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Gibson Nyikadzino Correspondent
By observing the resource wealth that Zimbabwe has, there is one puzzling economic question this writer thinks is crucial to answer using thoughts and mechanisms created, nourished and applied to address the obtaining Zimbabwean context.
Why is it about 670 units of Zimbabwe’s currency are worth one unit of the United States dollar when we are the actual ones with the gold reserves?
But, economically, it is public knowledge that the US dollar is a worthless, fiat currency.
It is just a green-coloured paper that does not meet the value of Zimbabwe’s gold, diamonds and or lithium.
It is imperative to state that only a healthy Zimbabwean economy that does not dispose its resources cheaply would actually weaken and destabilise Western economies.
Did you know that the new economic and social challenges that surface in the industrialised economies are not particularly prevalent in Africa?
It is so because Africa has lacked the resources to support a large number of intellectuals who develop “theories” and an “intellectual atmosphere” that fights back and speaks against Western economic thought.
It is worth acknowledging that Zimbabwe, as a nation, is aware on the genesis of its economic challenges and has prescriptions that it hopes can adequately address these challenges for the betterment of the future.
What could be difficult is to bypass the impact of Western economic theory in pre-colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe on how if it is entertained continually can reproduce economic prescriptions that reproduce non-Zimbabwe outcomes.
The adequate redressing of Zimbabwe’s challenges requires the adoption of a modus operandi that acts, thinks and supports Zimbabwean interests.
North-western Europe is where economics evolved for a reason.
There, people first met modern capitalism, financial crises, issues with labour being replaced by capital, the use of fiscal and monetary policy to wage wars, and so forth.
It lies in colonialism
Historically, the most economically-disturbed people in the world are in Africa.
Except for a few nations that managed to thrive outside of their traps and achieve relative success in economic growth, practically every country in Africa is mired in one crisis or another due to the sheer number of concerns and problems the continent faces.
At a global level, when economic issues are debated, most of the discussions are located within the post-industrial sphere where debates are mostly contributed by neo-liberal stalwarts who pay no attention to Africa’s or Zimbabwe’s concerns.
Ultimately, Zimbabwe and other countries become double victims.
One, the self-confidence of the post-independence African state was destroyed by colonialism.
Secondly, the impact of colonialism was short enough to destroy African leadership and never long enough to replace it with anything.
Consequently, Zimbabwe and Africa’s old systems of economic support and survival were wiped out, and with that any form of economic sense and worth is obliterated to give way to Western economic thought.
When economic ailments are diagnosed in African states, the biggest remedial challenge has been administering Western economic prescriptions on economies victimised both by colonialism and the post-industrial financial set-up run by Westerners.
It cannot be fair to only point a finger of hate attributing Zimbabwe’s economic malaise to corruption when it is also evident that the West has a plan to systematically destabilise the wealthiest African nations like Zimbabwe to have them dependent on them.
In need of indigenous input
Using theories from other countries is analogous to wearing unsuitable footwear when working to fix an economy.
Due to a mismatch of cultural values, this lack of fit happens for the nation that is very different from where the initial environment of the idea was formulated.
For consideration, the economic damage countries have seen through the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) point to the idea that neoliberal economic policies in African states only serve to deepen and entrench negative impacts on the determinants of the economy.
On many occasions, it has become evident that the issue of indigenous knowledge systems is only spoken about selectively and not in wholesale debates.
Indigenous knowledge systems also apply in economic management by tailor-making solutions to local problems using available ideas.
Putting faith in ideas misaligned with our needs means as a nation we can be both suicidal and self-defeating by embracing that which threatens to derail the nation’s capacity to unlock its long-term economic growth potential, thereby inhibiting sustainable economic growth.
Zimbabwe has, through the irreversible agrarian reform programme, managed to create a platform for sustained economic activity whose success is premised on being the own African country with land ownership pride. That Zimbabwe has land as an indigenous people’s resource, it also requires Zimbabweans to utilise that land using their prescriptions that address the current problems being faced.
As what happened with the political sphere of Zimbabwe that is fashioned along the values of the liberation struggle, where the input of the country’s liberators steers the nation’s stability, the same should be done with the land, which is the economy.
What we have seen as a nation so far is that the “nyika inovakwa nevene vayo” mantra can survive in its parameter when, as a collective, Zimbabweans rally around ideas, values and direct policies that will speak to address what they clamour for.
More so, it is with focus that no one tampers with Zimbabwe Education 5.0 policy for it is also a powerful antidote that is doing away with theoretical thinking which is not accompanied by pragmatism.
Marginalisation through appeasement
It takes an ideological and critical mind to note that the use of the United States dollar in Zimbabwe’s plan to industrialise is neither safe nor good for reasons of economic sovereignty, export business and independence.
These are subtle representations on how dangerous the neo-colonial economic turn may take.
Use of the US dollar has been commended by neo-liberal economists who favour the ideas of Adam Smith, among others, however, that is classically how neo-colonialism rebrands itself to perpetuate its objectives which is to marginalise through appeasement.
Some historical falsities that have been agreed is to emphasise that the subject of economics developed in north-western Europe.
It is said that modern capitalism, financial crises, problems of displacement of labour by capital, the use of fiscal and monetary policy to wage wars and so on were first encountered there.
Going by these accounts mean the Western economic system, once adopted in Africa, is a lie.
To achieve Zimbabwe and Africa’s economic goals means we require conscious efforts on the part of Africa and its leaders to formulate strong economic theories that work for us.
It should be seriously taken in critical observance that whatever form of political, economic or social organisation required for the survival of Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans is best suited by working towards the restoration of the cultural identity and values which colonialism eroded.
It was Chinua Achebe who said: “In your own culture you will find the values and strength to take you into the future.”
Only by accepting national identities can there be a restoration of self-belief.
Zimbabweans, remember we are one. This is homeland!
Online Reporter