‘We Shall Crush Apartheid’: Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and the Rhetoric of the South African Anti-Apartheid Jeremiad

Abstract

This essay recognizes the social protest rhetoric of former President Nelson Mandela and Black Consciousness Movement founder Steve Biko as jeremiads that called for social change in the midst of the apartheid despotic structure. Although they employed varying methods while delivering their jeremiads, they sought to fulfill their missions as representatives of justice and social equality. The uncovering of an anti-apartheid jeremiadic discourse in South African social protest—a tradition characterized by a steadfast refusal to adapt to apartheid’s perspectives—indicates a complex failure of the established order. Anti-Apartheid jeremiadic discourse in the South African social protest tradition sought to rebuild or restructure community politics void of apartheid’s regime.