Are Africans losing their heritage?

Did you know that you’re no longer allowed to use the words ‘Hakuna Matata’?

The Swahili phrase which means, “no worries” and is widely used as a response to greetings in East Africa especially in the Coastal region has now been patented by Disneyland. Disney which has used the slogan in many of it’s cartoons has been granted a US trademark over the words “Hakuna matata” with registration number 27006605.

While Kenyans were busying arguing with the then President Daniel Arap Moi, on August 8th, 1994, a U.S. federal trademark registration was filed for ‘hakuna matata’ under the serial number of 74558335. Having been granted the trademark, it will now be illegal to use the phrase without permission from Disney.

It’s shocking that an international company can be able to claim ownership of a Swahili phrase under our watch. The acquisition of the trademark by Disneyland sources say should be a wake up call for Kenya and the entire East African community.

The first lesson that the EAC should learn is the need to have a structured framework to protect our national and regional heritage. Since Kiswahili is spoken throughout the EAC, it would be unreasonable for one particular country to claim ownership of the language.

It is unfortunate that there has been a lot of pilferage of African culture over the years, through the use of intellectual property rights which have seen words that form part of our heritage go unprotected.

Those against the Disney being granted the trademark have called on the the relevant governments and communities to enhance protection of cultural heritage. Some of these efforts include applying  for expungement of already granted trademarks that contain heritage.

There are certain remedies that can be resorted to, in order to enhance protection of cultural heritage and specifically trademarks. It may be worth the effort for the relevant governments or communities to apply for expungement of already granted trademarks. However, there are certain thresholds that ought to be met for expungement of marks that contain heritage.

State agencies such as Brand Kenya have been accused of failing to protect indigenous slogans and sayings that are part of our heritage. If such slogans were protected globally, corporates that seek to use these indigenous slogans would have to pay royalties.

Rwanda seems to be ahead of the game as the country has protected the local slogan, “ndiumunyarwanda” as a trademark. A third party corporate was forced to pay licences fees to the Rwandan government when it sought to manufacture sweets that contained the same slogan. This has not only protected the country from losing indigenous slogans but has also earned her revenue from the same.