By Dr Tafataona Mahoso

IN politics, a rump refers to the stubborn dregs of a once powerful political force or movement.
Some of the synonyms of rump include relics, residue, debris, vestige and remnants.
The Rhodesian rump in Zimbabwe is a stubborn institution with many spokespersons, but it is not a single person.
The classic expression of this rump is: “Rhodesians never die” or “White, but three generations African”.
The latter expression is merely tactical, given the fact that from 1890 to 1980 Rhodesians insisted that they were Europeans, to the extent of naming the entire high and middle veld areas of the country ‘European areas’ as opposed to ‘native areas’ or what they called Tribal Trust Lands.
The Rhodesian rump appears in many forms in the history of Zimbabwe.
These forms include the following:
l The stubborn ‘but’ which always appears every time the African says ‘yes’ to what is originally African, revolutionary and indigenous, as in “yes we changed Salisbury to Harare and Rhodes Avenue to Herbert Chitepo Avenue; but we should not go too far and change Victoria Falls to UtsiHwatunya because white tourists would not get used to it and they might stop coming to Victoria Falls even though they did not stop coming to Harare after it was changed from Salisbury.”
l The booby trap embedded in convoluted parts of the Zimbabwe Constitution such as Section 71 on Property Rights and Section 72 on Rights to agricultural land, sections which clearly defy African common sense and entirely erase African living law for the accommodation of the Rhodesian rump in Zimbabwe.
l The importation of the notion of ‘citizenship’ into the ‘home-grown’ Zimbabwe Constitution, Sections 35-43, and the extraordinary care taken here to avoid or erase all indigenous African concepts of community and relations among peoples.
l The importation of the convention and habit which assumes that African ideas, processes and efforts remain invalid until observed, assessed and validated by the white West as ‘the international community’.
l The lingering belief among many African leaders that, just as exclusion and apartheid were created to benefit the white man, so nothing today can be considered inclusive, plural or representative enough unless whites are included; so that those who lost out because of apartheid and UDI continue to lose out as a result of pluralism, diversity and inclusivity!
On June 1 2014, one of the loudest spokesmen of the Rhodesian rump, Eddie Cross, published an article on whether or not Madzimbahwe ought to adopt their own money and return the US Dollar and all other foreign currencies to their historical roles as reserve currencies in the central bank.
The most significant part of that article read as follows:
“It will take the appointment and maintenance of sound management at the (Reserve) Bank (of Zimbabwe) on a sustained basis over some years (in future) for confidence to be restored that the bad habits of the past (by indigenous bank governors) will not be repeated… It would also be critical for the (Reserve) Bank to be able to demonstrate independence from the Ministry of Finance and the capacity to act independently when it comes to making decisions on issues that will affect monetary policy and stability… At its very core, the issue is all about confidence, confidence in our institutions and how they are managed.”
The Business Editor of The Sunday Mail, in the same June 1 2014 issue, also made his contribution through The Sunday Mail Business which agreed with Cross’s piece and was entitled ‘Zim dollar talks must be rational’, which implied that Africans were not rational, just as the Zimbabwe Economic Policy Analysis and Research Unit (ZEPARU) economists had also concluded that the African nationalist position on the currency issue was merely ‘political’ and could not be considered by serious economists.
It is important to look at this spokesman of the Rhodesian rump, Eddie Cross.
We are fortunate because Cross is an elderly man of the same age as many of our liberation war veterans and liberation war heroes.
Africans take seriously the word confidence which he repeats to express the quality and value which Cross says is missing in the Africans presently in charge of our national institutions, the value and quality whose alleged absence is the sole reason why Madzimbahwe cannot be trusted with the ownership and enjoyment of their own money.
The word in Shona is ruvimbo.
Professor Herbert Chimundu employs this Shona equivalent of confidence perfectly: “Amai ava vane ruvimbo kuti mwana wavo haabi.”
This mother has full confidence that her child does not and will not steal.
The close synonym is chivimbo.
Chimhundu employs it again very well: “Chivimbo ichokwadi chaunenge uinacho chokuti mumwe munhu achakwanisa kuita zvaanenge akavimbisa kuti achachiita.”
Africans in charge of our institutions have not yet delivered to the Rhodesian rump what Cross thinks they ought to deliver.
Therefore there can be no national currency until they do.
Let us therefore accept on its face value the allegation by Edie Cross, Darlington Musarurwa and the ZEPARU economists: that the failure and refusal to trust those Africans who will manage the RBZ and the badly needed national currency arises only from the monetary and fiscal events that took place between 2007 and 2008 in Zimbabwe, that is just four years out of the 28 during which Zimbabwe minted and enjoyed its own currency.

(To be continued)