It Could Happen Here - Ubuntu ft. Andrew

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

Andrew talks about the revolutionary anti-colonial potential of Ubuntu and how its liberal Christian cooption can be overcome.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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AT&T, connecting changes everything. Hello, everyone, and welcome to 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. And not the Linux software, but the African philosophy. Ubuntu is a philosophical concept, for those who don't know, derived from some of the diverse and dispersed indigenous traditions of the roughly 360 million Bantu-speaking peoples of Africa.

Bantu, coming from the Zulu word for people, is a language family spoken by approximately 400 distinct ethnic groups and split into approximately 440 and 680 distinct languages slash dialects born as a result of the great ban to migrations that occurred in two major waves about 3 000 and 2 000 years ago across contrary to the maxim i think therefore i am ubuntu roughly translated from the gunibantu languages like osa and zulu means humanity and more specifically humanity towards others i am because you are there are of course various names for the concept from language to language and ethnic group to ethnic group including Boto, Muntu, Omundu, Bato, Utu etc but Ubuntu is definitely the most prominent and internationally recognized. According to the African Journal of Social Work

Ubuntu is a collection of values and practices that people of Africa or of African origin view as making people authentic human beings. While the 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 um what's any specific culture what's any specific ethnic group i think we'll find these sort of mirroring uh 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 ubuntu has been in existence from as early as the mid-19th 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 worldview, Ubuntu really was popularized in the 1950s, most notably in the writings of Jordan Cush and Ngomane, published in the African Drum Magazine. From then into the 1970s, Ubuntu began to be used as a specific form of African humanism. because of course in that 60s and 70s period you had a lot of Afrocentric and Pan-African and Black Power ideas coming to prominence around the world.

This of course also coincided with the period of decolonization or rather formal political independence that was taking place in the 1960s, 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 has not really been complete, and in many ways, the post-colonial status is equivalent to the colonial status but

in some ways some leaders were trying to pursue uh sort of a new african specific humanism as a philosophy for the burgeoning countries at the time. Is this a part of the episode where we tell everyone to read Fanon again? Of course. Read Fanon, read Césaire. What I found interesting is that this term Ubuntu, this idea of Ubuntu, particularly found, it was particularly picked up in Zimbabwe

and in South Africa in a very specific context where there was a transition to majority rule in 1980 Ubuntu-ism or Hunhu-ism was presented as the political ideology of

newly independent Zimbabwe a guy named Stan Lake JWT Samkange um published a treatise basically on Hunhuism or Buntuism or Zimbabwe indigenous political philosophy and he was basically trying to outline what the three major maxims that shade his philosophy should be of course i would note that his interpretation being a statesman was notably hierarchical but for the reasons i will go into a bit later i don't believe that makes the core of ubuntu necessarily hierarchical but the three maxims that he had in mind for Ubuntuism or Hunhuism was that to be human is to affirm one's humanity by recognizing the humanity of others and on that basis, establishing respectful human relations with them.

The second maxim means that if and when one is faced with a decisive choice between wealth and the preservation of life of another human being, then one should opt 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. I think that's where you get, most prominently, this sense of hierarchy that would pervade certain interpretations of Ubuntu. This idea of a sort of a benevolent rulership, that these benevolent statesmen and kings and prime ministers or presidents, that they would just exercise in the will of the people.

And of course, this is a mythology that is interpreted and reinterpreted across various different regimes. that is interpreted and reinterpreted across various different regimes. In South Africa in the 1990s, Ubuntu as a concept was used as sort of a guiding ideal for the transition from apartheid to majority rule. I think around this time is when the international community started to hear more about the term Ubuntu, particularly as it appears in the epilogue of the Interim Constitution of South Africa, published in 1993. There's a need for understanding, but not for vengeance. A need for reparation, but not for retaliation.

A need for Ubuntu, but not for victimization. End quote. for victimization end quote 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 Ubuntu. Yeah. They kind of brought in bank of America instead, which didn't go great. All right. Yeah, they do.

