SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Zimbabwe's central bank said on Saturday it will circulate $10 million worth of new bond notes on Monday, a quasi-currency that authorities expect to ease a serious cash crunch, but will limit withdrawals to curb any abuses.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) first announced the plan in May to issue bond notes to address chronic cash shortages and supplement dwindling U.S. dollars that have been in circulation for the past seven years.
But many Zimbabweans are sceptical about the scheme after a 2008 multi-billion percent inflationary meltdown caused by rampant money-printing. The new plan has already caused a run on the banks as Zimbabweans empty their accounts of hard currency.
The bond notes will be officially interchangeable 1:1 with the U.S. dollar.
Source: Reuters
See also: India grapples with the effects of withdrawing 86% of cash in circulation
(Score: 4, Insightful) by n1 on Monday November 28 2016, @05:16PM
Mugabe is a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Zimbabwe, i'm pretty sure of that.
However, it really irritates me when people use the phrase "breadbasket of Africa", it's a rose-tinted view of history, a justification for colonial power and expansion... Every colonial power with a stake in Africa at various points in history had their own 'breadbasket of Africa' from Libya to Congo to Rhodesia to South Africa, and probably several more in-between.
Colonial forces did have positives, but also huge negatives associated with them, but the nostalgia for those days and the willful ignorance of the social and economic climate which lead to the displacement of the western/european populations in the country is not constructive at all... We give our own countries the benefit of time to learn from our mistakes, consign the misdeeds to history but carry the banner of the positives as if they occurred in a bubble.
We do not give former colonies and non-aligned states the same latitude to make those horrible 'mistakes' and then leave them in the past when they want, unless there's some economic agreement. Such as in the case of the Middle East, we're very supportive of tyrants and no allusions to democracy there because we have an economic/trade understanding between the cultures.
Mugabe appeared to have taken the worst of colonial rule and nationalist rule, and should be rightly condemned for it. But there is no answer in selective hindsight when it comes to colonial rule in Africa, or anywhere.
If that is what we should be doing, then we need to give unreserved praise to China and especially India for their amazing economic growth and ensuring their prominence in global trade, breadbaskets of their own regions. Look at the growing middle classes there... I mean sure it's still based on modern slavery, political oppression and the persecution of the unfavored ethnic and social groups, but the numbers don't lie.
Zimbabwe and Cuba have similarities, the existing global powers had no desire to see those regimes succeed because of what they replaced. The regimes may have failed on their own, especially in the case of Zimbabwe, but we cannot ignore the sanctions and geopolitical forces that were working from day 1 to see the revolutions in those countries fail the people.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday November 28 2016, @06:04PM
The legacy of colonialism is complex and fraught, I agree. There seems to be an emotional dynamo behind your response:
It elicited an emotional response in you, but "breadbasket" is how Rhodesia was known. You can find it called such in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and even by the UN [un.org] (I didn't link the first two because they're pay-walled).
Wikipedia defines "breadbasket" [wikipedia.org] as, "The breadbasket of a country is a region which, because of richness of soil and/or advantageous climate, produces large quantities of wheat or other grain. It lists Rhodesia as one example. As such it's a florid description of agricultural output. "a justification for colonial power and expansion" is your take.
Sure, and subaltern [wikipedia.org] studies pore over that ambivalence. The railroads, telegraphs, and civil service the British built in India, previously a loose collection of independent states; the modernizations the Japanese brought to its Taiwan colony, previously a backwater in imperial China; and others are examples. "Nostalgia," again, is your imputation. Remarking that Rhodesia's agriculture abounded while Zimbabwe's withered is a statement of fact, not nostalgia.
The larger point I was musing at was how the case of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe reminds me a lot of Weber and how culture and its physical artifacts (a system of roads, a legal code, etc) do perhaps explain why some societies thrive and others languish; that's a point reinforced by the observation that Zimbabwe also thrived initially because Mugabe continued the policies that worked under Rhodesia, and only failed when he struck at their roots.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Monday November 28 2016, @06:53PM
Yeah, it was an emotional trigger because i've heard it so many times from older members of my family who use it to explain why we shouldn't have let the British empire slip away... "Look at Rhodesia, it used to be the breadbasket of Africa until...." and to clarify Zaire/Congo was the "jewel of africa [upi.com]" not the breadbasket. But I think you got my point.
I actually went to look at where this phrase came from, specifically in relation to Zimbabwe, and I cannot find where it originated, it's just repeated often enough so it must be true.
The legacy of colonialism is different in every former colony, some were encouraged to do independence because they were a financial drain on the empire they were under. This wasn't done in a 'you're strong enough to go on your own now' it was a balance sheet decision after the strategic importance of various places (in the caribbean) diminished after WWII and subsequent shifts in global economics. Some countries were encouraged to be independent, others were warned against it. None of it was done in the interests of the local populations.
I really don't mean to undermine your point, it's a valid one which I am mostly in agreement with.
As a final point on this, the Atlantic article [theatlantic.com] i first stumbled across that used "breadbasket" phrase was written by Samatha Power, who is an American diplomat and ambassador to the UN. She is a neocon and a proponent of using military force to spread human rights. The modern embodiment of a colonialist mindset.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @06:58PM
Its interesting, my take on the British disposal of empire in the 50s/60s was that (with the exception of India) the Labour government exactly thought they were liberating the people from unjust government.