Walala Wasala
The Fabric of African Politics
Walala Wasala The Fabric of African Politics
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Other queries regarding the use of any material should be addressed to The Editor Joan G Winter email: baboaarts@optusnet.com.au Disclaimer The information in this catalogue was believed to be correct at time of printing. We apologize for any error. Information desired for this exhibition was in some instances very difficult to find and confirm. Whilst the world wide web is a considerable resource there is an imbalance in content that favours developed countries particularly the English speaking world and under represents information from the developing nations. The National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data: Walala Wasala: The Politics of African Fabric ISBN 0 646 46005 6. 1. Textile fabrics - Africa - Exhibitions. 2. Textile fabrics - Africa - Political aspects. 3. Campaign paraphernalia - Africa. I. Winter, Joan G. II. Naughton, Tracey. III. Dorward, David C. IV. Kirchhoff, Chris. V. Annerley and Distrcits Community Centre. 746.096 Published May 2006 All works in this exhibition unless otherwise stated come from The Tracey Naughton African Textile Collection, South Africa. Catalogue editor Joan G Winter Authors: Tracey Naughton, Dr David Dorward, Joan Winter Research: Dr David Dorward, Tracey Naughton Photography: Chris Kirchhoff, South Africa Project and tour management: Joan Winter Printed in Univers at GAP Graphics and Printing Qld Australia
Walala Wasala is supported by
Dept of Premier and Cabinet
African Research Institute La Trobe University
Baboa Arts Consultancy
NYAKA
CHRIS KIRCHHOFF PHOTOGRAPHY
Walala Wasala The Fabric of African Politics
Curated by Joan G Winter & Tracey Naughton
Presented by
The Annerley and District Community Centre, Brisbane, Australia
Contents National tour itinerary Introduction Dedication The Fabric of African Politics A potted history of the development of manufactured textiles in Africa The Embroidered Leadership Banner Series of Ten Artists statement - Tracey Naughton Shweshwe - The People’s Fabric The South African Textile Industry The Khanga - medium and message The Kenyan textile industry –what price globalization? “It is better to be poor and free than rich and in slavery” The Tanzanian Khangas Wearing history - Mozambique Malawi – Peace and Unity in the New Millenium 2000 Talking Textiles – the cell phone No Parallel in History – the HIV/AIDS Pandemic Africans in Australia The Tracey Naughton African Textile Collection List of works Participating Contributors and Organizations Acknowledgements Map of Africa - countries represented
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National Tour Itinerary Queensland Gold Coast City Art Gallery Cooloola Shire Public Gallery, Gympie
27 May – 16 July 2006 9 August – 10 September 2006
Victoria Maroondah Art Gallery Bundoora Homestead Art Centre Horsham Regional Art Gallery Ararat Gallery East Gippsland Art Gallery
26 October – 2 December 2006 13 February – 26 March 2007 1 May – 24 June 2007 25 July – 9 September 2007 8 – 28 November 2007
NSW Wollongong City Gallery Gouldburn Regional Art Gallery Tamworth Regional Gallery
16 February – 4 May 2008 17 May – 14 June 2008 4 July – 31 August 2008
Queensland Caloundra Regional Art Gallery
15 April – 1 June 2009
The National Tour Itinerary was incomplete at time of printing.
