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Magazine
Zimbabwe came first
BILL KIRKMAN
The road to progress ... with help from the Todds.
THERE are very few people who stand firmly by their principles throughout their lives, however much they are traduced and vilified and treated as if they were beyond the pale. Last week I attended in London a celebration of the lives of two such rare people, whom I had been privileged to know for 40 years.
They were Sir Garfield and Lady Todd — Garfield and Grace — who played a crucial and positive role, throughout their long lives, in southern Rhodesia, through its transformation to Rhodesia and, now, Zimbabwe. Garfield was Prime Minister of the country half a century ago, and a passionate believer in the equality of human beings. In the 1950s, in a self-governing colony where racism was rife, and the majority Black population were treated as second-class citizens, Garfield's "liberal" views were unacceptable to his cabinet colleagues. He was removed from office and replaced by someone more right wing and reactionary.
Later, when the country had moved even further to extremism, and Ian Smith made his illegal unilateral declaration of independence, Todd spoke out — and was imprisoned by Smith.
Out of politics, he continued to farm, and, with Grace, to offer at the Dadaya mission near Bulawayo, of which he had been superintendent from the 1930s, educational opportunities to Black children who would not otherwise have received them. The Todds provided a school, and teachers, and scholarships, and transformed many lives.
When Mugabe came to power at independence, he recognised Garfield's contribution, and appointed him to the country's senate. More recently, however, Garfield, appalled at the racism and repression of the Mugabe government, again spoke out strongly — and was deprived of his citizenship and his vote in the Zimbabwe election. His reaction to that, as a man in his eighties who had worked all his life for the principles of equality and democracy, was to walk to the polling booth and insist that this disgraceful deprivation should be perpetrated in public.
The London service of celebration filled the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square. Among the tributes read out at the reception afterwards was one from the Queen.
At the service itself, Bishop Jim Thompson, one of the senior bishops of the Church of England, who conducted it, explained how Garfield and Grace had changed his life when he visited them many years ago, by the example of the steadfast and unfailing practice of their Christian principles. The Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, a New Zealander (as were the Todds before their move to Southern Rhodesia early in their lives) was one of those who read at the service.
Judith Todd, herself over many years a courageous fighter for fairness and equality in Rhodesia, and now in Zimbabwe — and like her parents, colour blind in this — paid simple tribute to them.
There were moving tributes, too, from Lawrence Vambe, now in his eighties, who had been a leading journalist in the dark days of White supremacy, and from Thoko Matshe, a woman who, like her father, had been educated at the Dadaya school. She now works for the advancement of women. She spoke of the legacy of the Todds — "a legacy of generosity and caring, of giving". Among the distinguished and the well known who had come together on this occasion, it was her tribute that underlined most tellingly why the lives of Garfield and Grace were so deserving of celebration. They were not respecters of power and position. They were respecters of persons, however powerful, or powerless.
It was a remarkable occasion to honour two remarkable people. For me, it was made even more poignant because of other things happening in the same week. The newspapers were carrying details of reports on investigations into a number of dishonest practices in the commercial world — practices which highlighted a culture of corporate greed that has done great damage to ethical standards of business behaviour. Controversy was raging, too, over a huge salary increase awarded to the Lord Chancellor, at exactly the time when the pay increases for thousands of public service workers were being held down. Lord Irvine of Lairg appeared to see nothing inappropriate in this — until, after virulent public criticism, he belatedly decided to forego the increase.
There are many interpretations of what should be involved in responsible public service. Some of them invite deep cynicism.
The commemoration of Garfield and Grace Todd was a reminder that for some, selfless service and unwavering adherence to principle can be a way of life.
The writer is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, U.K. E-mail him at wpk1000@hotmail.com
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