SafariLands.org: People & Culture: Kanga, Kikoi - Traditional patents that are vanishing with globalisation

The Kanga, Kikoi, Barghashea, Msuli and Abako are some of the few traditional wears that are East and Central African patented in terms of origin. However, history and economic orientation apart, the region's residents can hardly claim that any of them have at a certain stage belonged exclusively to the region.

If one looks at how the region and Tanzania in particular is producing cloth, he will find that at the moment there are some ways in which it is losing these traditional riches to the outer world.

The kanga, for example, a cloth with more than 101 functions, is traditionally local and has been worn in the region ever since it was first invented, but at the moment it is manufactured mostly outside the region.

Kanga is traditionally a loin originating in Swahili culture, with East Africa as its home, but at the moment manufactures in Pakistan, India, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and even beyond are gradually taking over as they produce the stuff and transport the same to Africa and the Arab world where quality renders the wearers to prefer the imported material to the locally made one.

Nobody argues that there is anything culturally bad in wearing the imported cloth of East Africa's traditional invention.

But the point is that there is something economically, and even perhaps psychologically wrong in failing to quickly capture and develop what is originally East African and take it in our course to conquer others in the contemporary world of globalisation.

What is equally wrong is the fact that the region has as well hastened to move briskly with the times in that cloth styles and designs.

Take clothes such as Msuli and Kikoi, which are traditional men's wear. These are normally preferred by people in the East African coast where the climate is hot and humid.

The Barghasea, a well hand knit Swahili head gear has also its origins along the coast. Yet all these are losing their original patents as East African products and they are slowly becoming globalised while out of the hands of their original producers.

China, Macao, Taiwan, the Middle East and Indonesia have been slowly but surely appropriating these traditional patents, which once in their hands they become legalized and lose touch with the original home.

Zairian Abako suits, which are preferred by youth because of their exalting stature, are no longer confined to the Democratic Republic of the Congo - the country where they first originated. They are now produced even in France, Belgium and the US.

Nigerian, Ghanaian, Senegalese, Congolese suits from West and Central Africa; kimonos and saris from Japan and India remain makes of people of those countries.
The point is, as a counter move to the hijacking of our traditional patents of kanga wears, we should have jumped into their terrain and made what they wear in order to sell the items to them.

What we should know is that there is an advantage in being a producer or maker of a traditional patent or copyright that you sell to the rest of the world. One does not only take dominance in the market of the product, but also makes the product sell the image of other products, including that of his nation.

Nigerian gowns, Uganda Busuti or Ghanaian Kente, have always been produced in those countries and they have always maintained the patents rights without necessarily legalizing them.

Why, for example, it has been easy for Nigerians, Ugandans and Ghanaians to maintain their traditional patents and East Africans to fail to do so remains unexplainable. But the trick perhaps is in production and selling.

East Africans have been producing Kanga, Kikoi and the like, but they have not been aggressive enough to promote and sell their products. But even where they have sold, the products were not quality ones. This could probably be the reason why they are gradually losing to foreign manufacturers.

Traditional patents have many advantages, but two are most important. One is that on selling patented products one gets money. But the second, which is equally important, is that traditionally patented products keep identity.

Hollywood made films for example are different from Nigerian Nollywood produced films, and these are different from India's Bollywood films and Egyptian made ones. Identity in marketing the products is what matters and if one could retain the traditional identity and sustain the market, the better.

East Africans are failing to live up to the contemporaneous of globalisation, and it appears that no sooner than later, all or most of their traditional patents will be turned into buttons to clobber the originators and the people who had always stayed with them for generations.

There is a need to bring the practice to an end.
In the course of the on going liberalisations, there have been some new developments in the field of cloth making.

In many of the streets of Dar es Salaam and up country, currently there are newly emerged wears such as bubuu, batik and bazee, most of which are traditional in terms of invention.

There are reports that the peculiar wears have struck a niche in many countries of recent.
Such new markets include Central and Southern Africa -DRC, Zimbabwe and Botswana, South Africa, while in Europe there are countries such as the Scandinavia and in North America the US, to mention a few.

Two things ought to be done to maintain the traditional patents. One, for the endangered traditional patents of kanga, kikoi, barghashea and the like, the advice is to have the manufacturers embark on serious production aimed at popularizing these industries more at home than abroad.

As for the newly emerged patents of bubuu, bazee and batik the advice is that these wears should be popularized and marketed as Tanzanian both within and outside the country. It is by doing so that we could gradually and easily move up with the constantly changing market.

The Guardian - Saturday, October 20, 2007