Commonwealth Is Useless & Archaic, Zimbabwe Should Not Rejoin - Masarira
LEAD president Linda Masarira said that Zimbabwe should not seek to rejoin the Commonwealth, describing the organisation as useless and archaic.
Since the November 2017 military coup, the ZANU PF-led government has been seeking to rejoin the Commonwealth, which is made up of Britain, its former colonies, and a few other countries.
Masarira argued that joining the Commonwealth will not help Zimbabwe saying the organisation serves only to bolster Britain’s sense of importance in the world. She said:
My heart bleeds when I see the Zimbabwean government making efforts of rejoining this useless Commonwealth of nations which is just a mere post-colonial club.
The Commonwealth still serves only to bolster Britain’s sense of importance in the world and to make it appear that its outdated stiff upper-lipped monarch still has a role in the modern world.
We should never be comfortable joining groupings that have no tangible benefit to the people of Zimbabwe.
The Commonwealth is not a free trade body like the EU, a unified defence group like NATO, or even an international quasi-legal body like the UN.
It does not seek to do anything much, other than vaguely demanding that members at least nod toward democracy.
The nod of democracy which is defined in British terms which I find quite absurd.
Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth two decades ago after former President Robert Mugabe and his inner circle were slapped with sanctions for human rights violations.
Last week a Commonwealth delegation was in Zimbabwe for a second assessment to see if the country had made progress on the conditions needed to rejoin the group.
Masarira believes Zimbabwe should focus on entrenching Pan-African values than joining the Commonwealth. She said:
Zimbabwe should be focusing on entrenching Pan-Afrikan values, interests, and principles which will enable native Zimbabweans to own and control all the means of production in our quest to make Zimbabwe an economic powerhouse.
Zimbabwe will never be an economic giant using foreign currency and allocating key critical mining concessions to foreign investors.
We need to be able to encourage more Local Investment, champion wealth creation among native Zimbabweans and strengthen the Zimbabwe dollar which again should be renamed to a wholly Zimbabwean name, rebranded, and given a strong lease of life.
The economic stability strategies which should be implored should start by dumping all the eurocentric economic models that we are using which destroyed our economy.
We should define our own economic models and start doing things the Zimbabwean way to benefit the Zimbabwean people. Where there is a will there is always a way.
