Ubuntu, social liberation, and public policy

• In Event: Indigeneity and National Policy in Africa

Abstract

Eritrean philosopher Tsenay Serequeberhan exhorted African philosophers to return to the sources of African cultures as they develop their philosophical works. The languages of different African peoples are sources of African philosophy just as the languages of Western peoples are sources of Western philosophy. Specific intellectuals developed specific philosophical vocabularies to analyze and evaluate human experiences. Thus, African intellectuals must develop distinctively and explicitly African philosophical categories from reflections upon and analyses of concrete experiences of African historical agents who have made and continue to make their own histories, which do not portray Africans only as “primitive” conquered subjects, resistors, or collaborators. African and non-African scholars, journalists, and political activists have frequently employed the Western concept of “universal human rights” to discursively negate African subjectivity or further a discourse of “primitive” African states and societies, e.g., with reference to issues such as female genital cutting, reproductive rights, or stoning African women for the “crime” of adultery.

The implicit, and frequently explicit, developmentalist strategy of economic reintegration is problematic because it presumes the stability and continuity of European and North American capitalist exploitation of the African continent and its peoples, of which development policies are a vital element. Furthermore, with few exceptions, such strategies fail to consider the value of African indigenous knowledge systems, e.g., African concepts of good governance or collective humanity, as part of the reintegration process. This paper will develop an African understanding of human rights and responsibilities using the isiZulu and isiXhosa concept of ubuntu, or collective humanity, as found in texts by B.W. Vilakazi, Herbert Dhlomo and A.C. Jordan.

Many theologians have pointed to the concept of restorative justice as the primary idea behind South Africa’s famous Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I argue, however, that the African concept of ubuntu, with its radical understanding of interconnected humanity and the common good, was the ultimate source of inspiration for the TRC. Further, I contend that ubuntu can be an extremely useful principle with which to develop public policy to counteract the effects of centuries of officially sanctioned racist policies in the United States and elsewhere.

Given the centrality of human agency, social relations of domination and subordination are the result of specific actions taken by specific people at specific times. From the historian’s perspective, it may not be possible to identify each action, person, or moment, but it is possible to identify many of them, and—more importantly—many of their consequences. Consequently, if social relations of inequality are the result of human will and action then the same will and action can also establish social relations of equality. It is only a question of will to take the necessary actions. In this regard, then, culture and social structures are (and can be) what we, as humans, choose to make of them.

Culture and identity are reflections of human interactions with their surrounding physical environment and with each other. In order to change social situations of domination or inequality the groups within a given society must change the ways in which they interact with each other and their environment. This was certainly the objective of the “national” liberation movements that swept the African continent in the middle decades of the twentieth century, as well as the Civil Rights movement that struggled for equality for Americans of African descent at more or less the same time.

In light of the primacy of human agency as the motor of historical change and the challenge presented by ubuntu philosophy, there are practical steps we can take to transform the social structures that have resulted in gross social disparities. I firmly believe that public policy—which for several centuries in American society has been developed intentionally to favor certain groups over others—is the concrete manifestation of specific choices made by people in positions of power and influence. Accordingly, I will conclude with some practical policy suggestions designed to recognize our common humanity and begin the process of eliminating the gross disparities that have been the result of centuries of poor and explicitly racist public policies, particularly in the field of education.

Author

• Nicholas Creary, Bowie State University