Ubuntu
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- This article is about the South African ideology. For the Linux distribution, see Ubuntu Linux.
Ubuntu (IPA: ) is a South African ethic or ideology focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other. The word comes from the Zulu and Xhosa languages. Ubuntu is seen as a traditional African concept.
A rough translation in English could be "humanity towards others." Another translation would be: "The belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity." [1] (http://www.ubuntufund.org/overview.html).
An attempt at a longer definition has been made by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:
- A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
Ubuntu is seen as one of the founding principles of the new republic of South Africa, and is connected to the idea of an African Renaissance. In the political sphere, the concept of ubuntu is used to emphasise the need for unity or consensus in decision-making, as well as the need for a suitably humanitarian ethic to inform those decisions.
Louw (1998) suggests that the concept of ubuntu defines the individual in terms of their several relationships with others, and stresses the importance of ubuntu as a religious concept, stating that while the Zulu maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu ("a person is a person through other persons") may have no apparent religious connotations in the context of Western society, in an African context it suggests that the person one is to become by behaving with humanity is an ancestor worthy of respect or veneration. Those who uphold the principle of ubuntu throughout their lives will, in death, achieve a unity with those still living.
The term is sometimes employed within church youth groups. "I am because we are" is a phrase that is associated with ubuntu.
References and external links
- A definition of ubuntu (http://faculty.ccp.cc.pa.us/FACULTY/jhoward/southafrica/ubuntu.html)
- Abstract of an article about the relation between ubuntu and the law (http://web.archive.org/web/20030922125840/http://www.puk.ac.za/law/per/documents/98v1mokg.htm) by Y. Mokgoro
- Louw, Dirk J. 1998. "Ubuntu: An African Assessment of the Religious Other (http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Afri/AfriLouw.htm)". Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy.