During our limited time on this earth, we leave different kinds of tracks. The older we get, the more tracks we are likely to leave behind.
Mine are captured in my autobiography, Corporate Newsman: A Life of Integrity, a book that documents my life from my birth on a farm at White River, Mpumalanga, through the different places where I have lived, studied and worked, to the present. It covers the highs and lows of my life, both before and after the dawn of our democracy.
Writing the book was a labour of love. I enjoyed much of it, except for those times when I had to relive sad moments, such as the murder of my brother, Adonis, in 2009, or when I had to deal with painful and intractable personal challenges. Even in those cases, I have done my best to capture events as they unfolded as accurately as possible.
Owing to space constraints, there are parts of my story that I was not able to tell in detail or to contextualise properly. Nevertheless, the kernel of my life story is captured in this book.
To write the book, I was inspired by the achievements that I was able to accomplish in my life, despite my humble background. Born of poor, working-class parents, I had no role models to look up to. Everyone about me was penurious. There were few high schools and the only institution of higher learning was the local teachers’ training college. The concept of an institution called a university did not exist to me, and I did not know of anybody who had been to one.
The only black professionals that we knew were teachers and nurses. It was not until I was in my late teens that I got to know about black lawyers, when Mathews Phosa and Phineas Mojapelo opened their law firm — the first one to belong to black lawyers — in Nelspruit.
Among my peers from the area, I was fortunate to have proceeded to a good boarding school in Natal and, subsequently, to university here and abroad. As the first graduate in the extended family, I had to embrace my duty not only to serve as a role model, but also to be there for the family whenever it needed me.
Those growing up in the same area today are fortunate not only to rub shoulders with graduates and professionals in different fields, but there is now a university within their reach and other institutions of higher learning have campuses in the area. When I grew up, there was no university within a 300km radius from my town.
The one thing that I have tried to convey, throughout the book, is that I have always lived my life with integrity. I have always wanted to do what is right, and what I would expect of others in similar situations, and not to seek adulation or praise from any quarter. On the contrary, I have been happy to stand out, on matters of principle, rather than to flow with the masses.
*Corporate Newsman: A Life of Integrity by Kaizer Nyatsumba is published by Tafelberg.