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Why WALALA WASALA The profile of Australia’s immigrants, refugees and displaced persons changes yearly. Once most Africans who came to Australia were seeking an education. Today Africans from many nations are seeking safety, a full belly and a new life on our shores. It is this dramatic increase in African nations dispersed peoples that prompted this exhibition - WALALA WASALA. It’s title is pertinentIf you snooze you lose... or keep a look out and seize the moment. It was also a spontaneous response to two old friends and colleagues getting together across the oceans via internet. Tracey Naughton works internationally as a consultant specialising in the use of information and communications technology and media in development contexts. As a result of her abiding interest in textiles she began her African textile collection in 1992, while working across Africa and living in southern Africa. A major exhibition from this collection became possible with the professional acumen and interest of Joan Winter a Brisbane based curator. Then the Annerley and District Community Centre, the central meeting point for many new African arrivals and individual nations community groups, was looking for a new project to stimulate a broader interest and understanding of the peoples with which they work. This exhibition of African visual arts and history on textiles depicts the “African Journey” into the 21st Century. Africa is no longer a dark continent. This exhibition is one of many things it has to share with the rest of the world. These factors fulfilled all the ingredients for a workable partnership with an educative and cultural goal. Excitement at the prospect of a pan African Australian venture overcame the magnitude of all challenges and expenses and the months of unpaid labour this entailed for the many, many contributors to this unique and stunning take on the African continent in our Australian context. We thank all those contributors from the bottom of our African inspired hearts. Walala Wasala Enjoy Johnson Oyelodi – President Annerley and Districts Community Centre Inc.
A message from the Minister Cultural diversity is one of the great strengths of the Smart State - culturally, socially and economically. Multicultural activities like Walala Wasala - The Fabric of African Politics, national travelling exhibition project, play an important role in helping to create an environment of mutual understanding and harmony. I congratulate the Annerley and District Community Centre for your contribution to multiculturalism in Queensland. Hon. Chris Cummings Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Queensland
Aminah Bilal Hunt (Zanzibar) Brisbane April 2006
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42 Elavatiwo – Water KTM TAZ D.N. 8397 Acquired Maputo Mozambique 2003
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To belonging and diversity We live in a global context where the chasm between the privileged and the disparate is widening, where the people most concerned about inequality struggle to engage in meaningful action. In spite of the ever expanding information flow, communication and understanding remain illusory. The voices of the poor and disenfranchised, are rarely heard in public discourse, their reality, too often seen through the developed world’s cultural and global dominance. This dominance tramples on the deep core values of others and restricts the opportunity to learn. This exhibition offers an opportunity to increase cultural understanding, a space to view other world perspectives. It welcomes African peoples to Australia. Walala Wasala is dedicated to all those refugees in Africa and from Africa, forced to flee their homes due to persecution, civil war, drought, globalisation, politics, poverty and starvation. It is also dedicated to Australia’s First Nation Peoples the Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders who have not fled, but who are too often treated as foreigners in their own land. To those who cause suffering remember this:
Wapiganapo tembo nyasi huumia When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled
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The Fabric of African Politics A potted introduction to the development of manufactured cloth in Africa. The history of manufactured textiles in Africa is fascinating and complex, reflecting a vibrant indigenous industry, and foreign influences. The textiles of sub-Saharan Africa in particular have served as the canvas for portraying and influencing changing social values, morés, political rivalries, historical and, regional, ceremonial and community events. Textiles capture the vibrancy and vitality of African cultures as few other media do. They are affordable, accessible, transitory, and reflect the changing face of this vast continent. As a culturally diverse continent, Africa evolved a number of distinct textile traditions. This exhibition focuses on eastern and southern African manufactured textiles, from their evolution