In 2014, a handful of East African countries imported more than $300 million worth of secondhand clothing from the United States and other wealthy countries. The used items have created a robust market in East Africa and thereby a decent amount of jobs. But experts say the vast amount of these imports have devastated local clothing industries and led the region to rely far too heavily on the West

Long ago in the 60’s when Africans were starting to look for their true identity and wear authentic African clothes we had an opportunity to own what we wore and keep on going we did not do that. Actually, we have never done that. We did not do it with jazz nor did we do it with dance. We create wonder styles like Breakdance but let other people come and own them. African clothes is a dying industry — let us be very clear about that. I seriously doubt that post-Ocacia something else like us will come. Because the clothes are expensive to make, hard to make and the fabric is getting harder to source and the talent harder to find. People speak about indicators in the environment–like if all the top predators start dying how it affects everything. Well, that is true for African economics. If we lose traditional clothing at this level, we will get to a point of no return. China is waiting for such an economic collapse to move in 100%

The economic philosophy of black nationalism only means that our people need to be re-educated into the importance of controlling the economy of the community in which we live, which means that we won't have to constantly be involved in picketing and boycotting other people in other communities in order to get jobs.

Malcolm X

When you keep it real, some will complain "why you being negative?" and it makes me realize how useless that mindset is. If we are to navigate the situations we find ourselves in as Africans which map do you want to use? An accurate map of our situation, or some feel-good politically correct map for hyper-sensitive people? That must dash and dart around our immaturity and inability to confront reality.


FEED OURSELVES

Imagine if I opened my fridge in Africa and said I only want to eat food made and owned by Africans I would starve to death. It is just another way of looking at the great issue of ownership in our own continent. Next to nothing, we need to survive is made by us. Sure, we provide the labor that harvested the ???? and onions that went into the final products. Sure we bottled everything up but that is that. Ownership is central to Ocacia. We own the means of production. We export clothes made and owned by African people.


EDUCATION

Education allows us to understand how the world works and our place in it. Lack of true education makes us silly. We do not understand economic issues, we do not understand how things are related. We think things just exist. We do not understand the interconnectivity between things we see because we are not educated about the processes at work that are necessary to run the modern world. It is against this backdrop that we start to understand not only the current crisis in South Africa but in the broader African world (Diaspora included). We are communities that are dependent on others for everything we need, but in the same instances, we moan about the inequities we face. The two states (being dependent and being oppressed are integrated). So when we come here and say we make clothes that you can proudly wear that are made by Africans you need to know that is part of something epic! It is an ideology that will transform our station in the entire world. People buying our clothes are buying something greater than fabric to cover your back. It is an investment in an African future where we own the means of production and can rebuild our greatness. There is this way or the way of the beggar. You decide. 


SHWESHWE SOUTH AFRICA

ShweShwe while a symbol of South Africa is not owned by African people, nor did it originate from African culture. We will use it because it is beautiful, we will use it because it does “represent” South

Africa, we will use it because it is better than using something Chinese that creates nothing for us, not even a cleaning job. But we go into these things with no false illusions. The BEE certificate for Da Gama textiles ownership states 40%, Black. But this was a Post-apartheid trick. Because Black does not mean African. Black is a political term that includes Chinese, Indians and others. It is what happens when you are confused about your own identity and allow others to control your identity. BEE is flawed since it does not differentiate between Indians and African giving a false impression that Africans actually have a larger market share than they really have.


BANGLADESH COMPARED

77% of Bangladesh’s total merchandise exports

Wikipedia: The textile and clothing industries provide a single source of growth in Bangladesh’s rapidly developing economy. Exports of textiles and garments are the principal source of foreign exchange earnings. By 2002 exports of textiles, clothing, and ready-made garments (RMG) accounted for 77% of Bangladesh’s total merchandise exports. By 2013, about 4 million people, mostly women, worked in Bangladesh’s $19 billion-a-year industry, export-oriented ready-made garment (RMG) industry. Bangladesh is second only to China, the world’s second-largest apparel exporter of western brands. Sixty percent of the export contracts of western brands are with European buyers and about forty percent with American buyers. Only 5% of textile factories are owned by foreign investors, with most of the production being controlled by Bengali investors.  Now, what about Africa? How many factories in South Africa are owned by African people? or even Lesotho?


RUNNING BEFORE YOU CAN WALK

STAGES 1: The most basic stage of development is that people can get money to live. There is nothing below this. So creating jobs are very important.
STAGE 2: Making sure people are employed in good positions to earn a good salary to have a good lifestyle.
STAGE 3: Making sure people have an equitable share of the profits from their labor.
STAGE 4: Making sure people are owners of specific industries, like owning a design studio, an accounting firm, a tourist agency.

Exploitive Cobalt mining

Exploitive Cobalt mining

STAGE 5: Making sure as many aspects of an industry and its dependencies (like fabric manufacture, cotton fields, legal services, accounting, as much as possible) are all owned by the people. But very few countries in a globalized world are an industrial island. certainly not even Europe. But maybe China, but then where do they get their fossil fuels or Cobalt from to put in their phones?

So online couture companies like Ocacia are not common. We are not at stage 5 if we barely made it to stage 4. No nation jumps these steps. No people become masters of industry without working their way up the ladder. And only support creates a greater economic ownership footprint in Africa.

 

No nation is an island, but Africa must not only be a supplier of raw materials to the industrialized world.
Industrial Sewing Machines made in China

Industrial Sewing Machines made in China

As industry struggles to emerge, and with barely anything in existence compared to other cultures, it is extremely silly to expect African fashion to be so economically stable to start manufacturing sewing machines. And we need to ask if Africa is losing its fabric industry to China, due to low demand and the forces of globalization, how is the African industry going to support an expensive plant that manufactures complex industrial sewing machines? If Europe and America–Industrial Giants are buying from China and cannot compete what about Africa? Making 0.0001% (guess to illustrate a point) of the total global output of clothing per annum.

Can Africa escape the loop of poverty? Well, it will be very hard because we must understand if this is a race, China and America are almost at the finish line. India is in there for years, Turkey is in their, South America is in there, UK is holding strong but Africa is still in bed. And while you might hear of growth in African economies and all the optimism by speakers like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on TED, it is all rhetoric and illusions because those people never deal with OWNERSHIP. They speak of national growth and rising min wages to gauge Africa’s progress. We are measuring ownership and exports of final goods on a globalized market– it really is not the same standard. So a factory in Ethiopia or the factory that makes jeans in Lesotho, or the entire fabric industry in South Africa– Sure they are in “Africa” but not one single African owns them. You see the Proudly South African shweshwe we use? it is owned by Indians and mainly Europeans–no aspect of that fabric is owned by native Africans (not a cent), the rest of the Shweshwe is made by Chinese. We are not even in the race.