Why Is They Call You Mister Steve Biko Now You Re Dead

“Hundreds and thousands of Africans are thrown into jail each year under pass laws. Even worse than this is the fact that pass laws keep husband and wife apart and lead to the breakdown of family life.”(Nelson Mandela- April 20,1964 “An Ideal in Which I Am Prepared to Die) This quote comes from a well known African leader Nelson Mandela who fought to help his people in South Africa against apartheid, A set of laws which allowed whites to have all the power in South Africa from 1948 to 1991. He explains in the quote the mistreatment of his fellow Black, Native Africans forced out of homes and jobs due to the white government. Nelson Mandela and many other great leaders used certain rhetorical techniques to convince their people that apartheid is negatively affecting their country. The rhetorical techniques used by Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Steve Biko help to persuade their audiences of their messages of the negative effects of apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko were both activists in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, while Desmond Tutu is an Archbishop who created TRC (Truth and Reconciliation Commission). Nelson Mandela soon became the president of Africa, Steve Biko was murdered by police, Archbishop Desmond Tutu continued helping the truth behind apartheid get out so South Africans can have peace. The rhetorical techniques used in Nelson Mandela’s “An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die” were pathos which is used to persuade a reader by making them feel emotional for the cause as if it is important to them as well which is an appeal to emotion, ethos to credit himself for his hard work which is the appeal to credibility , and logos a logical apply which is using facts about how it’s affecting them, Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s “Forgiveness is Liberating” also uses pathos while applying repetition, the technique of repeating a phrase to persuade the reader that what they are saying is correct and anecdote which is to tell the reader a story of the event to convince them, while Steve Biko’s “Black Consciousness and the Quest for True Humanity” also as Nelson Mandela’s “An Ideal for Which I Am Prepared to Die” applied to logic and used the appeal to credibility.

The poem is written in free verse, offers no type of rhyme scheme, and in one long stanza. This contributes to

The last few lines in the poem are sentience that have been chopped up into different lines, to help

The poem describes the life of a man during the Vietnam War, a conflict involving the United States and local Vietnamese who supported a communist regime, and how unexplainable sporadic events saved his life. He gives thanks to an unknown force that saves his life multiple times throughout his tour in Vietnam because the instances are what some people consider luck and others and act of a higher being or deity. Throughout the poem he expresses his gratitude towards the entity that watches over him but later he questions the existence of a god because why would one allow there to be a war in the first place and then send

The poem does not follow a rhyme scheme or meter, which means that there is rhythm in the poem and it makes the poem more like a song. The poem has four stanza’s and has five lines within each stanza.

Throughout history, people have made sacrifices, changes, and big decisions that later sometimes result in something grand. These grand occurrences can either be good or bad. Usually as time goes on these events and most well-known people of this time are highlighted in history classes for students to learn and to honor those of that time. However, some of the smaller people that contributed to historical events aren’t as highlighted as those that were seen as the big leaders. For example, in the American Revolution, the people that usually come to mind are George Washington, Paul Revere, and Thomas Jefferson. What about the people who were injured, scared and killed because of this bloody war? They seem to be forgotten until they are highlighted once again. Another example of a person that was not really highlighted for their actions is Nina Simone. She made an impact on the Civil Right Movement that not many other artist or celebrity would have done. When you think of the Civil Rights Movement the first three that come to mind of course are, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, and Rosa Parks. So, when someone hears the name Nina Simone the two most common responses might be “Who’s that?” or “Oh the singer?”. But what is forgotten is how she, at such a high level, put her reputation at a risk. Nina Simone was a very well-known singer of the 1950s and 1960s especially for her song “Feeling Good”. She didn’t just use her popularity for fame and money but to express

The author tells the reader that this speech is taught in school and is in every history book. The author assumes that everyone knows about this speech. The author also assumes that everyone would be able to identify the speech with just a few lines of it. Because this speech is well known, they found no need to include it in the memorial because everyone should know the words. Once again the author reaches the audiences’ pathos because they talk about how this memorial will make a person feel and this can change the feeling of the reader because the reader will now expect to feel what the author is describing. They trust that what the author says will be how they will feel when visiting this memorial. The author also reaches the readers logos because they are trying to persuade the reader that because Martin Luther King was so influential, there is so much about him we can learn, just from walking through the memorial site.

This collection of over ninty words is much more than just a poem. It’s a story of millions of people. It ties in rhymes, sadness, happiness, religion and anger though a broad spectrum of other ideas.

The author uses several types of poetic terms in this poem to develop the theme of a person accepting grief in their life. One poetic term she used was a metaphor. The metaphor is “Ah, grief, I should not treat you like a homeless dog.” Although grief is not a type of dog, the author wants us to think of grief in the same way that we would think about a homeless dog. The same phrase can also be considered a simile. The author intends for us to think of grief as being like a homeless dog. Another way that the author expressed her theme was by using a specific kind of repetition like anaphora. Several words are repeated at the beginning of two or more lines and sentences in the poem. These words are “you,” “your,” “my,” and “and.” There are also several phrases that are repeated throughout the poem. These phrases are “your own,” “I should,” and “you need.” She uses these repetitive words and phrases in the poem to describe a conversation that a person is having with grief.

Another incident that rose eyebrows was the death of Stephen Biko, the leader of the South African Student Organization. “In the black freedom struggles in the Republic of South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, launching of protests by black students also marked a turning point and the onset of a new phase of the larger anti-apartheid movement” (Franklin, 2003). His death became world news. Accused of placing him to rest were the Port Elizabeth security police. They brutally beat Biko and chained him to a gate as if he was in a crucifixion and did not seek medical care for him until the next day.

Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than

The poem begins with two lines which are repeated throughout the poem which convey what the narrator is thinking, they represent the voice in

After his release from prison in 1990, he went to be elected the first black President of South Africa. The time in prison helped him to come to peace with himself and the people he was initially mad at; such as the South African Government.

The short stanzas containing powerful imagery overwhelm the readers forcing them to imagine the oppression that the speaker went through in

Mandela lived a long life and made so many differences for the people of today in