from trade textiles in the 19th century to the emergence of Indigenous political parties in the era of decolonization, independence and beyond. The east African textile industry had its genesis in the ivory and spice trade of the 19th century, when Zanzibar was a major emporium for the exotic produce of East Africa, especially cloves. Portuguese and other european traders imported cheap bolts of dyed cloth from India, the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) and elsewhere in Asia, to trade with African merchants from the interior, where foreign textiles had a high prestige value. Trade cloth design was often in the form of small squares or handkerchief design size, that could be easily cut into smaller units for trade in the interior, where dress was mainly made from animal skins or bark-cloth. Some Zanzibar women were reputed to have adopted 2 x 3 rectangles of colourful ‘handkerchief cloths’ as wrappers and headscarves, introducing a new style of dress. While East Africa lacked a strong indigenous textile tradition, West African hand weaving and dyeing were ancient traditions. There was a thriving indigenous textile trade long before the arrival of european explorers and slave traders. It was regarded as a highly sophisticated and complex textile market, in which European imports had to compete with often more prestigious indigenous textiles. In West Africa, imported textiles mainly came from England, Switzerland and The Netherlands. By 1913, Britain exported one hundred and forty five million yards of Manchester fabric to West Africa. At just one trading post, Kumasi, Ghana, the Chief Agent for Swanzy & Co, a leading British trading company, ordered over 52,000 bolts of textile in over 150 fabric patterns in 1919 alone. Manufacturers had to appreciate local and regional preferences – images favoured in East Africa are distinctly different from those in West Africa and both are different from those produced for southern Africa. What sold well in the teaming markets of Yorubaland in Nigeria might have little appeal amongst the neighbouring Igbo. Each colonial power sought to exclude their rivals. In 1933 the British administration in Nigeria imposed duties and quotas on Japanese cotton imports to protect British manufacturers. In the post Second World War environment with the emergence of African nationalist movements in the1950s, African textile design became increasingly politicised. Stencilled slogans, including political protests, on Yoruba adire indigo cloth coincided with the rise of literacy. Nationalist parties encouraged followers to wear the party colours and images of politicians were soon emblazoned across waists and backsides. In 1957, Kwami Nkrumah became the first indigenous
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prime minister of an independent African nation, leading the Gold Coast to independence as Ghana. During the independence struggle and in the political rivalries that followed, Nkrumah was immortalized on the ephemeral cotton textiles of the day, his face animated by the shape and movement of the wearers. It was a distinctly non western use of the pictorial, and developed in a uniquely African way. While the new nationhood expressed itself in this new textile medium it still incorporated powerful tribal messages and symbols. In Nigeria, the cloths of the Igbo-dominated National Congress of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) were festooned with the face of Dr. Namdi Azikwe, while the rival Action Group, promoted the Yoruba Chief, Obafemi Awolowo. By independence in 1960, dozens of Nigerian political hopefuls had appeared on cotton. In countries with a low literacy rate, the use and popularisation of political symbols are crucial to electoral success. Supporters must be shown how to put their mark beside the right symbol. Political textiles remain an inexpensive means of popularising the cause, while mass demonstrations of followers in matching party symbols drive home the message. Wearing the party cloth in a stronghold is still very common. In marginal seats, free party colours were an inexpensive gift to potential supporters. Unfortunately few early examples of these have survived - political ephemera to be discarded with the kaleidoscope of changing politics. The modern sub-Sahara African textiles industry evolved in the 1950s and 1960s under government policies of import-substitution, protection and job promotion. By the 1970’s many newly independent African countries had established textile houses as an expression of their new self-reliance and developing economies. However, whereas asian countries such as South Korea and Indonesia benefited from the transfer of technology from the United States on very favourable terms as part of the Cold War, Ghana and most African nations did not. As commodity prices fell and costs of imports, such as oil, rose, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) forced Ghana to end subsidies and protection and open its markets to trade and investment, in return for new loans. Faced with increased costs and competition, many of the textile companies collapsed. Small-scale enterprises, such as backyard weavers and dyers, many of them women eeking out a bare subsistence income, were hit hardest. Since the late 1990s, the World Trade Organisation’s trade liberalisation policy on manufactured goods has severely damaged the African textile industry, flooding the continent with cheap Asian textiles and second-hand clothes from Western Europe and North
