Ubuntu ft. Andrew

and sixty million Bands speaking peoples of Africa. Bantu, coming from the Zulu wood for people, is a language family spoken by approximately four hundred distinct ethnic groups and splinto approximately four hundred forty six eighty distinct languages slash dialects, born as a result of the great band to migrations that it could in two major waves about three thousand and two thousand years ago across Central, East and South Africa.

Contrary to the maxim I think therefore, I am Ubuntu, roughly translated from the Guinibantu languages like Osa and Zulu, means humanity and more specifically humanity towards others. I am because you are. There are of course, various names to the concept, from language to language and ethnic group to ethnic group, including Boto, Muntu, Umundu, Batu, Utu, etc. But

Ubuntu is definitely the most prominent and internationally recognized. According to the African Journal of Social Work, Buntu is a collection of values and practices the people of Africa or of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. Rather, nuances of these values and practices vary across different ethnic groups, they all point to one thing, an authentic individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental,

and spiritual world. This of course, is not unique to Africa. What's any specific culture or any specific ethnic group. I think we're finally sort of mirroring ideas in a variety of contexts, because I think it really is something that's fundamentally human. But I think it is good to look at how these ideas have manifested in those more specific contexts. I mean, in the oral literature of South Africa, with pointersminning existence from as early as the mid nineteenth century.

The reported translations for the term have covered the field of human nature, humanness, humanity, virtue, goodness, and kindness. And so it's meant to be a sort of a parallel to the abstract idea of humanity as a philosophy or as a world view. A buntu really was popularized in the beginning of the nineteen fifties, most of them be in the writings of Jordan Kushan Gabani published in the

African Drum magazine. From then into the nineteen seventies, bunta began to be used as a specific form of African humanism because, of course, in that sixties and seventies period you had a lot of afrocentric and pan African and black power ideas coming to prominence around the world. This is of course also coincided with the period of decolonization,

or rather formal political independence. It was taken place in nineteen sixties, and this desire for these newly independent countries to pursue Africanization, to sort of let go of some of the symbolic aspects of colonial rule. Of course, that process us has not really been completes and in many ways the postcluonial status is equivalent to the clunial status. But in some ways some leaders were trying to pursue a sort of a new African specific humanism as a

philosophy for the bushoning countries at the time. It is a part of the episode where we tell everyone to read final again of course read Fano and reads is there. But I found interested as that this this term ubuntu is idea of Ubuntu particularly found it's It was specifically picked up in Zimbabwe and in South Africa in a very specific context where there was a transition to majority rule. In nineteen eighty Ubuntu is m or hun whu is um was presented as the political ideology you have newly

independent Zimbabwe. A guy named Stan lack ajwt sam Kange published a treatise basically on who who is a more Buntuism or zimbabwe indigenous political philosophy, and he was basically trying to outline what the three major maxims that she this philosophy should be. Of course, I would note that his interpretation being a statesman is notably hierarchical, but for the reasons I will go into a bit later, I don't believe that makes the core of hunt necessarily hierarchical.

But the three maxims that he had in mind for Buntuism or who who is Um was that to be human is to affirm one's humanity by recognizing humanity of others and on that basis establish in respectful human relations with them. The second maxim means that if and when one is faced with a site of choice between wealth and the preservation of life of another human being, then

one should up for the preservation of life. And then the third maxim says that the king owed his status, including all the powers associated with it, to the will of the people under him. As I think that's where you get most prominently the sense of hierarchy that would pervade sitting interpretations of UBUNTU, this idea of a sort of a benevolent rulership, that these benevolent statesmen and kings and prime ministers of presidents that they would they were

just exercising the will of the people. And of course this is a mythology that is interpreting, reinterpreted across various different regimes. In South Africa, in the nineteen nineties, Bunto as a concept was used as sort of a guidance ideal for the transition from a part time to majority rule. I think around this time is when the international community started to hear more about the term ubun two, particularly as it appears in the epilogue of the Interim Constitution

of South Africa published nineteen ninety three. There's a need for understanding, but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation. I need for ubun two, but not for victimization and coote. Of course, as we see in South Africa today, that didn't play out very well. The understanding has not reached that point, reparations has not fully been achieved. And there's a I would say distinct

lack of ubun two. Yeah, they kind of brought in Bank of America instead, which it didn't go great, all right, yeah they do. It's very um, it's very big and

