About 4 years ago, I discovered something called Ubuntu.
Perhaps you have already seen and not even noticed about some report in Africa in which people take food or water donated from some humanitarian aid, and even in this crisis situation, they do not use violence against each other to take such donations, including It is common to see children gathering around each other and sharing donations.
Well, I had never stopped and observed this, until I met an exchange student friend from South Africa, Jafari, and found out about Ubuntu.
Jafari showed me a video of his family and children where he lived and when I observed a child sharing a packet of biscuits equally, I commented on the gesture, which is increasingly unusual in Brazil.
That was when Jafari explained to me about Ubuntu, something that I understood to be a moral concept, a philosophy, a way of living that opposes the individualism and selfishness present in contemporary societies.
For Jafari, it is a concept of collective moral conscience and ethics that guides the social coexistence of some South African communities.
That's when I started to study a little about this collective moral conscience and discovered that it has been widely studied as an ecopolitical alternative for a more just, cooperative and altruistic social and planetary coexistence.
According to the Archbishop of the Anglican Church, Desmond Tutu, Ubuntu can be explained as a concept that I need you to be myself, and you need me to be you.
It means that we are connected to each other, because we cannot speak like a human being, nor walk with a human being or even think like one, without considering that we learn from each other, because in reality I need other human beings, so that I can could be a human being.
In other words, “A person is a person because of other people.”
You, everyone else and I are part of one family. No matter your skin color, ethnicity, personal preferences, we are all one big human family. Therefore, this leads us to not want brothers to discriminate against each other, or to be dishonest, as we are part of a whole.
A whole in which the happiness of the other is my happiness, just as the sadness of the other is my sadness, because we are for each other as we do in our family.
Could it not be a simple thought and at the same time complex to explain?
This is due to the fact that Ubuntu goes beyond a philosophy or even a moral concept. Ubuntu is a genuine and altruistic feeling of belonging to a community, more than that, it is understanding that your happiness is only complete when shared with your fellow humans, it is an opposition to selfishness and individualism as we know it.
So it's not about me, it's about us. It is a collective consciousness that “I am because we are”.
Journalist and philosopher Lia Diskin, in 2006, at a festival in Brazil, said that she decided to carry out an experiment that she thought was harmless. She bought sweets in the city, put everything in a very ornate basket and left it under a tree.
After preparing the scenario, she called the children and explained the rules, that is, the first child to cross the line next to the basket would be the winner and therefore owner of all the sweets.
The expectation was that the children would compete and the winner would delight in her prize.
However, the result was surprising, all the children joined hands and ran towards the basket. Once there, they began to distribute the sweets among themselves and eat in contagious happiness.
By asking the children why they shared the sweets, the winner would be able to eat a lot more sweets. They simply responded: __ Ubuntu, uncle.
And they added: how could one of us be happy if all the others were sad? In other words “I only exist because we exist”.
For the philosopher-journalist, the child's simple response is profound, full of values such as respect, courtesy, solidarity, compassion, generosity, trust, everything that makes us human and guarantees harmonious coexistence in society.
While our society focuses on the circle of individual freedoms, the African idea of Ubuntu rests on the idea of community, that people depend on other people to be people.
It is an extremely wonderful thought when shared among all members of the community, it is a totally different perspective from what we are used to, as we are educated and focus on our freedoms and our feelings, that is, isolated from the whole. While the Ubuntu philosophy is based on the principle that I and others are connected: if I harm others, I am also harming myself and my community.
Mandela explained:
In ancient times, a traveler visiting the country would stop at a village and not even have to ask for food and water. The villagers welcomed him and fed him as soon as they saw him, this welcome is Ubuntu. But there are other aspects: respect, helping others, care, sharing, community, trust, generosity.
Ubuntu does not mean that a person does not care about their personal progress. The question is: is my progress in service to my community? This is the most important thing in life. And if a person can live like this, they will have achieved something very admirable.
It conveys an idea of interconnected and interdependent humanity. One of the notable speeches that embodied the principles of Ubuntu was Nelson Mandela's speech during his trial in 1964, where he declared:
"During my life, I dedicated myself to the struggle of the African people. I fought against white domination, and I fought against black domination. I have sought the ideal of a free, democratic society in which all people live together in harmony and with equal opportunities."
Another example is the speech of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who often spoke about Ubuntu. He emphasized human interconnection and the need for mutual understanding, as no person is an isolated island. It takes a whole village to raise a child.
Three people brought magnificent principles of this philosophy, Nelson Mandela, for example, in his speech stated that "being free is not just freeing yourself from your own chains, but living in a way that respects and increases the freedom of others."
Desmond Tutu, on some occasions expressed in his sermons that "we should care about others", which complemented with the idea of Thabo Mbeki, brings the final conclusion to the conception of Ubuntu that does not mean that people should not get rich yourself, but the important thing is that you share what you have and that everyone can benefit.”
This is why we often see great African athletesI know thatmaintain a relationshipaffection with yourcountry, returning, visitof, actively participating in polityborn ethicsonal and contributing to large social projects, behold, theyare openceded by the skypyriteUbuntu what howmanaged to sucThat should raise your co-celderly, withsharing what you have,thenA person He is a person because of other people.
Comments