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Joram Nyathi
“The experience of 2008 was a traumatic one for most Zimbabweans. No one would want to relive that. True. But then that is history.

“History must have negative and positive lessons. The trouble with Zimbabwe is that we learnt only negative lessons.

“Yet the truth must be that while such experiences can induce long lasting shock, they should not be forever an impediment to envisioning a better tomorrow, a handicap to creative strivings, in which case they become a disempowering burden.”

That unfortunately is how Zimbabweans have reacted to the proposed introduction of bond notes by Reserve Bank governor John Mangudya.

Not to mention that the narrative has been laced with distortion and a deliberate masking of facts to make talk of bond notes sound as odious as possible.

The borrowed robes have become too warm, too comfortable for us; we are resting in a comfort zone and can’t imagine any other life better than the borrowed US, SA, Euro, pula and yuan currencies which also have no intrinsic value other than our unquestioning faith.

We all have reason to be anxious Zimbabwe. But less hyperbole please.

But first the National Pledge. So much has been written on this ordinary subject otherwise turned emotional by organisations and individuals who have lost their faith, their religions, their traditions, their culture — in short, a people who have lost their way and want to convince us that’s normal.

Our columnist Nathaniel Manheru did more than justice in rebutting the feeble bleating of those religious charlatans trying to distort the National Pledge by insinuating that it is a latter day Golden calf distracting from the jealous God of Israel.

An impression has been created — a false impression by people pretending to defend God, Christ and Christianity — that by the National Pledge Zimbabweans are being forced to pledge loyalty to Zanu-PF, to President Mugabe, to war veterans and to engage in forms of “pagan” worship.

The temptation to give examples of other nations which practise a national pledge, by whatever name they call it, is great. I have resisted it.

Even if no other nation under the sun practised a national pledge, that would not in any way diminish its importance, its desirability if it were felt that it was needful in engendering a new sense of national consciousness, a keener dedication and commitment to defend a piece of geographical space called Zimbabwe, a sense of belonging, if not physically, at least in spirit, to our country.

We don’t need to justify the National Pledge simply because other nations make similar pledges; it is desirable in itself in a world dominated by greed, the influence of money and a predatory capitalism running riot to grab the resources of poorer nations.

The National Pledge should daily remind us of who we are and what is ours to defend.

Try as I could, I couldn’t find the source of the confusion between a national pledge and its supposed interference with the freedom of worship.

But then the devil has power to create phantoms among a people who have lost their way and are hypnotised by the love of alien cultures and traditions.

For me the following are the key issues acknowledged in the National Pledge: an Almighty God, the national flag, freedom, justice and equality, our national resources, our traditions and culture, and finally, honesty and the dignity of hard work.

This is what we are told is being demonstrated against!

A nation making so much noise about the scourge of corruption wants to demonstrate against the virtues of “honesty and the dignity of hard work”?

A nation plagued by a surfeit of foreign-sponsored NGOs supposedly to promote the new opium of democracy and human rights wants to demonstrate against government because they were “not consulted” on whether we should inculcate in our children the values of “freedom, justice and equality”?

Are these matters not what the Americans long ago declared “to be self-evident truths”?

Do these values and virtues require justification by reference to foreign practices when they are inherently self-justifying?

Any wonder that those purporting to oppose the National Pledge have not raised any useful argument besides lying about what God wants or doesn’t want us to do?

There is also a temptation, frivolous though it might seem, that opposition to the National Pledge could be no more than self-serving.

We are so used and inured to our devious ways that we don’t want our little children acting as our moral policemen, constantly poking our conscience when we stray, whether as pastors, parents, ministers or teachers.

It is very easy for children to notice deviance by a lazy teacher, a false preacher and a dishonest parent, and they are wont to ask awkward questions at awkward moments.

They can tell that a certain type of behaviour is contrary to the ethos of honesty, justice, and hard work exhorted in the National Pledge.

They expect to witness that in their daily lives and our hypocritical society might not meet the exacting model expectations of these little guardians of a numbed conscience.

But that shortcoming is anticipated in the Bible. “We all have sinned. We all fall short of the glory of God”.

Does it then follow we should not be constantly reminded of our failings by the little ones?

For that is precisely what the National Pledge has done. It has given corporeal existence to what we were all comfortable to keep buried far away in the pages of the Constitution.

Now the children must daily recite that Constitution to us; it’s a scary prospect but that doesn’t render it ungodly.

Back to the bond notes. Not Zimbabwe dollar. Not bearer cheques. Not history repeating itself.

The hype and noise around this proposed government intervention to lessen the pain of a shortage of “foreign” currency has verged on more than scaremongering.

It’s more accurately an act of economic sabotage. On a massive scale, too.

History is being abused to undermine every effort by government to relieve people’s suffering by those who wish to use the economic pain as a parachute to land them at State House.

History is being abused by the same forces for whom our salvation lies in a god called IMF and World Bank loans, Western philanthropists called development partners and an oceanic spirit carrying bags of US dollars but waiting for Mugabe to depart and Zanu-PF to abandon its indigenisation and land reform policies.

Illiterate reporters have been deployed to spread the message of 2008 far and wide, and economists of a particular ideological leaning are wheeled out to portray worst case scenarios like Zimbabwe is setting a global precedent in printing money.

So the views of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries on the bond notes must be suppressed or their voice muted.

Underwriting of the bond notes with a $200 million Afreximbank loan must be questioned and authenticity of its existence doubted.

Positive shoots in the economy must be lopped.

This is dystopia. The government’s intentions must be imagined in the grimiest light, or darkness. After the excitement, a bit of sobriety should stead our giddy imaginations. Zanu-PF and government need money. Hard currency for that.

Why would they sabotage the economy by “bringing back the Zimbabwe dollar”?

First, a lot of capital flight has occurred since the 2013 elections to ensure Mugabe could “not rig the economy”.

This had nothing to do with bond notes. Why is it being suggested now that cash withdrawals are linked to bond notes?

Second, Zanu-PF knows all the money coming into the country must be earned.

That means the economy must produce, precisely the reason for incentivising the productive sector to spur both exports and local consumption.

Unfortunately those incentives cannot be given in foreign currency given the scarcity.

Third, the effects of sanctions aside, Zanu-PF knows pretty well that the Zimbabwe currency was killed through attacks local and foreign.

Bond notes will be subject to similar attacks just to discredit them and to warn others that no one challenges almighty America and lives to tell the tale.

The biggest reason why government cannot reintroduce the Zimbabwe dollar at the moment is the value of diaspora remittances.

These remittances are close to $1 billion now and rising. At the time bearer cheques, not the Zimbabwe dollar, were abandoned in February 2009, the diaspora was remitting the equivalent of a coin to generate trillions through “burning”.

The government is too wise to print money for “burning” while losing hard currency.

Have faith in yourself Zimbabwe. We shall sing the National Pledge. Mangudya, give us the bond notes. Get people to use more plastic money, less cash.

Strictly monitor the movement of money by traders. Punish severely those who externalise cash.