Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome. It could happen here once again
Speaker 1: hosted by myself Andrew along with the rest of the crew,
Speaker 1: Mia and James. All Right, and today I want to
Speaker 1: take a minute to talk about Ubuntu, and not the
Speaker 1: Linux software, but the African philosophy. UBUNTUO is philosophical concepts
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, derived from some of the
Speaker 1: diverse and disposed indigenous traditions of the roughly three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty million Bands speaking peoples of Africa. Bantu, coming
Speaker 1: from the Zulu wood for people, is a language family
Speaker 1: spoken by approximately four hundred distinct ethnic groups and splinto
Speaker 1: approximately four hundred forty six eighty distinct languages slash dialects,
Speaker 1: born as a result of the great band to migrations
Speaker 1: that it could in two major waves about three thousand
Speaker 1: and two thousand years ago across Central, East and South Africa.
Speaker 1: Contrary to the maxim I think therefore, I am Ubuntu,
Speaker 1: roughly translated from the Guinibantu languages like Osa and Zulu,
Speaker 1: means humanity and more specifically humanity towards others. I am
Speaker 1: because you are. There are of course, various names to
Speaker 1: the concept, from language to language and ethnic group to
Speaker 1: ethnic group, including Boto, Muntu, Umundu, Batu, Utu, etc. But
Speaker 1: Ubuntu is definitely the most prominent and internationally recognized. According
Speaker 1: to the African Journal of Social Work, Buntu is a
Speaker 1: collection of values and practices the people of Africa or
Speaker 1: of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. Rather,
Speaker 1: nuances of these values and practices vary across different ethnic groups,
Speaker 1: they all point to one thing, an authentic individual human
Speaker 1: being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental,
Speaker 1: and spiritual world. This of course, is not unique to Africa.
Speaker 1: What's any specific culture or any specific ethnic group. I
Speaker 1: think we're finally sort of mirroring ideas in a variety
Speaker 1: of contexts, because I think it really is something that's
Speaker 1: fundamentally human. But I think it is good to look
Speaker 1: at how these ideas have manifested in those more specific contexts.
Speaker 1: I mean, in the oral literature of South Africa, with
Speaker 1: pointersminning existence from as early as the mid nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: The reported translations for the term have covered the field
Speaker 1: of human nature, humanness, humanity, virtue, goodness, and kindness. And
Speaker 1: so it's meant to be a sort of a parallel
Speaker 1: to the abstract idea of humanity as a philosophy or
Speaker 1: as a world view. A buntu really was popularized in
Speaker 1: the beginning of the nineteen fifties, most of them be
Speaker 1: in the writings of Jordan Kushan Gabani published in the
Speaker 1: African Drum magazine. From then into the nineteen seventies, bunta
Speaker 1: began to be used as a specific form of African
Speaker 1: humanism because, of course, in that sixties and seventies period
Speaker 1: you had a lot of afrocentric and pan African and
Speaker 1: black power ideas coming to prominence around the world. This
Speaker 1: is of course also coincided with the period of decolonization,
Speaker 1: or rather formal political independence. It was taken place in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, and this desire for these newly independent countries
Speaker 1: to pursue Africanization, to sort of let go of some
Speaker 1: of the symbolic aspects of colonial rule. Of course, that
Speaker 1: process us has not really been completes and in many
Speaker 1: ways the postcluonial status is equivalent to the clunial status.
Speaker 1: But in some ways some leaders were trying to pursue
Speaker 1: a sort of a new African specific humanism as a
Speaker 1: philosophy for the bushoning countries at the time. It is
Speaker 1: a part of the episode where we tell everyone to
Speaker 1: read final again of course read Fano and reads is there.
Speaker 1: But I found interested as that this this term ubuntu
Speaker 1: is idea of Ubuntu particularly found it's It was specifically
Speaker 1: picked up in Zimbabwe and in South Africa in a
Speaker 1: very specific context where there was a transition to majority rule.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty Ubuntu is m or hun whu is
Speaker 1: um was presented as the political ideology you have newly
Speaker 1: independent Zimbabwe. A guy named Stan lack ajwt sam Kange
Speaker 1: published a treatise basically on who who is a more
Speaker 1: Buntuism or zimbabwe indigenous political philosophy, and he was basically
Speaker 1: trying to outline what the three major maxims that she
Speaker 1: this philosophy should be. Of course, I would note that
Speaker 1: his interpretation being a statesman is notably hierarchical, but for
Speaker 1: the reasons I will go into a bit later, I
Speaker 1: don't believe that makes the core of hunt necessarily hierarchical.
