Ubuntu

Ubuntu

I am, because you are.

This following writing is an introduction by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from the book, 'The Words and Inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi - PEACE'. The text and booking is produced and originated by PQ Blackwell Limited. www.pgbalckwell.com. Introduction © Desmond M. Tutu.

"If I diminish you, I diminish myself."

"In my culture and tradition the highest priase that can be given to someone is, "Yu, u nobuntu", an acknolwedgement that he or she has this wonderful quality, ubuntu. It is a reference to their actions towards their fellow human beings, it has to do with how they regard people and how they see themselves within their intimate relationships, their familial relationships and within the boarder community. Ubuntu addresses a central tenet of African philosophy: the essence of what it is to be human.

The definition of this concept has two parts. The first is that the person is friendly, hospitable, generous, gentle, caring and compassionate. In other words, someone who will use their strengths on behalf of others - the weak and the poor and the ill - and not take advantage of anyone. This person treats others as he or she would be treated. And because of this they express the second part of the concept which concerns openness, large-heartedness. They share their worth. In doing so my humanity is recognized and becomes inextricably bound to theirs.

People with ubuntu are approachable and welcoming, their attitude is kindly and well-disposed, they are not threatened by the goodness in others because their own esteem and self-worth is generated by knowing they belong to a greater whole. To recast the Caresian propositon "I think, thereofre I am", ubuntu would prhase it, "I am human because I belong". Put another way, "a person is a person through other people". No one comes into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think of walk or speak or behave unless we learned it from out fellow humanb beings. We need other human beings in order to be human. The solitary, isolated human being is a contradiction in terms.

Because we need one another, out natural tendency is to be cooperative and helpful. If this were not ture we would have died out as a species long ago, consumed by our vilence and hate. But we haven't. We have kept on despite the evil and the wars that have brought so much suffering and misery down the community not only of the living but also one that hnours our forebears. This link to the past gives us a sense of continuity. A sense that we have created, and create, societites that are meant to be for the greater good and we try and covercome anything that suberts our purpose. Our wars end; we seek to heal.

But anger, resentment, a lust for revenge, greed, even the aggressive competitiveness that rules so much of our contemporary world corrodes and jeopardizes our harmony. Ubuntu points out that those who seek to destroy and dehumanize are also victims. Victims, usually, of a pervading ethos, be it a political ideology, an econmoic system, or a distorted religious conviction. Consequently, they are as much dehumanized as those on whom they trample. 

Never wa this more obvious then during the apartheid years in South Africa. All humanity is interlinbked. Thus, the humanity of the peretrators of apartheid was inexorably bound to those of their victims. When they dehumanized another by inflicting suffering and harm, they dehumazied themselves. In fact I said at the time that the oppressor was dehumanised as much as, if not more than, those oppressed. How else could you interpret the words of the minster of policy, Kimmy Kruger, on hearing of the death of Black Consciousness leader, Steve Biko, in prison. Of his tortured and painful killing, Fruger said, it "leaves me cold". You have to ask what has happened to the humanity - the ubuntu - of someone who could speak to callously about the suffering and death of a fellow human being.

It was equally clear that recovering from this situation would require a magnanimousness on the part of the victims if there was to be a future. The end of apartheid, I knew, would put ubuntu to the test. Yet I never doubted its power of reconciliation. In fact I often recalled the words of a man called Malusi Mpumlwana, an associate of Biko's, who, even while he was being tortured by the security police looked at his torturers and realzised that these were human beings too and that they needed him "to help them recover the humanity they [were] losing".

This is the essence of ubuntu and it is expressed so poignantly in the life and actions of the Mahatma Gandhi. In a long lifetime he made personal sacrifices that constantly reveal his compassion and concern for others. Everything he did was a demonstration of ubuntu - he was driven to help the poor, the sick and the downtrodden, and to free them from colonialism no matter the cost to himself. And in the end it cost him his life. However, he left us a legacy of inspiration that is remarkable in its sincerity and love of humanity.

His ubuntu showed that the only way we can ever be human is together. The only way we can be free is togehter.

The Most Reverend Desmond M. Tutu, OMSG DD FKG.
Anglican Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town.