities to take control of their lives and advocate for their rights

and creating opportunities for marginalized voices to be heard in decision-making processes[5]

biko,

we thank you for your immortal insights and eternal presence of your spirit in our lives, urging us to go on until the realization of a more humane and egalitarian society.(Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a political theorist who focuses on the interface of governance, politics and development. He is also an essayist, poet and playwright whose creative writings interweaves the personal, political and spiri


[1]Wikipedia, “Biko Song” Available on  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biko_(song) Accessed on 4 October 2024 

[2] Sabelo Mkhabela (2024) “The Sonic Soul of Steve Biko” Mail & Guardian 26 September 2024 Available onhttps://mg.co.za/friday/2024-09-26-the-sonic-soul-of-steve-biko/ Accessed on 4 October 2024

[3]Biko’s childhood nicknames were ‘Goofy’ and ‘Xwaku-xwaku’ on account of his unkempt appearance. See Mangcu, Xolela (2014). Biko: A Life. London and New York: I. B. Tauris.

[4]  “Not the barbarian at the door but the savage at the core” is a line from a poem by Lesego Rampolokeng (2009) which appears in Head on Fire: Rants\Notes\Poems 2001-2011, published by Deep South Books. 

[5] Comas-Díaz, L., & Torres Rivera, E. (Eds.). (2020). Liberation psychology: Theory, method, practice, and social justice. American Psychological Association.

“Defining Liberation Psychology \Liberation Psychology” Available on https://libpsy.org/welcome/defining-liberation-psychology/#:~:text=Liberation%20psychology%20is%20a%20body%20of%20thought%20and,of%20poverty%2C%20social%20injustice%2C%20censorship%2C%20repression%20and%20violence. Accessed on 7 October 2024

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