Speaker 1: But the three maxims that he had in mind for
Speaker 1: Buntuism or who who is Um was that to be
Speaker 1: human is to affirm one's humanity by recognizing humanity of
Speaker 1: others and on that basis establish in respectful human relations
Speaker 1: with them. The second maxim means that if and when
Speaker 1: one is faced with a site of choice between wealth
Speaker 1: and the preservation of life of another human being, then
Speaker 1: one should up for the preservation of life. And then
Speaker 1: the third maxim says that the king owed his status,
Speaker 1: including all the powers associated with it, to the will
Speaker 1: of the people under him. As I think that's where
Speaker 1: you get most prominently the sense of hierarchy that would
Speaker 1: pervade sitting interpretations of UBUNTU, this idea of a sort
Speaker 1: of a benevolent rulership, that these benevolent statesmen and kings
Speaker 1: and prime ministers of presidents that they would they were
Speaker 1: just exercising the will of the people. And of course
Speaker 1: this is a mythology that is interpreting, reinterpreted across various
Speaker 1: different regimes. In South Africa, in the nineteen nineties, Bunto
Speaker 1: as a concept was used as sort of a guidance
Speaker 1: ideal for the transition from a part time to majority rule.
Speaker 1: I think around this time is when the international community
Speaker 1: started to hear more about the term ubun two, particularly
Speaker 1: as it appears in the epilogue of the Interim Constitution
Speaker 1: of South Africa published nineteen ninety three. There's a need
Speaker 1: for understanding, but not for vengeance, a need for reparation
Speaker 1: but not for retaliation. I need for ubun two, but
Speaker 1: not for victimization and coote. Of course, as we see
Speaker 1: in South Africa today, that didn't play out very well.
Speaker 1: The understanding has not reached that point, reparations has not
Speaker 1: fully been achieved. And there's a I would say distinct
Speaker 1: lack of ubun two. Yeah, they kind of brought in
Speaker 1: Bank of America instead, which it didn't go great, all right,
Speaker 1: yeah they do. It's very um, it's very big and
Speaker 1: KNYA rewandered ubu munto I think. Um. But like you'll
Speaker 1: see the phrase or that that were a lot around Rwanda,
Speaker 1: and like if you go to the Kigali Genocybe Memorial Museum,
Speaker 1: you'll see it a lot there, right, Like that is
Speaker 1: a country that has with some authoritarian issues, like has
Speaker 1: quite aside the differences which would previously allowed the genocide
Speaker 1: to happen. I guess that's fair to say, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that's what the Tutsi and the hut yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: the Ti who often get missed out. Um. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they Yeah, that's actually, yeah, terrible terrible thing if if
Speaker 1: people ever go to Rwanda, would highly recommend going to Rwanda.
Speaker 1: Like the Kigali Genocyb Memoria Museum is an important thing too.
Speaker 1: It's a very very well curated museum of like you said,
Speaker 1: a terrible terrible thing that happened in South Africa the
Speaker 1: transition to democracy and now Swindell's presidency nineteen eighty four. Um,
Speaker 1: like I said, it really brought the term to more
Speaker 1: well known outside the use And one of the people
Speaker 1: who was a main, main proponent of that was Desmond Tutu,
Speaker 1: who was the chairman of the South African Truth and
Speaker 1: Reconciliation Commission and also a preacher. He sort of advocated
Speaker 1: and Ubuntu theology that was really formative in the development
Speaker 1: of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He sort of moved
Speaker 1: the idea of Untu from simply an African philosophy based
Speaker 1: on African values and community and kinship to Christian values
Speaker 1: and identity with the Creator God. It was a sort
Speaker 1: of a strategy in an attempt to recover from the
Speaker 1: pains and brokenness of apartheid. You know, Ankaran Ubuntu in
Speaker 1: these into the Christian ideals of forgiveness and reconciliation as
Speaker 1: gifts from God for peaceful communal coexistence. And I hopefully
Speaker 1: not being tweet offensive when I say this to me,
Speaker 1: that's a quintessential example of how Christian pacification hampers to
Speaker 1: colonization efforts, because I've seen often that Christian notion of
Speaker 1: forgiveness and reconciliation tuns the blame onto the victims for
Speaker 1: not forgiven and expects a little to nothing from the
Speaker 1: offender Excepaian and apology offense, not even any restitution or reparations.
