Ubuntu – I Am Because We Are

11 July 2014

 - “How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?”

Ubuntu (oo-boon-too, n.) means, “I am because we are.” Ubuntu is a Zulu or Xhosa word, and a traditional African concept. It’s a term for humaneness, for caring, sharing and being in harmony with all of creation.

At the Festival of Peace, in Florianopolis, South Brazil, the journalist and philosopher Lia Diskin related a beautiful and touching story of a tribe in Africa she called Ubuntu.

She explained how an anthropologist had been studying the habits and customs of this tribe, and when he finished his work, had to wait for transportation that would take him to the airport to return home. He’d always been surrounded by the children of the tribe, so to help pass the time before he left, he proposed a game for the children to play.