Mwalimu J K Julius Nyerere - Tanzania Buriani Baba Wa Taifa Mwalimu J. K. Nyere 13 April 1922 – 14 October 1999 Presidential term October 29, 1964 – November 5, 1985 Made by Tracey Naughton, Lena Cloete Windhoek, Namibia 2001 Acquired street vendor, Dar es Salam, Tanzania 1998
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America. In 2002, Nigeria banned the import of cotton textiles to protect its increasingly beleagued industry, though corruption has helped spawn lucrative smuggling operations. Over 50 textile mills have closed in Nigeria since 1997, with a loss of some 80,000 jobs. On 30 June 2005, Nigeria extended protectionism by banning a broad range of imports from nearby Ghana resulting in Ghanaean textile company closures. Tanzania in East Africa gained independence in 1961. It embarked on textile manufacturing to support the indigenous cotton industry. The 4 mills in 1967 grew to 35 mills in 1980, employing 35,000 workers. Then Tanzania was forced to accept IMF ‘conditionalities’ for a new loan. Government fertilizer and other input subsidies to farmers were terminated and government-owned enterprises privatised. Cotton production fell, as imports grew with trade ‘liberalisation’. By 1996 only two of the thirty five textile mills in Tanzania were operating. Imported second-hand clothing captured a third of the domestic market, while providing very little employment and no value-added skilling. The African textile industry enjoyed a boom with the passage of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), under US President Clinton. Least Developed Country (LDC) status countries which agreed to open their economies to American trade and investment could apply for special access to the American textile market, free of quotas and tariffs. Heralded as ‘Trade, not Aid’, it represented a trade-off for African governments anxious for investment, employment and access to the American market. As a result, Asian textile manufacturers set up operations in countries such as Swaziland, Botswana and Lesotho to access this market. Tiny Swaziland became the sixth largest sub-Saharn supplier of apparel to the discount Wal-Mart American market. However African host countries have acquired little more than employment, as thread and other in-puts are sourced internationally. When the American government began tightening regulations and insisting that the cotton had to be sourced within sub-Saharan Africa, the plants closed as asian investors moved elsewhere. Despite the malaise in the African textile industry, the vibrancy and popularity of political textiles persists. The use of political textiles is still alive and well today as seen in the many commemorative/political cloths, acquired between 1992 and 2006 in this exhibition. Leaders that rose to prominence in independence movements and became the first official leaders of their new nations are particularly prolific and remain popular in their respective countries as a group of revered ‘Fathers of Nations’. There are 33 cloths in this exhibition, with current or past Heads of State and/or political parties prominently displayed. The Tracey Naughton African Textile Collection contains 60 such textiles, as well as the set of ten Embroidered Leadership Banners.
South African Local Government Election, March 2006 Mpileng Village, Moutse South Africa. Dimpe Johannes Sekoadi b.1936 in Sangoma (traditional healer) dress marking his voting card
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SADC - Southern African Development Community 2000 12 southern African member countries represented by their Heads of States Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela b.1918, South Africa African National Congress, ANC Bakili Muluzi b.1943, Malawi United Democratic Front UDF Robert Gabriel Mugabe b.1924, Zimbabwe Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front, ZANU-PF Frederick J. T. Chiluba b.1943, Zambia Movement for Multiparty Democracy, MMD Benjamin William Mkapa b.1938 - Tanzania Revolutionary Party (Chama Cha Mapinduzi; CCM) King Mswati III b.1968 - Swaziland Samuel Daniel Shafiishuna Nujoma b.1929, Namibia South West African People’s Organization, SWAPO
Cassam Uteem b.1941 - Mauritius Presidential term 30 June 1992 to 15 February 2002 Letsie III (original name David Mohato Bereng Seeiso) b.1963 - Lesotho José Eduardo dos Santos b.1942 - Angola Movimento Popular da Libertação de Angola (MPLA) Joaquim Alberto Chissano b.1939 - Mozambique Mozambican Liberation Front (Frelimo) Festus Gontebanye Mogae b.1939 - Botswana Botswana Democratic Party BDP Made by Tracey Naughton, Lena Cloete Windhoek, Namibia 2002 Fabric acquired in Gaborone, Botswana at SADC Headquarters 2001
