UBUNTU

What is UBUNTU:

It is considered a cornerstone of all African values and a significant concept in African humanism. It entails communal personhood as well as collective morality. My understanding is that in its essence, Ubuntu emphasises the interconnectedness and interdependence of all people. It is about compassion, kindness, community collaboration, cooperation, support and respect). In that way, Ubuntu as a concept reminded me of the Fungal world, where ideas on collectivism challenge individuality. Ubuntu extends beyond the realm of the present and includes ancestors, the spirit world and the non-human realms. As an ethical idea, it emphasises the interconnectedness of all life.

Kai Horsthemke in Animals and African Ethics argues that: “Although African morality has a generally anthropocentric (or human-centered) character, it emphasizes respect toward the nonhuman (animal and natural) world. This relates to the belief of many Africans about their special connections with particular animals, plants, and sacred sites, which may as a result become revered symbols, clan totems, or family emblems or may be utilized for healing or general medicinal purposes. African ethics therefore emphasizes the interconnectedness of all life, between the human and the nonhuman realms, on the one hand, and the human and the ancestral and spirit realms, on the other” (Kwenda, 1999, p. 10; Murove, 2004, 2009).

I have come to learn that the value of non human like domestic animals is determined by their role or functions in the lives of human beings. The purpose are more often guided by superstition.

It would appear, then, that the envisaged concern for nonhuman nature and the
environment could be fostered only on the basis of human benefits and would therefore
not amount to any acknowledgment of the inherent value of nature or the environment,

let alone of nonhuman animals. Nor could the principle in question constitute a basis for
“respect” or a “harmonious relationship” (at least in any deeper or more meaningful sense)
with members of other-than-human species. That is, the immediate and direct beneficiaries
of such a relationship or “respect” must be human beings, whether as agents or recipients.
In fact, in focusing exclusively on human beings, ubuntu is by definition anthropocentric,
as is the popular Sesotho slogan batho pele—“people first.” (I would even go so far as to
say, contra Le Grange, 2012, p. 63, that ubuntu is speciesist. Animals and the biosphere are
essentially defined in terms of human purposes and ends.

As a collective philosophy, ubuntu sustains
not only communities, extended families, values, beliefs, tradition, morals, law
and justice in these societies, but also the patriarchal hierarchy, discrimination,
inequality and stereotyping of women, children, homosexuals, lesbians, witches,
strangers and others (Osei-Hwedie in Jacques and Lesetedi 2005: 154; Ngubane
1979: 78; Bhengu 2006: 33).

African morality (whether religious or secular) is essentially anthropocentric, a matter of
human relationships. Moreover, while the idea of ubuntu characterizes a fundamentally
human-centered concern, ukama, on the other hand, involves the assumption that animals
(as an important part of creation) are also part of the community and relationality that
bind humans together. Apart from emphasizing mutual dependence and a sense of “unity,”
commentators frequently invoke the moral imperative of respect. A significant reason for
respecting animals may be that they actually “embody” deceased human beings. One of
the important pillars of traditional African religions is a belief in reincarnation and the
transmigration of souls, the belief that when someone dies, the person is reincarnated
immediately after death as that type of animal that the person’s people regard as the deceased person’s totem. Other reasons for respecting animals have, even more explicitly,
to do with human survival.

However, adoption of a more enlightened stance
vis-à-vis the nonhuman world and animals in particular would almost certainly involve
giving up the moral anthropocentrism that characterizes many attitudes and practices on
the African continent. This, I hasten to add, need not entail surrendering what is arguably
at the core of sub-Saharan morality—the emphasis on relationality. “I am because we
are” could quite plausibly be interpreted as transcending the species barrier. It is in the
main a matter of giving new substance to who counts as “we.” Indeed, a growing number
of African scholars are aware that anthropocentrism shares many relevant features with
ethnocentrism, and that speciesism is relevantly like racism. The question is whether
those who (after their own liberation) continue to brutalize, exploit, and oppress other
creatures, simply because they can, do not thereby contribute to their own ongoing
dehumanization. Perhaps the minimal insight one could reasonably expect from African
humanism is that true human liberation also consists in the act of human beings freeing
themselves from the role of subjugators, from the oppressive and exploitative relationship
they have with the rest of animate nature, and from dependence on nonhuman animals
at the expense of the latter’s lives, freedom, and well-being

Thus, South African medical scientist Malegapuru Makgoba (1996, p. 23), South African political philosopher Mogobe Ramose (2002,
p. 326), Ugandan indigenous knowledge expert Catherine Odora Hoppers (2005, pp. 4,
5), and South African professor of education Lesley Le Grange (2012, p. 63), respectively,
employ ubuntu as a locus for “fostering human respect for the environment,” an orientation “towards balance and harmony in the relationship between [human beings] and the
broader be-ing or nature” and as “an expression of interconnectedness between people
themselves, and between people and the biophysical world.”

( Kwende, 1999 p 10 and Murove, 2004, 2009)

Horsthemke, Kai Animals and African Ethics
Source: Journal of Animal Ethics , Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall 2017), pp. 119-144
Published by: University of Illinois Press in partnership with the Ferrater Mora
Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/janimalethics.7.2.0119

This content downloaded on 29 Aug 2023

Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/janimalethics.7.2.0119?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents

In this sense I want to use Ubuntu as a critique of Western ideas on individualism and suggest it as a powerful tool to promote social cohesion, empathy and compassion – ideas such a ‘community’, cohesion, collaboration and mutual support comes to mind. It is important to note that community is seen as a way of life, there will exist communal values and practices that would promote social cohesion and mutual support. Words like compassion, empathy and cooperation comes to mind. To my mind the fungal world is very Ubuntu like.