KNYA rewandered ubu munto I think. Um. But like you'll see the phrase or that that were a lot around Rwanda, and like if you go to the Kigali Genocybe Memorial Museum, you'll see it a lot there, right, Like that is a country that has with some authoritarian issues, like has quite aside the differences which would previously allowed the genocide to happen. I guess that's fair to say, yes, yes, that's what the Tutsi and the hut yeah yeah, and

the Ti who often get missed out. Um. Yeah, but they Yeah, that's actually, yeah, terrible terrible thing if if people ever go to Rwanda, would highly recommend going to Rwanda. Like the Kigali Genocyb Memoria Museum is an important thing too. It's a very very well curated museum of like you said, a terrible terrible thing that happened in South Africa the

transition to democracy and now Swindell's presidency nineteen eighty four. Um, like I said, it really brought the term to more well known outside the use And one of the people who was a main, main proponent of that was Desmond Tutu, who was the chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and also a preacher. He sort of advocated and Ubuntu theology that was really formative in the development

of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He sort of moved the idea of Untu from simply an African philosophy based on African values and community and kinship to Christian values and identity with the Creator God. It was a sort of a strategy in an attempt to recover from the pains and brokenness of apartheid. You know, Ankaran Ubuntu in these into the Christian ideals of forgiveness and reconciliation as

gifts from God for peaceful communal coexistence. And I hopefully not being tweet offensive when I say this to me, that's a quintessential example of how Christian pacification hampers to colonization efforts, because I've seen often that Christian notion of forgiveness and reconciliation tuns the blame onto the victims for not forgiven and expects a little to nothing from the offender Excepaian and apology offense, not even any restitution or reparations.

And so for all the talk of Ubuntu, theological Ubuntu and otherwise, situation South Africa is still very much whack. And I think that that idea that oh wellsis is in the past, it's over, get over it kind of thing is problematic and it's so then it needs to be resolved the things so that the colonization is going to take place, right, So, putting aside the theological applications

so on problematic the logical applications. The ubuntuol view is echoed in some senses worldwide, you know, social ecology when review and mutually all these concepts point to our interconnectedness as people and really point to the interconnectness that we have as people that our systems I'm certainly not built to support. We say that we see that in capitalism. You know, capitalism doesn't embrace the interconnectness of all people. It places us in opposition with another. It atomizes us,

it individualizes us. It alienates us from people, from ourselves and from others. So we must compete and stuff for the stake us survival. Alienation of course in a capitalist context, referring to our separation of our abilities from ourselves, making us into mere tools for the use and benefit of our bosses. I know. The workplace is definitely not something

that we have. Is that it is based on mutual aid or wound too, you know, rather than working together, working harmoniously, having access to means of production and sharing in an equally place, in situation of a feud, of competition, of struggling constantly and being squeezed and wrung out for whatever our bosses going to get from us. Yeah, it's when you said, like earlier, that one of the key tenants was right, like recognizing humanity and other people affirmed

your own humanity. I might be paraphrasing there, but like that's exactly what capitalism doesn't do. It just sees people as like a tool to create more capital, to create more more income. Like it doesn't recognize humanity. It sees you as a means, not an ends, right exactly, And I mean unlike in a communal system where your service to others, you know, it's mutual, it's reciprocal, it's voluntary.

We find ourselves in a situation where we must give away our labor, our time, and really our whole lives just to survive. But that giving is not done out to the goodness of our hearts or or as part of a system, a sort of a network of support, a safety nets or anything. It's just clawing towards survival, you know, disconnected from the well being and the whole. Yeah,

very much. Everything around us has been you know, manufactured, it's been transport, has been assembled and sold by other people, right, people just like us, workers, just like us. Those people have of lives just like ours. They have all the same struggles that we do. But instead of relating to these people, instead of freely sharing the fruit to our labor, relating to the things that we have to buy, or

we don't see the work in people behind them. Yeah, I think another aspect of it is that which I find physically strange about. You know, the hundhu is m aubuntuism that some Kange was trying to advocate, is that I don't believe that Ubuntu or mutual lead, or any of the principles that are bunto exposes is something that the state is compatible with. Um. I don't think the state is compatible with the acknowledgment of one's responsibility to

their fellow humans and the world around them. You know, the state is built an exclusion on domination and deprivation and the hierarchical division of the state generating the sort of inequality and decision making power and influencing O affairs.

It's about depriving certain people and elevating others, whereas Ubuntu is supposed to be about the importance of the humanity of both the individual in the community and about how all people are connected in a way that is meant to support and add to and contribute and clean and service one another. If that makes sense. You don't like the idea of this sort of community where everyone is giving and sharing and taking, and everybody has something to

contribute to this human whole. I feel like there's something that's lost when that whole is disrupted by certain people being elevated to a status of having more power over others. I mean, part of that humanity has to entail freedom to self organized, freedom to associate, freedom to disassociate, decision making power, autonomy, you know. Otherwise, what kind of humanity is that? Really? How can people access their full humanity

in themselves if they're being deprived by others? On how can those others who are depriving people have access their full humanity when they're depriving others If you get what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, I think that's perfectly right. Yeah, And I mean pretty much the same thing with the system I mean with the capitalism, with the state, I mean patriarchy, which also elevates some people above others and

denies those marginalized others full access the humanity. All of us are restricted in some ways from understanding ourselves in ourselves and through others by the ideology and system of patriarchy. And of course the schools are out saying, but what could be more incompatible with the Buntu than clue in theselve? You know, doesn't simply deny the humanity of those that exploit, it also strips the humanity the exploiters. I mean Assa