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Nelson Mandela – South Africa b.18 July 1918 Working for jobs peace freedom A better life for all ANC Presidential term May 1994 – June 1999 Made by Tracey Naughton, Johannesburg, South Africa 1998 ©Nkosi Fabrics, acquired Johannesberg, SA1997
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The Mother of the Nation Winnie Mandela – South Africa With love Winnie Mandela (signature) b.26 September 1936 Made by Tracey Naughton, Martha Matlala, Johannesberg, SA 1999 Acquired Shell House, former ANC Headquarters, Johannesberg 1995
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Botswana Emblem Pula is Setswana for ‘rain’ and is the name of the currency Tracey Naughton, Lena Cloete Windhoek, Namibia 2001 Ostrich shell buttons made by San community members in East Hanahai, Kalahari Desert © Nkosi Fabric acquired 1996 from informal trader Gaborone, Botswana
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Embroidered Leadership Banners Series of ten Artist’s statement Tracey Naughton Living in the early ninties in central Johannesburg in what we now refer to as ‘the dark days of town’ when the ring of gunshots from crimes of poverty and political turbulence were a constant backdrop, I was distracted from embroidering a set of maps by people wearing clothing bearing slogans, images of liberation heroes/ heroines and messages of hope. I found myself a couple of years later, at Nelson Mandela’s inauguration in 1994 wearing a frock and head-dress celebrating the year of liberation for South Africans. Whilst we were all caught up in the euphoria that event symbolised – the end of ‘the struggle’ against minority domination, I was moved by the many acknowledgments from black people for being a white person willing to so openly wear my allegiance. At the time of transition to majority government, many of the wealthy white minority were very nervous about the change of power. Seeing me so openly aligned to change gave away my status as a foreigner without the baggage of apartheid, but equally symbolised the possibility of a ‘rainbow nation’ as envisaged in the African National Congress (ANC) manifesto penned in 1955 - The Freedom Charter. Around my home in downtown Johannesburg the streets were lined with informal traders, many of them women selling their handicrafts. Many were illegal immigrants, economic refugees unable to support their families in neighbouring countries. Some had their babies in the confines of cardboard boxes to buffer them from passers by. As a body corporate member I worked to start a crèche in the building I lived in, so they could spend their days in more conducive surroundings. Through this initiative women started to come to my flat. We began talking about the ‘wearing’ of leaders. As I expressed my cynical perceptions of the men who lead the nations of the region the women countered them with their own feelings, far more sympathetic to the style and manner of their leaders than mine. For me, Mandela was exceptional among leaders with tendencies towards grandiosity in their retention of power and repressive legislation that limited freedom of expression and information – the arena I worked in. For the women, South Africa was an exception to the regional norm – apartheid was, they claimed, more evil than anything in their own countries’ environments and required an armed struggle and a clear and disciplined structure like the ANC to lead it out of that catastrophe. The contexts were entirely different they argued, their leaders were ‘trying hard’. While development and embedding participatory democracy were seen as important goals, these women didn’t express blame or resentment. Change would come, they were confident. Time and treating each other with respect was a key ingredient, they emphasised. Bad external pressures from the developed world they said, had more impact than the greed of their leaders. One Swazi woman, when I raised the (obvious to me) excesses of her king - the inappropriate disparity and squandering of the small nations limited wealth surprised me with her response. She was proud that her King could fly in a private jet and sit in a world theatre of leaders as an equal. She wanted to know that foreign leaders would
