Ubuntu — The idea of connection, caring, community
A friend of mine narrated a beautiful and touching story of an African tribe. The story goes like this. An anthropologist finished his work, had to wait for the bus that would take him to the airport. While waiting for the bus he was surrounded by kids. He proposed a game for children who surrounded him. He put a basket full of fruits & candies, placed it under a tree, drew a line on the ground, and explained that they should wait behind the line for his signal. When he said “on your mark, get set, go” the kids should rush to the basket. Whoever goes first to the basket wins all the fruits & candies. When he said “on your mark, get set, go” something strange happened. To his surprise, instead of running for the basket, the kids all unexpectedly held each other’s hands and ran off towards the tree as a group. Once they reached, they sat in a circle, simply shared the fruits and candies, and happily ate it.
The anthropologist was dumbfounded. He asked them why they had all gone together, especially if the first one to arrive at the tree could have won everything in the basket.
A young kid replied: “How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?”
This, in essence, captures Ubuntu. It translates into “I am because we are”. Ubuntu is a philosophy of humanism and a way of living. A person cannot exist in isolation. We are all interconnected.
A brief history of the term
The first use of the term in print came in 1846 in the book I-Testamente Entsha by HH Hare. However, the word was popularized in the 1950s when Jordan Kush Ngubane wrote about it in The African Drum magazine and his novels.
Leader’s take
Archbishop Desmond Tutu defined in a 1999 book:[15]
A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu as follows:[17]
A traveller through a country would stop at a village and he didn’t have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food and attend him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu, but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not address themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?
Ubuntu inspired success stories
Computer Desktop operating system — Mark Shuttleworth launched Ubuntu the world’s most popular open-source operating system (OS). People are encouraged to improve upon the software so that it continually gets better.
Climate change — South African activist Alex Lenferna published in Think Africa Press titled “What Climate Change Activists Can Learn From Mandela’s Great Legacy”. Lenferna shares how thinking about our collective humanity could help form a united front of environmentalism.
Nation-building — In the 1990s, Ubuntu became a unifying idea in South Africa, as the nation transitioned from apartheid. Ubuntu appears in South Africa’s Interim Constitution, created in 1993: “There is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimization.”
Conclusion
In a world where individualism has created so many problems — greed, poverty, discrimination, disparity, Ubuntu is a refreshing concept of collaboration & community that we can embrace. It means that you put common interests before your gains, you co-operate and have a sense of belonging to a greater community and a greater good. Putting Ubuntu to practice can transform our response to challenging times of global pandemic. We can help the elderly fight loneliness by having a social connection, support staff by extending money, calm anxiety of new graduates who are stuck without jobs, help a friend in distress. You do this not out of pity but out of a sense of shared humanity. When you perceive the world as one big family thriving on love, warmth, care, you have truly understood the intrinsic value of humans and embodied the ideas of connection, community, and mutual caring for all.
