What is so Authentically African about Kitenge?
For both Africans and Africanists, African prints (from here on kitenge) tend to be a sentimental topic because of the symbolic value we attach to it. Very few studies on kitenge I have seen do go to the roots of historical development of the textiles industry and trade in Africa. It is in this context you find such an article – Can a Chinese import ever be authentically African? by April Zhu – written with so much passion and a bit of romanticism without formulating the questions we should be asking about kitenge.
First, the lament of why the kitenge, our (supposed) cultural symbol and object is not produced in our respective countries (we don’t usually go beyond the territory to say produced in Africa). This question other than awakening curiosity should not be a path to follow. This is for a simple fact that global circulation of capital and goods has been like that, especially after the rise of modern (overseas) empires. If we feel the urge to explain why we consume what we do not produce, then we may as well have to ask ourselves what do we produce and who consumes it, instead. We produce coffee, cotton, tea and many other raw materials. Do we therefore attach the same sentiments to our analysis of the raw materials we produce? Do you think somewhere in Belgium or Switzerland there is someone despairing about the chocolates they are famed for?
This question is also problematic because, first, it makes kitenge seem like a very important cultural symbol. What does it matter if I wear kitenge everyday and I am 31 years old, unmarried? Does kitenge come anywhere close to other symbols of accomplishment and success as cars, higher degrees and prestigious jobs? Fanon put this question to rest many years ago when he observed that those who hold onto cultural symbols seek to self-rehabilitate than to understand the cultural dynamics unfolding rights before them.
Second, concerning the historicity of kitenge, it still baffles me when I hear the cry about to whom it belongs without giving enough weight to the colonial and now neoliberal side of the story. It is not enough to say it comes from China; it could come from South Africa if the capitalists there are assured of their surplus. The colonial history of textile was of violence, especially in India, the biggest textiles producers at the time. In West Africa the scramble included competing and securing posts for supply of textiles in the ‘hinterland’. I don’t know who started that Holland and now China story because, by the time the Portuguese arrived in East Africa, there were trade routes all the way to Zimbabwe supplying textiles from India. Our postcolonial states only ventured into kitenge production because of the potentials for markets than it’s cultural value. (I can’t speak for other countries but I know this about Tanzania). In short, we can worry about the cultural value but, historically, capital follows surplus.
Third, when we focus on the value kitenge has in our culture, we forget the other side of the story: production. What do we know about the industries that produce kitenge? If kitenge is so important in our sense of being as a people (of a society, nation or continent), should we not worry about the society whose poverty subjects them to unhealthy working conditions somewhere in Asia? It is probably produced in similar conditions as any other textiles. We should then extend our distress to our curtains, bedsheets and undergarments.
So, if we must ask why our kitenge is not produced locally, we ought to be able to juxtapose its social value with the history of imperialism and capitalism.