be housed in a style they were accustomed to when they visited Swaziland, even though her nation could not feed her children and forced her into migrant labour in the wealthier nation of South Africa. These and many other stories were humbling and salient reminders that we must not assume our perspective is a shared one or correct. As the Nigerian Igbo proverb goes: Until lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. As democracy has deepened and been interpreted locally over my fourteen years of living in southern Africa, political analysis and the ability to be critical of leaders has become far more widespread and acceptable. However there remains a noticeable tendency for more traditional and cultural interpretations in rural areas and a more oppositional critique and political engagement in urban ones. Whatever the perspective, the spirit of Ubuntu is a significant underpinning philosophy for many African peoples. Ubuntu is a humanist understanding that we all exist in relation to one another. It is an accommodating approach that was clearly demonstrated in the March 2006 local government elections in South Africa. The country has seen a series of protests aimed at the ANC. Communities are complaining loudly about the lack of electricity, water, toilets and asking when their life will change – after all it’s been eleven years since democracy arrived in town. However, these protests did not correlate to a vote against the ANC. In fact its position was strengthened. One colleague from a township outside Johannesburg explained this by saying, ‘If you don’t like something that someone [the ANC] is doing, you don’t just tell them to go away, you stay with them, you help them to see how things can be done better.’ This humane approach reorientated my intent for the Embroidered Leadership Banners. My original conceptualisation was to be critical about the way leaders embroider themselves and too often neglect their citizens in the process. As a community development professional, a humanist in my heart, the women who embellished my journey in Africa led me to another approach, a less confrontational one, a more accepting yet still determined way. The intent of the banner series became more of a process with its own dynamic, than an accusation aimed at the region’s leaders. Whilst attracting criticism from urbanised progressive comrades, I applied the more engaging and tolerant tactics in the regional political environment
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where I advocated for media freedom, freedom of expression and access to information. Political advocacy is a combination of tactics. I am secure in the knowledge that one can work in and against the state consecutively, but I am convinced that engagement and respect are key to positive outcomes to change. Many southern African women contributed to the banners, some in the quick passing of a comment or an explanation, others through lengthy discussion. It was a great privilege that people saw our exchanges as having mutual value in building cultural
understanding and discussing matters not always seen in the patriarchal context, as women’s business. Several women got very practically involved. I thank them especially, not only for their deft handiwork, but also for our time together. Principle among these were Estah Mamba of Manzini, Swaziland, Martha Matlala of Mpileng Village, South Africa, Leah Cloete of Windhoek, Namibia and Gloria Pakwe of Klerksdorp, South Africa.
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This set of 9 banners was originally shown in Johannesburg in May 2004 at the new studio of Johannesburg architect, Hugh Fraser, and called ‘The Lights Go On’. This referred to the studio being lit and to a hope that the lights are going on in the regions leadership and that democracy is deepening and evolving in an African way as needed by the context. The curator of the City of Johannesburg’s nascent art collection proposed to acquire them as a set but I felt they were destined for another life. Those who saw the banners in Johannesburg were from all the racial backgrounds that make up ‘the rainbow nation’. The Australian High Commissioner of the time Ian Wilcock opened the exhibition, a move made to honour the women who had worked on them and to note the trans-continental exploration that the show represented.
The tenth banner Chief Mangasutho Gatsha Buthelazi, President Inkatha Freedom Party – South Africa, was completed just in time for this exhibition’s Australian national tour.
Joaqim Alberto Chissano b.1939 Presidential term 6 November 1986 - February 2 2005 O Nosso Presidente Amigo República da Moçambique Made by Tracey Naughton, Lena Cloete Maputo Mozambique, Windhoek, Namibia 2002 Fabric MBS No. 11984
Bakili Muluzi b.1943 Malawi wife Patricia Shanil Muluzi b.1964 Happy Marriage 9th October 1999 Made byTracey Naughton, Lena Cloete Windhoek, Namibia 2002 Fabric acquired from informal trader Blantyre, Malawi 2000
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Robert Mugabe – Zimbabwe Features Zimbabwe Ruins 16th century AD b.1924 Prime Minister March 4 1980 – 1987 when office abolished, Presidential term 1987 – present Made by Tracey Naughton, Estah Mamba Jo’burg, SA, Manzini, Swaziland 2004 Fabric acquired ZANU-PF (Ruling party in Zimbabwe) Women’s League ZANU-PF Headquarters, Harare, Zimbabwe, 1999
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King Mswati III - Swaziland (born Makhosetiv means King of Nations) Bayethe Ngwenyama (Hail King) b.1968 Term as Monarch April 25 1986 – present Tracey Naughton, Lena Cloete Maputo, Mozambique; Windhoek, Namibia 2002 Š Nkosi Fabric acquired Mbabane market, 1997
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