my referenced earlier wrote in Discourse and Clunism. Colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the sense of the in a true sense of the wood, to degrade him and to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race, hatred,

and more relativism. And we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France, they accept the fact, each time a little girl is assaulted, and in France they accept the fact each time a Madagascar is tortured, And in France they accept the fact. Civilization acquires another deadweight, a universal regression takes place, a gang green sets in,

a center of infection begins to spread. And that at the end of all these treatise, treaties that have been violated, while these lines that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up, been interrogated, all these patriots who have been tortured at the end of all the racial pride, it has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, A poison has been instilled into the veins of Europe,

and slowly, but surely, the continent proceeds towards savagery, powerful words as usual from that great Yeah, that's very good. Yeah. So, I mean, I think there's a lot of potential in the interpretation of a bound too right, which is both a flaw and a strength. And when I get into the criticism a bit more, you'll see why. But regardless, of course, there's value to be gleaned from diou understandings. There's power in finding our roots to secure our future.

And whether in a partnership and affinity group, an organization,

a community, or beyond. This basic principle of recognizing the authentic individual human being as part of a larger and more significant relational, communal society, of environmental and spiritual world is vital process of social revolution, of confronting the powerful through protests and occupations and reclamations and expropriations, in refusing to cooperate with the powers to be through strikes and boycotts and mutinies and other forms of interaction, and then

building new institutions like cooperatives and popular assemblies and libraries and things. All of those things, all those aspects of social revolution allow us to assert ourselves, to recognize the mutual and ecater and connection of all people. You know, a pot smith, the boon two is open and available to others. It's afflaming to others. I feel threatened that others are able and good. And so by recognizing with the boon to, you know, recognize energy are part of

a greater whole. That whole is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished when others are tortured or oppressed. And so someone with a boon to, someone who recognizes the interconnectness of all humanity is someone who has to be engaged in some form of social revolution, who has to be engaged in trying to free people, help people free themselves so that they can engage in their own humanity,

and so add to your own humanity in turn. And when it comes to the commons common ownership, you know, the reversal of the enclosure movement socialization, but if you want to call it, that is also something that ultimately is about the bonds between people, about the distribution of the means of production and of the fruits of all of our labor, so that all can enjoy, so that

all can have fested interest in our collective prosperity. When it comes to you know, community work, you know, unto is about this idea that we can work together, you know, in growing our food and distributing when we need um.

This idea that being a mother or being a father, being a parent, it's not just about being that to your own biological children, but rather in recognizing that we are all connected in that we it's it's like a it's I can understanding that there should not be this idea of all funds right, this idea that we're all meant to look out for each other, that no person is meant to be cut off from the sort of care that is necessary for carrying into fully realized So

I mean even in the realm of education, you see potential applications if we're going to and recognizing that everyone has different skills and strengths, that people are not isolated, and that through mutual support they can help each other

to complete themselves. As Autry Tang argues, I mean, I think there needs to be an education that recognizes the importance of community, society, and environmental well being, one that emphasizes the connection between all those things, one that involves interaction, participation, recognition, respect, and inclusion as core tenants of the learning process, of students learning from facilitators and the facilitators learning from students,

of recognizing that we hold both positions, and that those positions are held from the moment we're born to the moment one we eventually pass on as rich as the potential of Unto. Maybe I don't want to put it out as if it's some sort of like flawless and perfect philosophy, right, it's not above critique, it's not immune.

As I mentioned before, it's hierarchical interpretations and applications. It's very much right for liberal sensibilities, as we've seen Departments of State speaking of Untu diplomacy and Bunto foreign policy. And that's sort of thing. Some kanas idea that you know, part of a buontoo is that the king oways a status including all the powers associate with it to wild

people under him. I mean right now and for a while now, Boons has not had a single solid framework of what exactly entails, what it makes up, what it doesn't. There's still a lot of fuzziness and inconsists didn't see within different people's interpretations of the definition of untu. As one scholar in Yasham Booti has noted, there's an interpretation, so an interpretation of a buntu that sea is Africans

has you know, naturally interdependence and harmony seeking. That humanity is given to a person buying through of the persons. But there's a sort of a trap in that because humanity is also pretty messy. The relationships between between people can also be very messy. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. You know, a broken relationship is as authentically human as a harmonious relationship. You know, a broken relationship can also

be more ethical than a harmonious relationship. Booti points to, for example, the freedom that follows from a break from oppression that follows from a break from a relationship of domination to want of freedom. And of course this idea that harmonies relationships incapable of being oppressive is false. You know, a harmonia's relationship can be quite oppressive. In the Dynamics team, people that are hidden under that veal of Honkey Dory,

you know. So, I mean there's a lot of there's a lot too Ubuntu, there's a lot of good to be cleaned, a lot of potential pitfalls to be avoided. So you know, take what's the value, leave what's not, Engage critically, what's your plans, and have a good day. It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone meta dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.