Speaker 1: And so for all the talk of Ubuntu, theological Ubuntu
Speaker 1: and otherwise, situation South Africa is still very much whack.
Speaker 1: And I think that that idea that oh wellsis is
Speaker 1: in the past, it's over, get over it kind of
Speaker 1: thing is problematic and it's so then it needs to
Speaker 1: be resolved the things so that the colonization is going
Speaker 1: to take place, right, So, putting aside the theological applications
Speaker 1: so on problematic the logical applications. The ubuntuol view is
Speaker 1: echoed in some senses worldwide, you know, social ecology when
Speaker 1: review and mutually all these concepts point to our interconnectedness
Speaker 1: as people and really point to the interconnectness that we
Speaker 1: have as people that our systems I'm certainly not built
Speaker 1: to support. We say that we see that in capitalism.
Speaker 1: You know, capitalism doesn't embrace the interconnectness of all people.
Speaker 1: It places us in opposition with another. It atomizes us,
Speaker 1: it individualizes us. It alienates us from people, from ourselves
Speaker 1: and from others. So we must compete and stuff for
Speaker 1: the stake us survival. Alienation of course in a capitalist context,
Speaker 1: referring to our separation of our abilities from ourselves, making
Speaker 1: us into mere tools for the use and benefit of
Speaker 1: our bosses. I know. The workplace is definitely not something
Speaker 1: that we have. Is that it is based on mutual
Speaker 1: aid or wound too, you know, rather than working together,
Speaker 1: working harmoniously, having access to means of production and sharing
Speaker 1: in an equally place, in situation of a feud, of competition,
Speaker 1: of struggling constantly and being squeezed and wrung out for
Speaker 1: whatever our bosses going to get from us. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: when you said, like earlier, that one of the key
Speaker 1: tenants was right, like recognizing humanity and other people affirmed
Speaker 1: your own humanity. I might be paraphrasing there, but like
Speaker 1: that's exactly what capitalism doesn't do. It just sees people
Speaker 1: as like a tool to create more capital, to create
Speaker 1: more more income. Like it doesn't recognize humanity. It sees
Speaker 1: you as a means, not an ends, right exactly, And
Speaker 1: I mean unlike in a communal system where your service
Speaker 1: to others, you know, it's mutual, it's reciprocal, it's voluntary.
Speaker 1: We find ourselves in a situation where we must give
Speaker 1: away our labor, our time, and really our whole lives
Speaker 1: just to survive. But that giving is not done out
Speaker 1: to the goodness of our hearts or or as part
Speaker 1: of a system, a sort of a network of support,
Speaker 1: a safety nets or anything. It's just clawing towards survival,
Speaker 1: you know, disconnected from the well being and the whole. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very much. Everything around us has been you know, manufactured,
Speaker 1: it's been transport, has been assembled and sold by other people, right,
Speaker 1: people just like us, workers, just like us. Those people
Speaker 1: have of lives just like ours. They have all the
Speaker 1: same struggles that we do. But instead of relating to
Speaker 1: these people, instead of freely sharing the fruit to our labor,
Speaker 1: relating to the things that we have to buy, or
Speaker 1: we don't see the work in people behind them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think another aspect of it is that which I
Speaker 1: find physically strange about. You know, the hundhu is m
Speaker 1: aubuntuism that some Kange was trying to advocate, is that
Speaker 1: I don't believe that Ubuntu or mutual lead, or any
Speaker 1: of the principles that are bunto exposes is something that
Speaker 1: the state is compatible with. Um. I don't think the
Speaker 1: state is compatible with the acknowledgment of one's responsibility to
Speaker 1: their fellow humans and the world around them. You know,
Speaker 1: the state is built an exclusion on domination and deprivation
Speaker 1: and the hierarchical division of the state generating the sort
Speaker 1: of inequality and decision making power and influencing O affairs.
Speaker 1: It's about depriving certain people and elevating others, whereas Ubuntu
Speaker 1: is supposed to be about the importance of the humanity
Speaker 1: of both the individual in the community and about how
Speaker 1: all people are connected in a way that is meant
Speaker 1: to support and add to and contribute and clean and
Speaker 1: service one another. If that makes sense. You don't like
Speaker 1: the idea of this sort of community where everyone is
Speaker 1: giving and sharing and taking, and everybody has something to
Speaker 1: contribute to this human whole. I feel like there's something
Speaker 1: that's lost when that whole is disrupted by certain people
Speaker 1: being elevated to a status of having more power over others.