It's very, um, it's very big. Oh, it's in Kenya, Rwanda, it's Ubuntu, I think. Um, but like, you'll see the phrase or that word a lot around Rwanda. And like, if you go to the Kigali genocide Memorial museum, you'll see it phrase or that word a lot around Rwanda. And like, if you go to the Kigali genocide memorial museum, you'll see it a lot there. Right. Like that is the country that has, with some authoritarian issues,

like has put aside the differences, which had previously allowed the genocide to happen, I guess. I think that's fair to say. Yes. Yes. That's what the Tutsi and the. Hutu.

Yeah. Yeah. And the Twa who often get missed out. Yeah. But they, yeah. Tragedy. Yeah.

Terrible, terrible thing. If people ever go to Rwanda, I would highly recommend going to Rwanda. Like the Kigali genocide memorial museum is an important thing. It's a very, very well curated museum of yeah like you said a terrible terrible thing that happened in South Africa the transition

to democracy and Nelson Mandela's presidency in 1994 like I said really brought the term to more well-known outside 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 um a preacher he sort of uh advocated uh ubuntu theology that was really formative in the development of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He sort of moved the idea of Ubuntu from simply an African philosophy based on African values of 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, anchoring Ubuntu into the Christian ideals of forgiveness and reconciliation

as gifts from God for peaceful communal coexistence um and i'm hopefully not being too offensive when i say this um to me that's a quintessential example of how christian pacification hampers decolonization efforts because I've seen often that Christian notion of forgiveness and reconciliation turns the blame onto the victims for not forgiving and expects little to nothing

from the offender except maybe an apology often it's not even any restitution or reparations and so for all the talk of Ubuntu, theological Ubuntu and otherwise, the situation in South Africa is still very much whack. I think that idea that, oh well, this is in the past, it's over, get over it, kind of thing is problematic and it's something that needs to be resolved. The thing, sort of decolonization is going to take place. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. filling brushes with supernatural creatures.

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Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Right, so putting aside the theological applications some problematic theological applications the ubuntu worldview is echoed in some senses worldwide

you know social ecology when we view your mutual aid all these concepts point to our interconnectedness as people uh and really point to the interconnectedness that we have as people that our systems are most certainly not built to support. We see that in capitalism. You know, capitalism doesn't embrace the interconnectedness 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 sake of survival. from ourselves and from others so we must compete and stuff for the sake of survival um 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 is based on mutual aid or ubuntu you know rather than working together working harmoniously having access to means of production and sharing in an equally um place and situation of a feud of competition of struggling constantly and being squeezed and wrung out for whatever uh our boss is gonna get from us yeah it's when you said like earlier that uh one of the key tenets was right like

recognizing humanity and other people affirms your own humanity um i might be paraphrasing that but like that's exactly what capitalism doesn't do it just just sees people as a tool to create more capital or to create more income. It doesn't recognize humanity. It sees you as a means, not an end, right? Exactly. And I mean, unlike in a communal system where your service to others is 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 uh out of the goodness of our hearts or or as part of a system a sort of a network of support a safety net uh or anything it's just clawing towards survival you know disconnected from the well-being of the whole yeah very much so everything around us has been you know manufactured it's been transported it's been assembled and sold by other people right people just like us workers just like us

um those people have lives just like ours they have all the same struggles that we do um but instead of relating to these people instead of really sharing the fruits of our labor we relate into the things that we have to buy and we don't see the working people behind them yeah i think another aspect of it is that, which I find particularly strange about, you know, the Hunhuism or Ubuntuism that Samkange was trying to advocate, is that I don't believe that Ubuntu or mutual aid or any of the principles that Ubuntu exposes is something that the state is compatible with. that Ubuntu exposes is something that the state is compatible with. I don't think the state is compatible with the acknowledgement of one's responsibility to their fellow humans and the world around them. You know, the state is built on exclusion, on domination, on deprivation, on the hierarchical division of the state, generating this sort of inequality

in decision-making power and influence over our own affairs. this sort of inequality in decision-making power and influence over our own 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 and the community, and about how all people are connected in a way that is meant to support and add to and contribute and glean 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 uh over others i mean part of that humanity has to entail freedom to self-organize 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 and how can those others who are depriving certain 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 same thing with um the system i mean with the capitalism with the state i mean with cis-heteropatriarchy which also elevates some people above others and denies those marginalized others full access to their humanity um 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, this goes without saying, but what could be more incompatible with Ubuntu than colonialism? You know, it doesn't simply deny the humanity of those it exploits, but it also strips the humanity it exploits. deny the humanity of those that exploit but it also strips the humanity the exploiters i mean as ms is there my reference to earlier wrote in discourse on colonialism colonization works to de-civilize the colonizer to brutalize him in the sense of the in the true sense of the word to degrade him and to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral 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 Madagascan is tortured and in France, they accept the fact. Civilization acquires another dead weight. A universal regression takes place. A gangrene sets in. A center of infection begins to spread. And that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these

punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and interrogated, all these patriots have been tied up and interrogated, all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that 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 Césaire. That was great. Yeah yeah it was very good yeah so i mean i think there's a lot of potential in the interpretation of ubuntu 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 is value to be gleaned from indigenous understandings there's power in finding our roots to secure our future and whether in a partnership an 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 societal environmental and spiritual world

is vital the process of social revolution of confronting the powerful through protests and occupations and reclamations and expropriations uh and refusing to cooperate with the powers that be through strikes and boycotts and mutinies and other forms of interaction and in building new institutions like cooperatives and popular assemblies and other forms of interaction, and in building new institutions like cooperatives and popular assemblies and libraries of things. All of those things, all those aspects of social revolution allow us to assert ourselves, to recognize the mutual and egalitarian connection of all people.

You know, a person with Ubuntu is open and available to others is affirming to others and feel threatened that others are able and good and so by recognizing with Ubuntu you know recognizing that you're 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 Ubuntu, someone who recognizes the interconnectedness 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 whatever 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 a vested interest in our collective prosperity. Welcome, I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. MTV's official challenge podcast is back for another season. That's right. The challenge is about to embark on its monumental 40th season, y'all. And we are coming along for the ride.

Woo-hoo. That would be me, Devin Simone. And then there's me, Davon Rogers. And we're here to take you behind the scenes of, drumroll please. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Challenge 40, Battle of the Eras. Yes. Each week, cast members will be joining us to spill all of the tea on the relentless challenges,

heartbreaking eliminations, and of course, all the juicy drama. And let's not forget about the hookups. Anyway, regardless of what era you're rooting for at home, everyone is welcome here on MTV's official challenge podcast. So join us every week as we break down episodes of the Challenge 40 Battle of the Eras. Listen to MTV's official challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Thank you. listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. When it comes to, you know, community work,

you know, Ubuntu is about this idea that we can work together, you know 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 way it's it's like a connected in that way it's it's like a it's like an understanding that there should not be this idea of orphans 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 Korean to a fully realized person. I mean, even in the realm of education, you see potential applications of Ubuntu in 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. and that through mutual support they can help each other to complete themselves. As Audrey Tang argues, I mean, I think there needs to be an education that recognizes the importance of community, societal and environmental well-being. One that emphasizes the connection between all those things. 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. 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 we eventually pass on as rich as the potential of ubuntu may be 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 to hierarchical interpretations and applications it's very much ripe for liberal sensibilities as we've seen departments of state speaking of ubuntu diplomacy and ubuntu foreign policy and that sort of thing. Sam Kange's idea that, you know, part of Ubuntu is that the king owes a status, including all the powers associated with it, to the will of the people under him.

I mean, right now, and for a while now, Ubuntu has not had a single solid framework of what exactly it entails, it makes up what it doesn't um there's still a lot of fuzziness and inconsistency within different people's interpretations of the definition of ubuntu uh as one scholar nyasha mboti has noted there's an interpretation a certain interpretation of ubuntu that sees africans as you know naturally interdependent and harmony seeking that humanity is given to a person by and through other 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 um boti points to for, the freedom that follows from a break from oppression, that follows from a break from a relationship of domination to one of freedom. And of course, this idea that harmonious relationships are incapable of being oppressive is false. false you know a harmonious relationship can be quite oppressive um in the dynamics between people that are hidden under that veil of hunky-dory you know so i mean there's a lot of there's a lot to ubuntu there's a lot of good to be gleaned a lot of uh potential pitfalls to be avoided um so you know take what's of value leave what's not engage critically what's your plan gleaned a lot of potential pitfalls to be avoided. So, you know, take what's of value, leave what's not, engage critically.

What's your plans? And have a good night. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.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 coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to

Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. iHeart Podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series,

Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.