THE DEATH OF UBUTHU
Ubuthu is a metaphor that
describes the significance of group solidarity, on survival issues, that is so
central to the survival of African communities, who as a result of the poverty
and deprivation have to survive through brotherly group care and not individual
self-reliance. This practice of collective unity is not new and not peculiar to
Africa. All dispossessed groups wherever they are in the world, Harlem in New
York, Brixton in the UK, Alex in Johannesburg, Mbare in Harare, the informal
swamps in Nairobi subscribe in practice to this concept of Ubuthu. It is a
concept of brotherhood and collective unity for survival among the poor in
every society. It is also called “Umfowethu” in Zulu or a son of the soil.
The cardinal belief of Ubuthu is
that a man can only be a man through others. In its most fundamental sense it
stands for personhood and morality.
When the colonizers came to
colonize Africa, that is, the British, the Dutch, the Germanys, the French, the
Portuguese, the Arabs and all the rest. The first thing they successfully
destroyed was the spirit of Ubuthu. They drew borders all over the African
continent, they sow seeds of hatred between different tribes. They started
giving arms and ammunition to certain groups on the continent. As the tribal
wars burns up on the African continent. They started picking up gold and
diamonds from the ground while the tribal wars were burning. They defeated the
Ubuntu spirit.
The Chinese Ubuthu
When the Japanese defeated China
over 5000 years ago. The Chinese did not become Japanese. The Japanese invaders
became Chinese over time. Why, because the Chinese had one language, one Ubuthu
spirit, that could not be broken down, influenced or diluted. The principal of
divide and rule could not work in China. That is the reason why we still have
one China, undivided China, and undiluted China, with one Chinese language.
They refused to be divided.
The Indian Ubuthu
When Mehta Ma Gandhi defeated the
British in India, he did not have a single gun in his possession. He preached
the spirit of Indian Ubuthu in Hindi to over 200 million people in India. They
all moved in unison with the spirit of Indian Ubuthu and the British could not
stand it. That is how India became independent from British rule. That is how
powerful the Ubuthu concept is.
The trade unions all over the
world where born from the same Ubuthu concept, but in different languages and
different countries.
The spirit of Ubuthu in the
African skim of things is dead. It died many years ago. It has been replaced by
bribery, nepotism, tribalism, favoritism, nationalism and other isms.
Nationalism is a kind of sophisticated tribalism designed to benefit a few
people at the top of the pyramid.
South Africa, the largest economy
on the African continent is in danger of being overtaken by Nigeria and Kenya
in all categories of development, from human capital to infrastructure, from
manufacturing to trade and industry. South Africa is suffering from a
combination of illnesses namely; bribery, nepotism, tribalism, corruption and
others. It’s a malady that must be cured. Once corruption gets into the bone -marrow,
no known medicine in the world can cure it. Denying that corruption does not exist is
being bone-head. Our institutions of
higher learning have been turned into institutions of higher corruption. How did we get here? Answer. We have ignored ethics and Ubuthu
concept which is supposed to hold the very fabric of our being. We have become
vessels without ethics. We have become lawless citizens in a civilized society.
We have become cannibals to our own daughters. We have become a trigger happy
nation, regardless of who we shoot at. We have become a nation of animals where
every female is a wife and every male is a husband, regardless of whether he /
she is a brother /sister, father/mother,
granny or anything with a dress. How did
the Afrikaners defeat corruption and bribery during their hay days? Maybe we
need to learn a few lessons from Afrikaners on bribery and corruption. I have
since stopped attending gender related conferences outside South Africa. A
dozen times, I have been asked the same question. Oh you are from South Africa?
You are the guys who rape your own daughters?
It sounds a bit myopic, but that is the truth. Shame on us.
Dr John is an international
consultant, author of 39 books a, professor of strategic management and a
student of corporate governance and corruption.
