IS IT KALANGA BLOCKING OR COLOUR BLOCKING? PLAGIARISM AT ITS BEST, GIVE CREDIT TO KALANGAS!!!!!!!!!!

ARTICLE BY:  DR GLORIA MASEKO

I am a pure, proud Kalanga born and breed in Tshesebe, North Eastern part of Botswana. One thing can testify is that during the 80’s when I was at primary school level, up to the end of the 20^th century,  I understood  that   a combination of  yellow and green , blue and red , orange and yellow on clothes, a comment like ''o apere sekalaka'' which translates to, ''you are dressed like a kalanga'', would be passed. I look back and say waaoooo!!! We Kalanga’s have not only been exceptionally gifted with high Intelligence Quotient (IQ), but to rebirth fashion which had remained stagnant and obscured for centuries.

I just got a shock of my life when this fashion really hit the twenty first century, now in a plagiarised way, Ohhhh...., they changed its name, they are now calling it colour blocking. I said, what? This is plagiarism at its best we inverted this combination and why a different terminology to our prestigious fashion which now seem to rock the world, imagine it is now globally recognized and we Kalanga's are no longer associated with it. I am proud to be a Kalanga, as this marks the highlights of the major trends in the development of fashion from the classical period to the present time. In the history of fashion the period which best describes the era of colour blocking is the renaissance, which is basically described as the rebirth or rediscovery of culture, knowledge and learning which has continued to be static and hidden for centuries. The renaissance served as a sign to the gradual return to ancient ideas. This has important consequence in the history of fashion as this marked the subsequent combination, interpretation of mixing colours and the distribution of ideas contained in those colours.

Of particular significance is the invention of Goggle chrome and Google search engine which made the dissemination of ideas to be cheap and worldwide, using all colour combinations which are said to be a mismatch. A rainbow nation is another typical example which gave rise to the emergence of a questioning spirit. People stopped the idea of accepting dogmas that certain colours are meant to match and demonstrated that as an unproven fact, and this foundation has been laid down well by our predecessors the Kalanga’s. We really need an international award for our idea (Kalanga blocking) which is basically the rebirth of an old idea to look like a new idea (color blocking).

Look back in your culture and some practices in your tribe as an individual and see what people got from you may be because it continued to be static and hidden for centuries and have named it differently and take it up like me……

Have a blessed week and remember all the credit goes to the Kananga’s for what we now call colour blocking.