A lot of wonderful essays were submitted in this year's edition of the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange. The theme for 2020- I am because you are.
Although my Essay didn't make top 86, I would like to show it to my fellow nairalanders.
THE SPIRIT OF UBUNTU
When I discovered the world’s most critical concept, I was desperate to know its meaning.
Therefore I searched through books and tried to get one sentence that could define “ubuntu”. But
the more I tried to define it, the more I saw that the word ubuntu could never be defined by
anyone on the planet. I then convinced myself to believe that ubuntu was a word that meant that
our happiness depends on the happiness of others and that whatever we do whether great or
small, affects the greater whole. When I had done this, I was very happy, but I asked myself a
question, “What is the greatest statement that has been made about the world’s most powerful
word in human history?” Another search began and I went to its roots, Zimbabwe where the
concept first appeared as a philosophy in 1980. I was shocked when I didn’t discover the
statement there. I pressed further to South Africa and found a write up at the epilogue of the
interim constitution of 1993 where it read, “There is a need for understanding and not for
vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for
victimization”. I jumped to my feet and said, “This could be it.” But when I looked clearly, it
wasn’t there. “Maybe Desmond Tutu the man who made the word popular has my answer”, I
said. I searched through all his writings and statements, but I couldn’t find the greatest ubuntu
statement.
All of a sudden, I discovered that the history of the word was blind folding my thinking. I saw
that ubuntu was not a South African or Zimbabwean philosophy as many erroneously think.
What then was the greatest statement made about ubuntu since time immemorial? The answer
shocked me, it wasn’t far. That statement was made in December, 2019, in a little place called
Wuhan, China. The statement was in form of a pandemic, it was a “pandemic statement.” Could
that have been the only statement of such nature? Definitely not, nature had made smaller
fractions of the statement in times past, but we were deaf to nature. The Bubonic Plague affected
Europe, Asia, North-Africa and Arabia, The Great Plague of London troubled London and Ebola
Virus ravaged Africa. All these pandemic statements focused on minor segments of our greater
circle, earth. Nature finally made the greatest statement, a global statement, COVID-19. When
that statement was made, the Iranian soldier left his gun and ran into hiding. He no longer knew
where the United States was located on the world map. The Boko Haram terrorist in Africa
quarantined himself because he didn’t want to die of that global statement. Iraq removed its
hands from America’s neck because it needed social distancing. So funny, I discovered that
although we shoot ourselves and torture others, we all want the best for ourselves. I discovered
that although the archer fired at his neighbor, he still used a shield to defend himself- he valued
his life more than that of his neighbor. I discovered that the ISIS soldier valued his life, even if he
never spared the lives of others. That global statement showed that we were in the same box and
that the prosecutor could one day become the prosecuted. I learnt that we all no matter how bad
we lived could one day be placed in a bad position either by nature or something else.
Alas! I made another powerful discovery. I realized that the earth itself wasn’t troublesome. I
saw that the polluted atmosphere didn’t pollute itself and that we were potters shaping our own
planet. I understood that we were in a circle, pursued by our own positive or negative deeds. I
found out that those displaced due to wars and those who were hungry due to their corrupt
governments were not forced into such pathetic circumstances by trees. I finally saw that the
hungry man remained hungry only because the man with surplus wouldn’t share. I realized that
citizens of countries couldn’t smile because they were made insecure, not by chickens but by
themselves. I discovered that countries could never be at peace, not because mother-nature was
wicked but because terrorists who were their fellow humans wouldn’t let them.
My mind flashed back to ubuntu again but I was afraid of what my mind pictured. Just then I
heard one of the ubuntu heroes, Nelson Mandela say, “It always looks impossible until it is
done.” My mind was then free to see the “what ifs.” So I began- What if we lived in an ubuntu
world where the poor didn’t have to beg to be given food? What if we lived in a planet where
everyone pictured himself in another person? What if the American didn’t shoot the African
because he felt the pain of the gun shot in his mind? What if we all realized that other people’s
happiness depended on us and we fought to make them happy? What if we all realized that we
wanted happiness and so we shouldn’t make others sad? What if one person’s victory was
everyone’s victory?
A perfect world was all I pictured. Then a powerful quote from another ubuntu hero, Wole
Soyinka, struck my mind. The quote read, “One’s own self-worth is tied to the community to
which one belongs, which is ultimately connected to humanity in general.” I then believed we
could only achieve an “ubuntu world” if we lived that quote- if we only saw our beauty when our
global community was beautiful. Can we drop our guns and shake hands together? What would
life look like after the pandemic? Do we wish to go back to war when we recover from our
illness? I don’t think we should. Let us learn from Mandela who introduced his jailers as guests at
his inauguration. Let us leave the past behind and focus on making today better because that is
“The Spirit of Ubuntu.”
By: Abur Michael