Speaker 1: I mean, part of that humanity has to entail freedom
Speaker 1: to self organized, freedom to associate, freedom to disassociate, decision
Speaker 1: making power, autonomy, you know. Otherwise, what kind of humanity
Speaker 1: is that? Really? How can people access their full humanity
Speaker 1: in themselves if they're being deprived by others? On how
Speaker 1: can those others who are depriving people have access their
Speaker 1: full humanity when they're depriving others If you get what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Yeah, yeah, I think that's perfectly right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean pretty much the same thing with the
Speaker 1: system I mean with the capitalism, with the state, I
Speaker 1: mean patriarchy, which also elevates some people above others and
Speaker 1: denies those marginalized others full access the humanity. All of
Speaker 1: us are restricted in some ways from understanding ourselves in
Speaker 1: ourselves and through others by the ideology and system of patriarchy.
Speaker 1: And of course the schools are out saying, but what
Speaker 1: could be more incompatible with the Buntu than clue in theselve?
Speaker 1: You know, doesn't simply deny the humanity of those that exploit,
Speaker 1: it also strips the humanity the exploiters. I mean Assa
Speaker 1: my referenced earlier wrote in Discourse and Clunism. Colonization works
Speaker 1: to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the sense
Speaker 1: of the in a true sense of the wood, to
Speaker 1: degrade him and to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race, hatred,
Speaker 1: and more relativism. And we must show that each time
Speaker 1: a head is cut off or an eye put out
Speaker 1: in Vietnam and in France, they accept the fact, each
Speaker 1: time a little girl is assaulted, and in France they
Speaker 1: accept the fact each time a Madagascar is tortured, And
Speaker 1: in France they accept the fact. Civilization acquires another deadweight,
Speaker 1: a universal regression takes place, a gang green sets in,
Speaker 1: a center of infection begins to spread. And that at
Speaker 1: the end of all these treatise, treaties that have been violated,
Speaker 1: while these lines that have been propagated, all these punitive
Speaker 1: expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have
Speaker 1: been tied up, been interrogated, all these patriots who have
Speaker 1: been tortured at the end of all the racial pride,
Speaker 1: it has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed,
Speaker 1: A poison has been instilled into the veins of Europe,
Speaker 1: and slowly, but surely, the continent proceeds towards savagery, powerful
Speaker 1: words as usual from that great Yeah, that's very good. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's a lot of potential in
Speaker 1: the interpretation of a bound too right, which is both
Speaker 1: a flaw and a strength. And when I get into
Speaker 1: the criticism a bit more, you'll see why. But regardless,
Speaker 1: of course, there's value to be gleaned from diou understandings.
Speaker 1: There's power in finding our roots to secure our future.
Speaker 1: And whether in a partnership and affinity group, an organization,
Speaker 1: a community, or beyond. This basic principle of recognizing the
Speaker 1: authentic individual human being as part of a larger and
Speaker 1: more significant relational, communal society, of environmental and spiritual world
Speaker 1: is vital process of social revolution, of confronting the powerful
Speaker 1: through protests and occupations and reclamations and expropriations, in refusing
Speaker 1: to cooperate with the powers to be through strikes and
Speaker 1: boycotts and mutinies and other forms of interaction, and then
Speaker 1: building new institutions like cooperatives and popular assemblies and libraries
Speaker 1: and things. All of those things, all those aspects of
Speaker 1: social revolution allow us to assert ourselves, to recognize the
Speaker 1: mutual and ecater and connection of all people. You know,
Speaker 1: a pot smith, the boon two is open and available
Speaker 1: to others. It's afflaming to others. I feel threatened that
Speaker 1: others are able and good. And so by recognizing with
Speaker 1: the boon to, you know, recognize energy are part of
Speaker 1: a greater whole. That whole is diminished when others are
Speaker 1: humiliated or diminished when others are tortured or oppressed. And
Speaker 1: so someone with a boon to, someone who recognizes the
Speaker 1: interconnectness of all humanity is someone who has to be
Speaker 1: engaged in some form of social revolution, who has to
Speaker 1: be engaged in trying to free people, help people free
Speaker 1: themselves so that they can engage in their own humanity,
Speaker 1: and so add to your own humanity in turn. And
Speaker 1: when it comes to the commons common ownership, you know,
Speaker 1: the reversal of the enclosure movement socialization, but if you
Speaker 1: want to call it, that is also something that ultimately
Speaker 1: is about the bonds between people, about the distribution of
Speaker 1: the means of production and of the fruits of all
Speaker 1: of our labor, so that all can enjoy, so that
Speaker 1: all can have fested interest in our collective prosperity. When
Speaker 1: it comes to you know, community work, you know, unto
Speaker 1: is about this idea that we can work together, you know,
Speaker 1: in growing our food and distributing when we need um.
