African Currents

Zimbabwe to Ditch Colonial-Era Names of Provinces, Pushes Gold-Backed Currency

At a recent convention, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe's ruling party, announced plans to erase colonial legacies by renaming provinces with native names and adopting the new gold-pegged ZiG as the sole legal tender. These initiatives aim to reshape the nation’s post-colonial identity, foster economic stability, and dedollarize.
Sputnik
Colonial legacy continues to haunt us, perpetuating an inflated sense of superiority in former colonizers and inferiority among Africans. To move forward, we must reclaim our identity, break free from the lingering effects of subjugation, and embrace a cohesive sense of pride for true progress, Farai Muroiwa Marapira, Director of Information and Publicity for the ruling ZANU-PF of Zimbabwe, remarks during an interview with African Currents.

"We have transitioned from colonialism; we have fallen under the scourge of neo-imperialism or neo-colonialism. And these colonial vestiges, as they remain, create a false impression of superiority within the psychology of our people when they are viewing our former colonizers. And this has given us the problem that former colonizers remain with a superiority complex when they view us, and it keeps people with an inferiority complex. So we need to do away with this. We need to re-identify ourselves," Marapira says.

From his perspective, Professor Richard Shambare, Dean of the Faculty of Management and Commerce at the University of Fort Hare in Eastern Cape, South Africa, opines that ZANU-PF is emphasizing economic autonomy through the introduction of the bullion-backed ZiG currency to de-dollarize the economy and strengthen confidence in the nation's financial stability.

"From ZANU-PF itself, the reason they prefer in terms of looking at it, and I think these are quite obvious. They are talking about autonomy in terms of the politics of the day. They are also talking about economic growth and sovereignty in terms of that it would give them all this leverage for them to be able to work with the bullion-backed ZiG currency. So it's a clear movement or departure, if you will, and a big statement that the world is no longer a unipolar environment where everything and all economic activities are denominated in the US dollar," Professor Shambare states.

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