From the time that Steve Biko entered room 619 in Sanlam Buildings, his destiny was sealed. On the morning of 7 September, twenty-four hours after his interrogation began, the blows were inflicted. The man who had laughed at danger and provocation, who had formed organisations and edited magazines, who had argued and debated and propounded strong ideas, no longer existed.

His past life had been sheared away. What was left was the frame of Steve Biko, enclosing now only a suffering mutely and inadequately expressed and callously ignored.

In the next few days he groped through the haze and pain of his obliterated reason for the receding world. The doctors came and went and came again.

Perhaps less is expected of the police, who after all are dedicated to uphold the immoral laws of the apartheid state. But what of the doctors and the Hippocratic Oath? If only one of them had, by voice or gesture, shown care, concern, understanding, for the suffering of this human being, this fellowman, whose life was so rapidly flowing away, he would have redeemed himself. But no; they all condemned him to the total isolation and loneliness in which he moved through incomprehension and darkness to his death.

He who would not give in
Has been done to death
He who was done to death
Would not give in.
The warner's mouth
Is stopped with earth
The bloody adventure
Begins;
Over the grave of one who loved peace
Slog the battalions.
When he who did not fight alone is done to death
The enemy
Has not yet won.
Benolt Brecht