The Solidarity Peace Trust recently released a new DVD. Hero to zero: A brief history of the Zimbabwe dollar, tells the story of the nosedive of our precious Zimbabwe Kwacha, from Independence in 1980 – when 1 Zimbabwe dollar would return you 2 US dollars, to today, when 1 billion (old) Zimbabwe dollars isn’t enough to exchange for 1 US dollar.

Get the DVD! We’ve already had a massive clamour in response to our SMS invitation to receive the DVD. But not to worry. We have some copies reserved for our loyal Kubatanablog readers. Be among the first 20 people to write to info [at] kubatana [dot] org [dot] zw to request this DVD, and we’ll post it to you. Please make sure to let us know that you’re writing in response to this blog, and include your postal address in your email. Regret – this offer is only available for addresses within Zimbabwe.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the Zimbabwe dollar’s dismal trajectory, and economist Rob Davies, one of the main interview subjects in the video, charts it beautifully. Countries that really want to control inflation, he says, get concerned when money supply rises more than 5% in a year. In Zimbabwe money supply increased by 120% in May of this year alone. Granted, money supply is the immediate cause, but it’s not the sole culprit causing inflation – why does the government print so much money so rapidly? To protect the incomes of the people who support it.

Davies comments that the national cake has shrunk drastically. And when the cake shrinks, someone has to eat less. The politicians, he says, have used their influence over instruments of the state to make sure it’s not them or their supporters.
The DVD also touches on the rise of the informal sector – despite the government’s best attempts to choke it, through actions such as Operation Murambatsvina. As one school teacher points out, if you’re a teacher struggling to make ends meet, at what point do you decide if it’s more worth your while to sell airtime on the streets, knowing that as a vendor you can make eight times more than you can as a teacher.

Finally, Davies asks, why are Zimbabweans so patient with something that is messing up their lives? If this economic decline was happening elsewhere, would it not have sparked some kind of popular uprising or resistance? Davies describes Zimbabweans as tolerant, and says this tolerance is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it makes the country more open to difference, more relaxed and integrated than it might otherwise be. On the other hand, perhaps it means we’re stuck with these injustices longer than others might be.

So why aren’t people here organising into a more effective resistance movement? It’s a question well worth asking. But the answer, I suspect, lies in a range of factors including intimidation, repression, leadership, logistics and vision. Change is daunting for anyone. We are either pressured into it when we realise we have no other option, or when we’re presented with an alternative so compelling it motivates us into positive action.

As Davies points out, the people who are really suffering from inflation and the shortages aren’t going to be the leaders of change – they’re more concerned with day-to-day survival. Sadly, our political leaders haven’t been able to paint that vision of the new Zimbabwe in colours vibrant enough for people to believe in it and risk everything for it.

This entry was posted on November 5th, 2007 at 4:18 pm by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.