Ubuntu ft. Andrew

Andrew talks about the revolutionary anti-colonial potential of Ubuntu and how its liberal Christian cooption can be overcome.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everyone, and welcome. It could happen here once again
hosted by myself Andrew along with the rest of the crew,
Mia and James. All Right, and today I want to
take a minute to talk about Ubuntu, and not the
Linux software, but the African philosophy. UBUNTUO is philosophical concepts

(00:30):
for those who don't know, derived from some of the
diverse and disposed indigenous traditions of the roughly three hundred
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,

(00:52):
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,

(01:16):
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

(01:36):
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,

(01:58):
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

(02:22):
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.

(02:46):
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

(03:07):
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

(03:30):
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

(03:55):
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

(04:21):
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

(04:45):
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

(05:09):
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

(05:34):
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

(05:55):
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

(06:16):
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

(06:38):
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.

(06:59):
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

(07:21):
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

(07:45):
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,

(08:08):
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

(08:30):
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

(08:54):
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

(09:16):
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

(09:40):
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

(10:04):
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

(10:24):
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.

(10:44):
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

(11:04):
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

(11:26):
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.

(11:49):
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

(12:11):
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,

(12:33):
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

(12:55):
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.

(13:17):
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,

(13:40):
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

(14:02):
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

(14:29):
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

(14:52):
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

(15:13):
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

(15:35):
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

(15:59):
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,

(16:19):
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

(16:40):
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

(17:03):
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

(17:24):
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,

(17:47):
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,

(18:08):
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

(18:29):
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

(18:53):
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

(19:14):
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,

(19:38):
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

(19:59):
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

(20:22):
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

(20:43):
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

(21:07):
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

(21:28):
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

(21:48):
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,

(22:10):
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

(22:30):
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,

(22:53):
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.

(23:15):
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,

(23:38):
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

(24:01):
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.

(24:23):
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

(24:45):
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,

(25:10):
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.

(25:34):
So you know, take what's the value, leave what's not,
Engage critically, what's your plans, and have a good day.
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(25:57):
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