An Alternative Struggle - Professor P T Mtuze
Publisher: Vivlia Publishers & Booksellers (Pty) Ltd, Florida Hills
ISBN: 1-77024-000-4
An Alternative Struggle is an autobiography. The style is innocent and fresh, depicting an early Eastern Cape rural childhood around Middleburg/Craddock. Beneath this innocence and representation of ordinary people lay the apartheid system and its consequences. During this time South Africans were all forced to make choices, especially Black people. An Alternative Struggle is about those choices that one makes in life. It is about the life of an ordinary rural child, a child that became Professor Peter Mtuze. It is about an ordinary life that developed into an extraordinary one.
The book is divided into a number of short chapters. This makes for easy reading. It begins with a chapter entitled “Born on a farm in the middle of nowhere” and it ends appropriately with a chapter entitled, “An overview of my life as a writer and researcher”. The book contains 32 chapters including an epilogue and appendices.
An Alternative Struggle traces Peter Mtuze’s life from rural childhood through to marriage, and his work life. The book concentrates on this latter element of Mtuze’s life, how he worked as a court interpreter, a radio announcer for radio Bantu, a Foreign Affairs protocol officer for the then “Ciskei” administration, a publishing representative for Via-Afrika, lecturer and Professor at various institutions, including UNISA, Fort Hare and professor of African Languages at Rhodes University.
Interwoven with this “work thread”, are the choices that individuals had to make during one of the worst political eras in South African history, namely that of apartheid. Peter Mtuze makes it clear that for Black people there were really two choices: either you left the country to become a combatant, or to live in exile, or one worked within the system as best one could. He made the latter choice and chose to be with his family. In doing so he was also able to assist his people from within, especially as a court official. He also tells the story of how, for example, he protected Charles Nqakula, present Minister of Safety and Security from arrest by driving him through King William’s Town and hiding him on various occasions. An Alternative Struggle is really about how people tried to survive within the bizarre system of apartheid, walking a tight-rope between not upsetting the political apple-cart, yet at the same time assisting wherever they could, and knowing that the system had to be fought at every opportunity, especially when it affected one’s family life. Mtuze conveys his disgust with the system when his parents are forcibly moved to Dimbaza, and when his new wife, Nomathemba, had to leave Cape Town as she was not given residency. Again, a political fight ensued. The book depicts the tenacity that had to be shown by ordinary people in order to survive within the apartheid system.
Given Mtuze’s life as depicted in his autobiography, he cautions against too much emphasis on political mentors only in contemporary South Africa: “Now that we live in a democratic country, we need to cast our search for mentors and icons wider than the anti-apartheid struggle and its exiles and jails, and honour those who fought and died for our freedom. Our fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, as well as our community leaders, should serve as our primary icons because they are nearer to our aspirations and frustrations now that we are no longer at war” (Mtuze, 2007: 44). This book reveals the extraordinariness in all of us, as well as in the author. It is in keeping with the humility and dedication to individuals and humanity as expressed in Peter Mtuze’s life.
The book contains a preface by long-time friend Sizwe Manona. Another unusual and interesting feature of the book is the inclusion of the Mtuze family tree as a conclusion to the book. The author’s prolific life as a creative writer of isiXhosa works is also depicted in this work, including the inspiration for these works and why they were written. Chapter 30 is perhaps not so concerned with the life of Peter Mtuze, but rather provides a fascinating discussion of why the author feels that South Africans are failing themselves within their newly found freedom. In essence this chapter is an appeal for a return to African ethics if the African Renaissance is to become a reality, a return to indigenous knowledge systems and the acknowledgement of indigenous languages.
An Alternative Struggle is a book that represents and depicts the life of Peter Mtuze, a life of humble beginnings, an extraordinary life now embedded in spirituality. Perhaps this will always be an alterative life, lived with humility and honesty within a tapestry of various work and social experiences.
This book will appeal to anyone wanting to know more about South Africa’s recent history and politics. It is a book for all who are interested in life and living in our complex, yet fascinating South African society.
