Abstract:
This paper analyses the rhetoric that Dr Gideon Gono, the Governor of the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe, used in his (in) famous ‘Sunrise of Currency Reform’ Monetary
Policy Review Statement to make people believe that once the three zeros were
removed from the currency, all economic problems would be a thing of the past. The
paper argues that by largely using rhetoric that espoused the common ownership of
the economic crisis, Gono attempted to create a common bond among the people.
This analysis shows that Gono’s speech was fraught with buzz words and phrases
such as ‘from zero to hero’ which, despite their fuzziness, were aimed at shortcircuiting
the audience’s reasoning and persuading them to think that removing
three zeros from the currency was a noble thing to do. Posing as a pious citizen,
Gono attempted to make his speech turn the occasion into an epic moment by
purporting collectivity in the exercise. It is concluded that although Gono’s speech
contains a mixture of deliberative, forensic and deictic elements of a speech, the
proverbial sun did not rise for the people of Zimbabwe, and that Gono’s Monetary
Statement was one of his worst illusions.
