Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith is an important book, but whether its importance will be acknowledged in contemporary South Africa is a moot point. (Review by Michael Green)Albert Luthuli is a kind of patron saint of the African National Congress. He was the president of the organisation for 15 years, he was its first internationally-known leader, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961, and today the ANC’s headquarters building in Johannesburg is named Luthuli House.
He is remembered as a man of exceptional morality and courage, and as a leader who resisted apartheid fearlessly and with dignity. Inevitably perhaps, there has been some controversy about his life and death. Two points are at issue. Did he support the armed struggle that was launched by the ANC in 1961? And was his death in 1967 a tragic accident in which he was hit by a train or was it the work of agents of the apartheid government?
The author of this book, Scott Couper, has spent ten years on research into Albert Luthuli’s life and death. He is an American-born minister of religion who has been much involved in the social and economic development of Zulu communities in KwaZulu-Natal. No sensible person would, I think, question his integrity or his intelligence.
He is an effective writer in a calm and composed manner, and he produces a substantial amount of evidence to show that Luthuli’s strong Christian beliefs prevented him from ever endorsing violence. Understandably, this is not a popular verdict among today’s ANC politicians, who regard the Umkhonto we Sizwe operatives as heroes, as witness various roads in Durban now named after them. Luthuli believed, wrongly maybe, that violent actions would harm the liberation struggle.
As for his death, the author’s meticulous research indicates very clearly that this was an accident. Luthuli was a sick and partly deaf 70-year-old man who probably neither saw nor heard the train that knocked him down while he was walking across a railway bridge near his home at Groutville. He may even have had a mild stroke and was not thinking clearly (he had been disorientated by a stroke some years earlier).
It is a very sad story, and indeed the book as a whole is an account of sad times in South Africa’s history. What illuminates it and gives it cheer is the noble and inspiring personality of Albert Luthuli himself, a man who always put principles before self.
What would he think of today’s politicians and their ruthless pursuit of riches? One wonders.
Albert Luthuli: Bound by Faith by Scott Couper is published by University of KZN Press. - Michael Green
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