Skip to main content

Death of great man

Obituary
DENIS NORMAN 1931-2019
Denis Norman, Zimbabwe’s first minister of agriculture after Independence in 1980, has died (December 21) in Oxfordshire, England, after a long battle against cancer of the oesophagus.
His appointment to Prime Minister Robert Mugabe’s cabinet (at the suggestion of the late Lord Soames) after a long and bitter racial war that cost in the region of 35,000 lives came as a huge surprise.
At the time, it was seen as a strong and meaningful appointment that underscored Mugabe’s determination to cement racial and political reconciliation in a war-torn country.
Sadly, that policy did not last long and after serving Zimbabwe in various portfolios, Denis Norman and his wife, June, returned to England.
He told part of his, some would say amazing, story in a book called Odd Man In which was published last year by Weaver Press in Harare.
His death will be mourned by all those who knew him, worked with him and admired his honesty, integrity and ability to heal old racial wounds by doing so much to bring about the prosperity of thousands of small-scale black farmers while underlining the importance of experienced white commercial farmers and growers, once the backbone of a thriving agricultural sector of the economy.
One of the great men of the post-Independence era is no longer with us. It is hard to believe we will ever see the likes of him again in Zimbabwe.
TREVOR GRUNDY
(Above) John Laurie, President of the CFU with June and Denis Norman after he received the prestigious Farming Oscar for his services to agriculture – Picture with kind permission of Alexander Joe)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

MORE photos of cricketers in Kenya added

More cricket photos added! Asians v Europeans, v Tanganyika, v Uganda, v East Africa, Rhodesia, etc some names missing! Photo Gallery of Kenya Cricket 23 photos: CM Gracias, Blaise d'Cunha Johnny Lobo! Ramanbhai Patel, Mehboob Ali, Basharat Hassan and hundreds others.  

Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands

  BOOK REVIEW   Pinto: Blood on Western and Kenyan hands   Review by Cyprian Fernandes     Pio Gama Pinto, Kenya’s Unsung Martyr 1927-1965 Edited by Shiraz Durrani [Vita Books, Kenya, 2018, 392 pp.   Pbk, £30, ISBN 978-9966-1890-0-4; distributed worldwide by African Books Collective, www.africanbookscollective.com ]   Less than two years after independence from the British, on 24 February 1965, the Kenyan nationalist Pio Gama Pinto was gunned down in the driveway of his Nairobi home.   His young daughter watched helplessly in the back seat of the family car.   Pinto, a Member of Parliament at the time, was Kenya’s first political martyr.   One man was wrongly accused of his death, served several years in prison and was later released and compensated.   Since then no one has been charged with the murder.   Now the long-awaited book on Pio Gama Pinto is finally here, launched in Nairobi on 16 October 2018....

A message from Mervyn Maciel from his Hospital Bed

Morning my dear friends. Want to write to each one of you but I am exhausted! Thanks for everything. You have done much for me. Being discharged today after three long weeks. Have to live with pain for the rest of my life! Home at last, thanks to all of your prayers and kind wishes! From Mzee Mervyn Maciel to all of you. Morning Skip. Please don’t think I am or have been ignoring you – quite the opposite hard to spill it out with diminishing gufu (strength). Wish they could establish what is causing the chronic bleeding in my brain region. I want to sing again and write so much however gufu na shindwa mimi (lack strength is hampering me. Please thank everyone for their prayers and for enriching my life. I was the dunce in the family: My brothers Rev Joseph SJ and the late Wilfrid are my heroes. I owe them so much, also my darling Elsie and each of my loving children, including Conrad who suffered so much during his short life. Our faith kept us going during those painful days in Marsab...