by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Ubuntu is a beautiful concept of being and living of the Bantu peoples of Southern Africa.
The basics of Ubuntu would be “I am because you are” and while this explanation is very simple the concept goes very deep indeed and permeates every aspect of their lives.
It is my belief that all of us could learn from that concept and its application in all our lives and dealings would make the planet a much better place.
While I know that this may be Utopian, my hope that we could all adopt Ubuntu, and that includes the Ubuntu Linux operating system, would be something to work towards in many ways, I am sure.
The present system applied in the Western world and here especially the capitalist attitude of the individual being the be all and end all is something that we will have to reexamine and change even.
Too many people and especially companies work on the principle that all that counts is them and profit and everything else is a case of “also ran” and this is an attitude that we must come away from.
Many a tribal society works because of the emphasis that is put on the family and the group rather than on the individual alone and everything is done so as to fit in with the group and what it does.
It is the groups that give the child, for instance, guidance in what he can and cannot do and how he is to behave and interact with others of the groups and the People and with the non-human children of Mother Earth.
A similar attitude exists, or at least used to exist, among the Romani, the Gypsy. Alas much of that today is getting lost due to the influences of the non-Gypsy society around them; ways children are confronted with via school and TV, for instance.
The Bantu People of Southern Africa still, so it would appear, even in the cities and with all the influences of modern life, manage to hang on to the principles of Ubuntu.
Modern western and especially European man would do well to take some lessons from the books of Ubuntu and similar principles of other Indigenous Peoples and such like.
If we want to b e able to live well in transition then we must find new ways of living and interacting and that might mean returning to some old ways; old ways of living and old ways of doing things.
© 2010