Speaker 1: This idea that being a mother or being a father,
Speaker 1: being a parent, it's not just about being that to
Speaker 1: your own biological children, but rather in recognizing that we
Speaker 1: are all connected in that we it's it's like a
Speaker 1: it's I can understanding that there should not be this
Speaker 1: idea of all funds right, this idea that we're all
Speaker 1: meant to look out for each other, that no person
Speaker 1: is meant to be cut off from the sort of
Speaker 1: care that is necessary for carrying into fully realized So
Speaker 1: I mean even in the realm of education, you see
Speaker 1: potential applications if we're going to and recognizing that everyone
Speaker 1: has different skills and strengths, that people are not isolated,
Speaker 1: and that through mutual support they can help each other
Speaker 1: to complete themselves. As Autry Tang argues, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think there needs to be an education that recognizes the
Speaker 1: importance of community, society, and environmental well being, one that
Speaker 1: emphasizes the connection between all those things, one that involves interaction, participation, recognition, respect,
Speaker 1: and inclusion as core tenants of the learning process, of
Speaker 1: students learning from facilitators and the facilitators learning from students,
Speaker 1: of recognizing that we hold both positions, and that those
Speaker 1: positions are held from the moment we're born to the
Speaker 1: moment one we eventually pass on as rich as the
Speaker 1: potential of Unto. Maybe I don't want to put it
Speaker 1: out as if it's some sort of like flawless and
Speaker 1: perfect philosophy, right, it's not above critique, it's not immune.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned before, it's hierarchical interpretations and applications. It's
Speaker 1: very much right for liberal sensibilities, as we've seen Departments
Speaker 1: of State speaking of Untu diplomacy and Bunto foreign policy.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of thing. Some kanas idea that you know,
Speaker 1: part of a buontoo is that the king oways a
Speaker 1: status including all the powers associate with it to wild
Speaker 1: people under him. I mean right now and for a
Speaker 1: while now, Boons has not had a single solid framework
Speaker 1: of what exactly entails, what it makes up, what it doesn't.
Speaker 1: There's still a lot of fuzziness and inconsists didn't see
Speaker 1: within different people's interpretations of the definition of untu. As
Speaker 1: one scholar in Yasham Booti has noted, there's an interpretation,
Speaker 1: so an interpretation of a buntu that sea is Africans
Speaker 1: has you know, naturally interdependence and harmony seeking. That humanity
Speaker 1: is given to a person buying through of the persons.
Speaker 1: But there's a sort of a trap in that because
Speaker 1: humanity is also pretty messy. The relationships between between people
Speaker 1: can also be very messy. It's not all sunshine and rainbows.
Speaker 1: You know, a broken relationship is as authentically human as
Speaker 1: a harmonious relationship. You know, a broken relationship can also
Speaker 1: be more ethical than a harmonious relationship. Booti points to,
Speaker 1: for example, the freedom that follows from a break from
Speaker 1: oppression that follows from a break from a relationship of
Speaker 1: domination to want of freedom. And of course this idea
Speaker 1: that harmonies relationships incapable of being oppressive is false. You know,
Speaker 1: a harmonia's relationship can be quite oppressive. In the Dynamics team,
Speaker 1: people that are hidden under that veal of Honkey Dory,
Speaker 1: you know. So, I mean there's a lot of there's
Speaker 1: a lot too Ubuntu, there's a lot of good to
Speaker 1: be cleaned, a lot of potential pitfalls to be avoided.
Speaker 1: So you know, take what's the value, leave what's not,
Speaker 1: Engage critically, what's your plans, and have a good day.
Speaker 1: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone meta dot com slash sources. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening.