“Look East” vs “Look West” monolith not good for Zimbabwe’s economy

By Justice Zhou

What chances are there of Zimbabwe turning around its economic fortunes in 2013 and beyond? This must be one of the major questions people are trying to deal with as we look forward to the fiscal year ahead.

I think the gloomy storyline which still portrays Zimbabwe as a hopeless pariah is rather extreme because the situation at present is a stark contrast to 2008, the period when our economy reached the climax of implosion, which was marked by world-record hyperinflation and acute shortages of food and foreign exchange.

However, the fact that little has been done so far in terms of job creation, infrastructure rehabilitation, restoration of production in industry and so forth is inescapable. These continued failures on the part of the coalition government are surely a shot across the bow for paranoid individuals within its ranks.

Year 2013 shows all the signs of great potential, and there is no ideal time to start cleaning up our political act than right now. We have polls and the UN World Tourism Organisation general assembly meeting in Victoria Falls among other events lined up for us during the course of the year.

Take out of the equation reports that the country’s President will weirdly decree that next elections be held without crucial reforms, and it’s all systems go— the missile is ready to blast off!

But unless political sanity prevails, make no mistake, the outcome would be devastating.

When will the monolithic “Look East” versus “Look West” fixation which pervades our discourse and body politic come to an end? It must come to a close primarily because what Zimbabwe needs is to take everyone on board if it is to emerge as a success story on the global stage.

The worst is surely behind us. And with vast tracts of farming land, splendid tourism attractions and a wide array of mineral resources in our repertoire—including deposits of diamonds as well as platinum and gold ores which are considered as mining industry bellwether—aren’t we spoiled for choice?

I was taken aback to learn in the news recently that the government has halted the random acquisition of farms covered under Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement as the state  reportedly “strives to manage its liability” following a plethora of legal challenges by dispossessed local and foreign farmers. Lands Minister Hebert Murerwa was quoted as having said so.

When the news broke, many might have digested it with a pinch of salt, for reasons that are obvious.

How miraculous that it has finally dawned on some of our politicians that the promotion of foreign investment and revival of Agriculture are vital for the well-being of our economy. Could it be we now realise that the tide is rapidly turning against us, maybe?

Zimbabwe can no longer pretend to be an island unto itself in these times of globalisation, whereby the planet’s economies are interconnected and nations rely on each for just about everything.

One would assume that we came out of a severe decade-long economic turmoil more battle-hardened and wiser, but alas, at least for those who still hold the habits of the old-regime so dear.

A marketplace of ideas, instead, will come in handy for us and it’s about time media maniacs and irrational politicians stop profiling people based on what ideological rubric they belong in or dictating what policy choices should be treated as holy.

It’s for this very fixation with dogma and treachery that these few elements together with the complicit state press, in particular, find progressive critics continuing to be a real pain on their backsides.
If I am not mistaken, the proponents of the anti-Western economic growth and development strategy argue that Zimbabwe should look no further than the East or sometimes the so-called BRICS group of emerging economies.

I suspect that their beliefs are based on the Marxist-type and now invalidated Dependency Theory.
According to economists, the theory holds that wealthy western economies amass their riches at the expense of poorer countries in the South (or East), representative of a wider plan to keep less developed countries poorer and forever begging  for Western aid.

The theory advocates an inward looking approach to development and greater role by the state in terms of imposing barriers to trade, making inward investment difficult and promoting nationalisation of key industries.

But economists argue that the resultant inefficiencies in the economy and growth in corruption, related to excessive state involvement as suggested by this theory, have exposed such African countries as Zimbabwe.

Such way of thinking is misguided in itself because the BRICS themselves are looking in all directions for development resources to prop their fast-growing economies.

On the flipside, there are those who argue that we must rather solely turn to the developed West (or North) as a strategy to grow our economy or to obtain financial and technical support. Again the advocates of this viewpoint, based on the so-called Washington Consensus, are equally missing it if the impacts of the current global economic and debt crises are to be taken into account.

Renowned Zimbabwean economist Vince Musewe recently put it this way: “ After listening to the economic crisis within the European Union and the solutions that are being promoted, I remain frustrated if not angry, at how we have got things so wrong here in Zimbabwe.

All over the world, presidents …grapple with how to restore economic growth within their economies and how to create more jobs to address the widespread unemployment and poverty.”

Musewe added: “The army has even become an economic expert, and is suggesting that if necessary, we must sit on our mineral resources (e.g. platinum) until they decide who can invest… we must all wait until they get "suitable partners" to partner with them as is the case with our diamonds. Forget the fact that millions of Zimbabweans are desperate for jobs and poverty is increasing by the day.”

So we hear it straight from the experts. This Look East” versus “Look West” monolith will not work for us at all.

Again, the state press stands accused of collusion with the old-school political mavericks in entrenching this polarisation, and of stoking the fires of our economic woes. I personally do not think it is the fault of all the journalists in state news outlets that we find ourselves in this mess.

It simply boils down to the fact that if people operating the state media conduct themselves as a propaganda outfit of some sort, the public will view them as such.

The answer, therefore, to  what chances there are for Zimbabwe to get its economy up and running in 2013 and beyond, lies in us taking stock of how we arrived at where we are today and correcting that. Only then can we brace ourselves for a humdinger of prosperity and higher standards of living we all crave.