September '77 Port Elizabeth weather fine It was business as usual
In police room 619 Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja The man is dead
When I try and sleep at night I can only dream in red
The outside world is black and white With only one colour dead
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja The man is dead
You can blow out a candle But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch The wind will blow it higher
Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko Biko, Biko, because Biko
Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja The man is dead
And the eyes of the world are watching now (sing365)
This song is about the South African anti-apartheid veteran Steve Biko, who in 1977 was killed by police officers while in custody for related political reasons. For this song, instead of telling the story from Biko's perspective, Gabriel takes a third person observer approach. He explained "It's a white, middle-class, ex-public schoolboy, domesticated, English person observing his own reactions from afar. It seemed impossible to me that the South Africans had let him be killed when there had been so much international publicity about his imprisonment. He was very intelligent, well reasoned and not full of hate. His writings seemed very solid in a way that polarized politics often doesn't." (songfacts)
Steve Biko speaks on the
Black Consciousness Movement
Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s.
A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the anti-apartheid movement. While living, his writings and activism attempted to empower black people, and he was famous for his slogan "black is beautiful", which he described as meaning: "man, you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human (wikipedia)
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