Baird's CMC -- Blog

This is indeed a very sad day. I heard this morning from former Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) President Richard Tate that that his successor, Kobus Joubert had died; I am told Kobus was shot and killed on his farm on Monday night (October 25, 2010). Information is still sketchy: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/8088557/Top-Zimbabwe-farmer-murdered.html

Kobus was an Afrikaner in the ZTA leadership who spoke fluent Shona and though he had an arm and hand withered by polio, it never stopped him from being a practical and successful farmer. He was also a formidable servant leader and man of faith.

I worked closely with him in Zimbabwe on land reform, in the late nineties. Kobus was a great man, for whom I have the greatest respect. He ran a programme that created something like 9,000 successful black small scale tobacco farmers in three years, without government help and with only the resources of the farmers themselves and the ZTA at his disposal. These small scale farmers have mostly probably also by now lost everything, because they depended on the big commercial farmers to help them farm profitably.

Kobus never lost his commitment to Zimbabwe and its people. He was a genuine human being and he had real courage.

When in the early years of the land grab he realized that there would be almost no maize crop because the big maize farmers had been kicked off their farms, he planted maize instead of tobacco and told the locals that they could come and harvest maize from his farm, to stay alive over the winter. When his farm was eventually seized illegally, he refused to go away and simply lived with his loyal and courageous wife Mariane in a caravan on the side of the gravel road at the entrance to his farm. Eventually last year, the Mugabe politicians returned his farm to him. Some say, mostly due to pressure from locals in his district.

When I think back to the agricultural Zimbabwe built by people like Richard and Kobus and all the other impressive people I had met over the years and when I remember the wonderful development and upliftment work they had done with their own farmer resources and no government help, I become inconsolably depressed about the nature of mankind.

And beyond sadness, I am once more angry about the destruction of good by the evil of people who live among us.

This killing is about more than wasting a good man’s life, it is in truth about destroying the goodness of life itself for an entire nation. All Zimbabweans will in time rue the day that Kobus died, because he represented so much opportunity and had done so much good. His death is another triumph for evil in Zimbabwe.

My prayer is that Mariane and his children receive grace and courage to cope with their terrible loss.

The Reverend Canon Andrew White is the winner of the Civil Courage Prize for 2010. The prize is awarded every year by the Train Foundation for "Steadfast Resistance to Evil at Great Personal Risk".

Canon White is the "Vicar of Baghdad", the rector of St George's Church in Baghdad, an ecumenical church and the last remaining Anglican church in Iraq. The Train Foundation made an excellent choice in this man who is a key participant in the peace process, having helped to broker the historic Baghdad Peace Accord in 2004, who still operates medical and dental clinics, and who has worked in more than a 100 cases as a mediator to secure the release of kidnap victims. Canon White not only exposes himself to immense personal danger through all of these activities, but manages to continue his work load while himself suffering from multiple sclerosis. Courage is in my view an inadequate term with which to describe Canon White. Not only his courage, but also that of his wife and children.

At the prize giving ceremony in New York he made a moving and insightful speech in which he explained the requirements for making peace; of which his simple prescription to eat together - to prepare food for each other, was most unexpected and underlined his human (not humanistic - he was clear about the need for faith) approach to the great affairs of war and peace in a troubled land. How many pontificators in the capitals of the world would not benefit from sitting quietly at the table with this great man and learning from him? They should chew and allow him to talk.

Unexpectedly, for a cleric and in these times, Canon White also had much good to say about the role and conduct of the United States military forces in Iraq.

A wonderful moment in the speech was when he asked a young man to stand up. This young man was the first ever kidnap victim for whom Canon White mediated in Iraq. The good reverend had not seen the youngster again after his release, until the night of the prize giving in New York!

The prize giving left the audience with much to ponder, not least the matter of how we ourselves confront evil. As for Canon White; he has answered the question unequivocally.