Out of Africa Ezine Newsletter
September 2003

Machetes - Pangas and Fair Trade with Africa


A machete (panga) is a simple tool used all over Africa from clearing land to harvesting.  It does not cost a lot of money, but it certainly gets the job done along with some sweat and hard labor.  I used to watch a man come to the house in Kampala and literally mow the lawn with a machete knife.  When a lawnmower came along later, the poor guy was out of a job.

Tomorrow morning all over Africa, people will be heading out to the fields with machetes in hand. In Rwanda you can see farmers alongside the road heading to the fields with hoe in one hand and machete in the other.

Without the machete people such as the discoverers John Speke, David Livingston and Morton Stanley would have never gotten beyond the East African coast.  Karen Blixen would have never had her coffee plantation in the foothills of the Ngong Mountains of Kenya.  Right now, the panga (machete) is being used all over Africa cutting down bananas, harvesting pineapple, clearing fields, chopping wood to make charcoal for cooking and more.  It is also there for protection, have a snake come to your shamba (farm house) and you can keep yourself from harm by the quick use of a machete. The machete certainly can be used in a variety of ways, you will find that most night watchmen in East Africa have a panga near them and the farmers will keep it in the house to protect themselves against intruders.

The machete is a most practical tool, sword like in shape, only wider and wielded in the right hand it is a blessing and makes life easier, but like many good things there is a dark side to the tool that has proved to be such a blessing to life in Africa.

The dark side is that the same tool that is used to harvest and protect, to prepare food, clear land, chop down firewood is also used in war, tribal conflict, arguments that end in death, robberies, murders, hijackings and one could go on and on.

The machete business prospered during 1994 when the Rwandan Genocide took place. Millions were imported from places like China.  The result was that thousands, hundred thousands of people were not only shot with rifles, but butchered with machetes. 

More crimes are committed with the same tool that is used to farm and work around the home, than with any other.  It is a most amazing thing, that a simple thing like a farming tool can be the weapon most commonly used in the tribal conflicts of East Africa.  Recently reports came out the Democratic Republic of Congo where the panga, the machete was used to sow terror and fear amongst the inhabitants around Bunia killing and maiming the inhabitants of villages and towns.

The machete is both a blessing and or curse, but most things in life are like that.  Countries thrive on trade, on the flow of products flowing in and out of the towns and cities.  Trade is a good thing and helps raise the standard of living if done in right manner.  Trade that operates from a level playing field can help a country, can help a region, can help the African continent come out from the beneath the shackles of aid from Western countries that comes with all kinds stipulations and rules that chokes out life and keeps the country in economic bondage.  Africa does not need more Aid but fair Trade.

Like  a machete, trade is a two edged sword, on the one side trade brings life and well being to a nation and on the other side Trade, lack of trade, unfair trade practices chokes the life out of nations like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and the rest of Africa.

Trade that is fair and balanced is a good thing; on the other hand, trade barriers abound in the West for African goods seeking a market in Europe and North America.  The European Economic Union says all the right words but at the end of day its farm subsidies shut the African farmer out and his goods lose more and more value and remain in Africa.  The USA is right behind them and all one has to do is look at the cotton subsidies given to a few thousand farmers that keep thousands of farmers in West Africa in abject poverty.  Africa, at the same time, needs to deal with getting products to market and receiving goods without the present costs of transport such as custom bribes, thefts, pay-offs and special deal with government regulators.

Trade is more than a word, more than something that takes place, trade affects people.  Trade barriers keep most of the people of Africa at poverty levels, at incomes of a dollar per day, the population at 30% unemployment.

People are the ones that are affected by decisions made on trade with Africa in places like Berlin, Paris, London and Washington D.C.  The plotters, movers and shakers in the world of commerce do not see the ramifications on human lives, on families, on children, on the future of a whole continent.    They move their pencils and pens across spread sheets and make a mark while Africa awaits the blessings of a brighter future in vain.

Jeremiah Oliero leaves the place where he stays with relatives every morning at around 7 am.  Jeremiah walk toward town with the throng of people who go to work, but Jeremiah is not going to work; he is going to the Post Office on Kampala Avenue to sit, to stare into the distance. Around him are hundreds of others, who sit all day watching the traffic go by, looking at the people, looking at the life around them, while within there is barely glimmer of hope for a brighter future.  Jeremiah came from Lira to Kampala, the big city to find work.  He is young and strong, he is in good health, but work has eluded him.  He sits there and stares under the equatorial sun, his stomach growls, his face has that sunken hopeless look, and once in a while there will be a smile, only to fade into a blank stare. Jeremiah is bitter and it is not getting better. He does not understand the WTO, he does not know how decisions in Washington and Paris affect him, and all he knows is that he does not have a job, no income, no food, no house, ho future.

Africa, has a large labor force, but lacks the factories that would employ people like Jeremiah and others.  Africa needs factories that will process its raw materials and send them to the markets around the world.  Otherwise, people like him, will continue to stare into the day, living dead, statistics, go without dignity of a vocation that will bring hope and dreams into a present reality.

When the balance of trade becomes more centered and equal the use of the machete will go up as farming tool and go down as tool of death and destruction.  There is something about having a job that eases the inner tension, the ability to provide for a family brings with it a sense of purpose and the turmoil within declines and peace enters the heart and the machete will not be used as much on people as it will be in clearing the land...hmmm...jon

P.S.  No, we do not need another study, another fact finding tour by some official or rock star, but fairness of trade with Africa needs some actions today.