Ubuntu. /oǒ'-boǒn-toō
“I am because we are.”
This is a word I first encountered when I went to university way back in the early 80s. A word used by people in my country that I hadn't, until then, had much direct or personal connection with, despite the fact they constituted 95% of the population of my country: Black people. It was South Africa during the beginning of the end of Apartheid. And I was a hitherto relatively sheltered white girl, who was living and learning in an integrated mixed race environment for the first time.
A powerful word. A life-altering discovery for teenage-me: it felt like a homecoming. This is a word that describes an orientation to life that has guided my life, even before I knew it, and continues to do so today.
Ubuntu is defined as a philosophical approach that emphasises social unity and generosity of spirit. It's a South African ideology that focuses on people's allegiances and relations with each other.
It's a philosophy of connection and interdependence that derives from a Nguni word meaning “the quality of being human.”
How amazing is that? The quality of being human that is founded in our connection and interdependence. We have no equivalent word in English that I'm aware of.
To the observer, ubuntu can be seen and felt in the spirit of willing participation, unquestioning cooperation, warmth, openness, and personal dignity.
“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.” ~Desmond Tutu
It's everything that conscious collaboration's about for me. Everything that Turquoise Flame is about. The foundation. The north star. Our truth, our touchstone, our raisons d’être.
“One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu – the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can’t be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity of spirit. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.” ~Desmond Tutu
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