By: Nomphumelelo Babeli

“Today, I would like to salute you, Sisi Ntsiki, for being the woman you have been to all of us—a woman of integrity. You lived an exemplary life and became a role model for all of us. I know some of us will never do, in our lifetime, even half of what you have done for your people.” - Sibongile Qaba, 2021

In 1977, after Steve Biko was brutally murdered while in police detention, Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba) entered into public memory as a “widow”. Her story concerns women like Limpho Hani, Nyameka Goniwe, Nomonde Calata, Sindiswa Mkonto, Zondeni Veronica Sobukwe, and many others. It should inspire us to pause as a society and question why women in partnerships with political men, particularly during the liberation struggle, are captured as auxiliaries to these men. While there is nothing wrong with being a widow, it is questionable that stories of women like Biko (née Mashalaba) remain untold. A simple Google search of each of these women, particularly U’mam Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba), will show that it is not easy to find any reference to them apart from websites linking them to their late husbands.  While the men’s marriages are mentioned in passing, the marriage somehow makes up the women's identities. Very little is known about their sacrifice, labour, ideological position or participation within that period. This generates an incomplete story, where society idolises them not for the work they did/or continue to do but instead because of who they were married to.

The story of U’mam Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba), who was born on born on the 9th of May 1946 to Nancy and Abson Mashalaba in Libode District close to Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, shows us that the history of South Africa has been constructed in ways that hinder our process of understanding the role that women played and continue to play in society. Through looking at her story, we see that very little is known about how she suffered at the hands of the Apartheid regime.

Mam’ Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba) met Steve Biko while at King Edward VIII Hospital in Durban doing her midwifery training in nursing, and he was a student at the University of Natal studying medicine. The two were introduced by Vuyelwa Mashalaba, cousin of uMam’ Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba), who was appointed as the general secretary of the South African Students Organization between 1970 and 1971 and later an active member of the Black Consciousness Movement. Upon marrying in 1970, uMam’ Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba) was given the name Nosizwe, meaning Mother of the Nation, by Alice ‘Mamcete’ Biko. As years went by, she lost various jobs as a result of her marriage/association to Steve Biko, and the Apartheid authorities also contributed by making it difficult for U’mam Nontsikelelo Biko (née Mashalaba) to find employment, yet she remained steadfast.

Throughout her life, U’mam Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba) has been active in changing society and remains a central pillar of justice in her community. She has taken on various roles and networks in church and community development groups, and she has worked at the Steve Biko Centre, which has been her base of operation since 2012 and has dramatically impacted the lives of women and young people in her community. She continues to create woman-centred networks that encourage women to harness and utilise their crafting skills, enabling them to support their families.  U’mam Nontsikelelo ‘Ntsiki’ Biko (née Mashalaba) and the various women and networks she works with stand as pillars of society through the different projects concerned with repairing insecurities in the communities. It's clear that being a widow is far from being her most significant contribution to society, and she is beyond that title.

In 1998, Biko (née Mashalaba) spearheaded the establishment of the Steve Biko Foundation with her son Nkosinathi Biko. Furthermore Biko (née Mashalaba), continued championing community-based activism to memorialise and preserve her husband's legacy. It is mainly through her continued service to the community that she has consistently expressed her activism. She remains a testimony to her enduring commitment to community-based activism, grounded in the ethos of the Black Consciousness philosophy. As the Steve Biko Foundation stated in 2022, “Her legacy and impact are fed not only by those who interact with her daily in the township of Ginsberg, where she continues to be an inspiration, both to the young and old but also the wider Eastern Cape and South African communities.”

Vuyisa Qunta wrote in 1997 that U’mam Nontsikelelo Biko (née Mashalaba) lives “away from the glare of the media. However, Sis Ntsiki, as she is popularly known, is a rounded person who contributes to society without claiming to have inherited any political status from being the widow of the preeminent martyr of the struggle...Juggling the roles of career woman, [community activist], clan matriarch, and homemaker with responsibilities in public life appears to hold no strain for the last Nontsikelelo Biko (née Mashalaba). She has gone on to change many people's lives in her community.”

The story of  U’mam Nontsikelelo Biko (née Mashalaba) should inspire us to focus on the stories of the ‘widows’ of these ‘heroes’, they too have their own story to tell, and their stories are not to be forgotten. Society is to celebrate U’mam Nontsikelelo Biko (née Mashalaba) and other forgotten women and give them a pedestal to stand tall – because they deserve it. As Sisonke Msimang wrote about Winnie Madikizela-Mandela in looking into the lives of women married to political men, it is essential to show how, though they may have influenced them, they did not make these women, they are women who came to choose these men as “as an ideological and intellectual companion: as a husband; as well as a comrade, on equal footing.”