Preword: It's funny because one of the main reasons I found the courage to blog on African matters was due to a West African(?) gentleman who proposed the concept of a said "swal" & "zul" as a continental African currency in a blog. His boldness & conviction in his idea just captivated me & today I have to debunk this idea of his. But, hopefully, Africa sees why.
Oh, Africa. We are so romantic; "United States of Africa", "Single African currency", "African unity", "Ubuntu"... all these fluffy, lovey-dovey concepts that will be ripped to shreds in the globalised world.
I debunked why a United States of Africa would likely collapse as soon as it sees the light of day. Today, I will debunk the concept of a "Single African currency" & explain why it would leave our enemies salivating.
I can't blame people who like stuff like United States of Africa & Single African currency - our concept of nationhood was taken away by colonising Europeans who disregarded tribal territories of indigenous African nations & drew their own borders depending on which territories they wanted. This is why we get people who have dual identities in most African lands. People who are both Maasai & Tanzanian/Kenyan or people who are both Yoruba & Nigerian/Ghanaian but never just Yoruba or just Maasai as their national identity. These are the results of the Berlin Conference of 1884. In South Africa, you can't just be Pedi - you are Pedi & South African. This causes a constant conflict of interest in daily life so we seek something to connect with & we come up with things like "United States of Africa", "single African currency" & forging unity with African tribes that dislike our own.
A single African currency would collapse because of a multitude of reasons. The Euro works because of strictly-enforced legal frameworks & security measures around it. And in Africa, I'm not sure we could have the same or similar laws to combat people who want to secretly print more currency in such an impoverished continent. If global powers find themselves in trouble & have to do something shadowy (like destabilising a currency) which they have done before, nothing would be better than destabilising one currency & affecting over 50 countries in one fell swoop. Many African countries have failing currencies at present because of bad economic policies & corruption. Imagine the Zimbabwean dollar currency fiasco only much bigger & on a continental scale. Crushing the economy of an entire continent by messing up one currency, that is just a bubble waiting to be popped my fellow Africans.
A better solution could be strictly monitored regional currencies for North, South, East, West & Central Africa. These currencies SHOULD NOT be pegged to each other but rather fluctuate independently but capable of being converted at any financial institution in Africa. So that if one currency fails, we have four backup currencies to use while we sort ourselves out rather than have the entire continent put into economic darkness by putting all our eggs in the solitary basket of a single African currency.
Were this a vlog, I might play out with Sweetest Girl (Dollar Bill) by Wyclef Jean featuring Akon & Lil' Wayne but since it is a blog, I put up the link to the video for you to listen to.
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