What about interconnectedness in all life is a question I consider when working with fungi.

REFERENCES I used`

Journal of Animal Ethics, 7 (2017) p 120

The Historical Discourse on African Humanism ( Chapter 2)
Interrogating the Paradoxes
Ama Biney

Kriger, M. & van Wyk, R. (2017). Ubuntu: Curating the Archive. Wits University Press

I adhere to the generalised definition that Ubuntu or African humanness/humanism is a philosophical world view that emanates values and principles about human beings, their modes of interaction and their relationship to one another. It includes the natural and spiritual world. The terms ‘Ubuntu’ and
‘African humanism’ are used interchangeably, but it must be recognised that Ubuntu is a profoundly southern African manifestation, although it shares some parallels with the articulation of African humanism in other African contexts. Among the commonly agreed upon values and principles enshrined in this philosophy of Ubuntu or African humanism are: interdependence, dignity, self-respect, respect
for others, co-operation or communalism, forgiveness, sharing and equality.

While accepting this broad definition, one must avoid an essentialist concept of humanism (Gibson 2011: 201–2), for Ubuntu must be defined by communities of human beings who constantly give it relevance and meaning in relation to their own lives.
On Heritage Day, 24 September 2005, President Mbeki made the following reference to Ubuntu in his speech:
A close examination of the central tenets of the values that drive the behaviour and approach of the Afrikaner, Indian and Jewish communities reveal that there are many elements that are consistent with the value system of Ubuntu . . . However, we have not done enough to articulate and elaborate on what Ubuntu means as well as promoting this important value-system in a manner that should define the unique identity of South Africans. Indeed, there has not been a campaign to ensure that Ubuntu
becomes synonymous with being South African . . . Clearly, we have a responsibility to utilise the many positive attributes of Ubuntu to build a non-racial, non-sexist and united South Africa. We also have to use to better effect the values and ethos of Ubuntu in our Moral Regeneration Campaign (Mbeki 2005, emphasis added).
Contrary to Mbeki, my argument is that Ubuntu is not unique to the identity of South Africans and that there are striking historical parallels between Ubuntu in a specifically South African context and the African humanism we find in other parts of the African continent.

RESEARCH READING (copied into this document for further reading/learning)

The present volume is the outcome of Thinking Africa 2012, conceived and
organised around the thematic ‘Ubuntu: Curating the Archive’. The aims of this
particular research project were twofold: first, to contextualise the debate on
Ubuntu – which is often quite a myopic, South African-centred discourse – within
the wider historical context of attempts, particularly by the first generation of
post-independence African leaders, to rearticulate or reinvent African humanism,
either as an autonomous and substantial philosophy and/or as an emancipatory
developmental ideology, of which Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa project in Tanzania has
probably been the most coherent. The second aim was to situate Ubuntu discourse
in the wider historical context of a racist, Western modernity that, in many ways,
created black subjectivity as both an exteriorised form of Otherness – a projection
that plays itself out in the tired juxtapositioning of so-called Western individualism
and so-called African communalism – and as a form of resistance to and a critique
of that modernity. In this collection, we start with the latter perspective.
Given these two aims, a comment on the principles we used as guidelines for
the spelling of the term ‘ubuntu’ is important. In ‘Ubuntu and the Globalisation of
Southern African Thought and Society’, Wim van Binsbergen notes the following:
Over the past twenty years, ubuntu (a word from the Nguni language family,
which comprises Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, and Ndebele) and the equivalent
Shona word hunhu have been explored as viable philosophical concepts in
the context of majority rule in South Africa and Zimbabwe. In the hands
of academic philosophers, ubuntu/hunhu has become a key concept to
evoke the unadulterated forms of African social life before the European

INTRODUCTION

I know that Ubuntu can be viewed as both a function and a critique of Western modernity. This could lead to

. According to Percy Mabogo More:
In one sense ubuntu is a philosophical concept forming the basis of
relationships, especially ethical behaviour. In another sense, it is a traditional
politico-ideological concept referring to socio-political action. As a moral
or ethical concept, it is a point of view according to which moral practices
are founded exclusively on consideration and enhancement of human wellbeing; a preoccupation with ‘human’. It enjoins that what is morally good
is what brings dignity, respect, contentment, and prosperity to others, self
and the community at large.
. . . uBuntu is a demand for respect for persons no matter what their
circumstances may be.
In its politico-ideological sense it is a principle for all forms of social or
political relationships. It enjoins and makes for peace and social harmony
by encouraging the practice of sharing in all forms of communal existence
(2006: 149, 156–7).

Put differently, any human effort to be in a non-human relation is already
thwarted because of its being a human aspiration in the first place. A danger
consists, however, in making the rules into a fetish, one that collapses rules into
what existentialists call seriousness, where one makes oneself forget that human
responsibility for rules also requires knowing when such rules should be broken.13
To evade sociality – and, by extension, the conditions of evidence and accountability
– also requires, then, attempting the same in relation to humanity