“Africans have this thing called UBUNTU. It is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world.  It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with with yours. When I dehumanise you, I inexorably dehumanise myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging.” - Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

In preparation for my move I spent the afternoon going through my rather enormous collection of books. I came across Michael Battle's book about the African concept of Ubuntu which I read while I was in South Africa last winter. Ubuntu is very similar to the Buddhist concept of co-dependent arising but its emphasis is more anthropocentric. Essentially, "Ubuntu is an African concept of personhood in which the identity of the self is understood to be formed interdependently through community." Ubuntu comes from the linguistic group of languages found in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bantu) and it is a concept that helps us see we are inextricably linked together because it affirms the spirit of the "communal self." 

The three weeks I spent in South Africa were incredibly interesting and I spent time in Durban, Pilanesberg, Cape Town and a few days in Johannesburg. I spent most of my time in Cape Town and was taken by both the natural beauty and the extreme poverty in the Townships. As a child I always heard stories about South Africa because my neighbor grew up there. After I began learning more about Mahatma Gandhi I longed to visit the land where "satyagraha" began. During my three weeks there I spent most of my time with the Indian South African community. It was clear how the legacy of apartheid has affected the various populations. While the spirit of Ubuntu is far from being realized in South Africa I had to remind myself that apartheid only ended in 1993 and the United States in 1982 (18 years after the passing of the Civil Rights Act) was also a very different place. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu on Ubuntu: