Victor Kgomoeswana, author of Africa Is Open For Business, recently wrote an open letter for The Sunday Independent apostrophising Steve Biko, the great Black Consciousness leader who died in police custody nearly 40 years ago.

In the letter Kgomoeswana, says that he wishes Biko, who is the subject of Biko Lives!: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko edited by Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander and Nigel Gibson, had been born later so that he could “help us sort our economic transformation enigma”.

Among the issues Kgomoeswana discusses is the hesitance to “buy black” and the frustrations faced by the Black Business Council is achieving real and effective economic transformation. Kgomoeswana says in this regard and in the country’s tendency to cast blame instead of adopting self-reliance, South Africans need to be rediscover the heart of Biko’s Frank Talk campaign.

Kgomoeswana mentions Let’s Talk Frankly: Letters to Influential South Africans About the State of Our Nation by Onkgopotse JJ Tabane, which is a work that speaks truth to power and is titled for Biko’s straight-shooting alias.

Read the letter:

Dear Uncle Steve Biko,

I promise this is the last time I call on you, at least this Heritage Month, lest I am guilty of taking your name in vain; but I need a one-on-one chat with you, straight up.

Everybody needs an uncle in higher places. You and Amilcar Cabral are the two uncles of relevance in September. He was born in 1924 on September 12, the day on which you were assassinated in 1977. Just like you, Uncle Amilcar – who is credited with the liberation struggles of two countries, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde – had been assassinated for his incisive revolutionary thinking by those driven by fear and hate.

• Complete article: The Sunday Independent

Book details

• Africa Is Open For Business by Victor Kgomoeswana
  Book homepage
  EAN: 9781770103726
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• Biko Lives!: Contesting the Legacies of Steve Biko edited by Andile Mngxitama, Amanda Alexander and Nigel Gibson
  EAN: 9780230606494
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• Let’s Talk Frankly: Letters to Influential South Africans About the State of Our Nation by Onkgopotse JJ Tabane, illustrated by Sifiso Yalo
  EAN: 9781770104327
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