“Umntu ngumntu ngabantu” – African proverb

We all want to belong and a sense of belonging can only be realised in relation to other people. “No man is an island”, is the western equivalent. Pretty straightforward, right?

Well, no, not really. It is said that before colonisation, Africans were more focused on the well-being of the community rather than that of the individual. I always thought that meant an individual didn’t count for anything or that he/she was just there for the benefit of other people. That in whatever situation, the good of the colony would always outweigh individual feelings and opinion. I think I may have got it a bit twisted. The phrase goes a bit deeper and extends beyond lending your neighbour (if you’re lucky enough to know who they are) some sugar.

The notion of the individual versus the community must be considered. It can be argued, by interpretation of this saying, that an individual therefore depends on people for definition, recognition and validation. If you wear nice clothes, people will compliment you and you’ll feel good about yourself. This sort of thinking though can negatively place the focus entirely on the community and much less so, on the individual. Therefore the focus no longer is on what an individual can do for the community, but on what the community will think of the individual. I’m sure you’ve heard somebody say: “Yho! bazakuthini abantu ngam uba ndingenza lento?” (“What will people say if I do this?”).

Ubuntu places huge emphasis on the group and furthermore on the similarities, group co-operation and upliftment. Before 1994, the focus was on emancipating black people as a group and there was little room for individual indulgences. Unfortunately this has come to bite us on our backs. Presently, there are those who feel they deserve these individual indulgences at the expense of the rest of us.

"The wellbeing of a community depends upon the wellness of individuals and if many individuals feel threatened, then the community will most certainly be disrupted. "

Themba Sono, an academic, says: “African culture has to be made rational and analytical, otherwise we will still converse about Ubuntu even as we conduct blood-feuds among ourselves”. We have to incorporate our African culture into the western society we live in. Although he wrote this in 1994, this is pretty much what is going on around us today. The wellbeing of a community depends upon the wellness of individuals and if many individuals feel threatened, then the community will most certainly be disrupted. I am referring to the xenophobic attacks here. In this case, Ubuntu has clearly flown out the window as the influx of many people has created more competition for jobs and the recession isn’t exactly making things easier.     

We are all affected by the actions of other people whether we choose to acknowledge this or not. Likewise what we do affects other people. The effect doesn’t have to be drastic. Whatever you give out as an individual, you must be able to receive without complaining. If you choose to put yourself first at the expense of others, then you cannot complain if you suddenly feel alienated and out of touch with everybody else because those are the consequences of your actions.