The Sunday Mail
When talking about music, the tendency is to focus on the songs listeners enjoy most. After all, listeners are the reason most songs are written and sang. But it also helps to focus on the songs musicians themselves favour. Take for instance Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)”, which carries some of the legend’s most strident protest music and finest lyricism.
He says: “I’ve written some songs that I look at, and they just give me a sense of awe. Stuff like ‘It’s Alright, Ma’.” One of the most memorable lines from that song goes, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
That’s right, money swears.
It is swearing left, right and centre through Evan Mawarire. It is swearing high and low through Christopher Mutsvangwa. It is swearing so stridently that Tajamuka is increasingly sounding like a swear word itself.
It requires suspension of disbelief to even begin to assume that money is not swearing through Evan, Tajamuka and Mutsvangwa, and that they are motivated by national interest.
One is a dead beat dad who can’t budget for his children’s school fees, another is a collection of nobodies looking for political accommodation ahead of the 2018 elections, the other is a man embittered by his ejection from the ruling party.
They are all in search of money, they are all ready to swear all the while thinking that swearing is a revolutionary act. Some think they are doing a Mgagao. What they forget is that while Mgagao articulated a revolutionary idea, their money just keeps swearing. Ask William Mutumanje what political capital swearing brings.
That said, let’s talk about money away from the swearing of those who will – as Oliver Cromwell said in dissolving Britain’s parliament in 1653 – “like Esau sell (their) country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray (their) God for a few pieces of money”.
Zimbabwe is looking for money. Not the filthy lucre that is driving sellers of gods to swear. We are looking for money to revive industry, to rebuild the economy, to change livelihoods.
To that end, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya have been working round the clock to unlock funding. We commend them as we believe they are working with good intentions and with clear consciences.
But it is pertinent to bring to the attention of these two gentlemen two recent reports that have direct bearing on how we set about our re-engagement with Western multilateral financiers.
The first is an internal IMF report that admits the lending institution’s belief in the economic and political religion of neoliberalism has been destructive.
The IMF concedes that its neoliberal structural adjustment policies have caused political instability, wreaked economic havoc and increased inequality in developing countries without delivering the growth that was promised. The policies generally call for less state participation in the economy, giving greater rein to free market economics and less government subsidies for the poor. In exchange, countries get to access loans that they will never be able to pay back.
The report, authored by IMF economists Jonathan Ostry, Prakash Loungani and Davide Furceri, is titled “Neoliberalism: Oversold”, and would make good reading for policymakers as we proceed with the financial institution’s Staff Monitored Programme and as we pursue new money from them.
The other report comes from Mark Curtis for the NGO War on Want, and it is titled “The New Colonialism: Britain’s Scramble for Africa’s Energy and Mineral Resources”.
With UK government support, British companies control Africa’s key mineral resources and control over US$1 trillion worth of the most valuable resources on the continent.
Researcher Colin Todhunter, commenting on the report, says: “Under the guise of the UK helping Africa in its economic development (a continuation of the colonial paternal narrative), US$134 billion has flowed into the continent each year in the form of loans, foreign investment and aid, while British government has enabled the extraction of US$192 billion from Africa mainly in profits by foreign companies, tax dodging and the cost of adapting to climate change.”
The report quotes War on Want official Saranel Benjamin, saying, “For too long, British companies have been at the forefront of the plunder, yet rather than rein in these companies, successive UK governments are actively championing them through trade, investment and tax policies. It is time British companies and the UK government were held to account.”
So as we search for money in Western climes, let us be wary of getting deals that essentially swear at our own people.
COMMENT: Money doesn’t talk, it swears
The Sunday Mail
When talking about music, the tendency is to focus on the songs listeners enjoy most. After all, listeners are the reason most songs are written and sang. But it also helps to focus on the songs musicians themselves favour. Take for instance Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)”, which carries some of the legend’s most strident protest music and finest lyricism.
He says: “I’ve written some songs that I look at, and they just give me a sense of awe. Stuff like ‘It’s Alright, Ma’.” One of the most memorable lines from that song goes, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
That’s right, money swears.
It is swearing left, right and centre through Evan Mawarire. It is swearing high and low through Christopher Mutsvangwa. It is swearing so stridently that Tajamuka is increasingly sounding like a swear word itself.
It requires suspension of disbelief to even begin to assume that money is not swearing through Evan, Tajamuka and Mutsvangwa, and that they are motivated by national interest.
One is a dead beat dad who can’t budget for his children’s school fees, another is a collection of nobodies looking for political accommodation ahead of the 2018 elections, the other is a man embittered by his ejection from the ruling party.
They are all in search of money, they are all ready to swear all the while thinking that swearing is a revolutionary act. Some think they are doing a Mgagao. What they forget is that while Mgagao articulated a revolutionary idea, their money just keeps swearing. Ask William Mutumanje what political capital swearing brings.
That said, let’s talk about money away from the swearing of those who will – as Oliver Cromwell said in dissolving Britain’s parliament in 1653 – “like Esau sell (their) country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray (their) God for a few pieces of money”.
Zimbabwe is looking for money. Not the filthy lucre that is driving sellers of gods to swear. We are looking for money to revive industry, to rebuild the economy, to change livelihoods.
To that end, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr John Mangudya have been working round the clock to unlock funding. We commend them as we believe they are working with good intentions and with clear consciences.
But it is pertinent to bring to the attention of these two gentlemen two recent reports that have direct bearing on how we set about our re-engagement with Western multilateral financiers.
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The first is an internal IMF report that admits the lending institution’s belief in the economic and political religion of neoliberalism has been destructive.
The IMF concedes that its neoliberal structural adjustment policies have caused political instability, wreaked economic havoc and increased inequality in developing countries without delivering the growth that was promised. The policies generally call for less state participation in the economy, giving greater rein to free market economics and less government subsidies for the poor. In exchange, countries get to access loans that they will never be able to pay back.
The report, authored by IMF economists Jonathan Ostry, Prakash Loungani and Davide Furceri, is titled “Neoliberalism: Oversold”, and would make good reading for policymakers as we proceed with the financial institution’s Staff Monitored Programme and as we pursue new money from them.
The other report comes from Mark Curtis for the NGO War on Want, and it is titled “The New Colonialism: Britain’s Scramble for Africa’s Energy and Mineral Resources”.
With UK government support, British companies control Africa’s key mineral resources and control over US$1 trillion worth of the most valuable resources on the continent.
Researcher Colin Todhunter, commenting on the report, says: “Under the guise of the UK helping Africa in its economic development (a continuation of the colonial paternal narrative), US$134 billion has flowed into the continent each year in the form of loans, foreign investment and aid, while British government has enabled the extraction of US$192 billion from Africa mainly in profits by foreign companies, tax dodging and the cost of adapting to climate change.”
The report quotes War on Want official Saranel Benjamin, saying, “For too long, British companies have been at the forefront of the plunder, yet rather than rein in these companies, successive UK governments are actively championing them through trade, investment and tax policies. It is time British companies and the UK government were held to account.”
So as we search for money in Western climes, let us be wary of getting deals that essentially swear at our own people.
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