Ubuntu comes from a proverb found in languages throughout Africa that translates as, “a person is a person through other persons,”Archbishop Desmond Tutu explains in the foreword. The most valuable assets you can have are real connections with other people, Ngomane writes, noting that in the era of social media, loneliness has skyrocketed. ADADNgomane’s advice is most powerful when referencing the history of ubuntu in South Africa, where the principle guided the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s work after the end of apartheid. “Mandela saw him as a human being still, a man who needed a job even if it was one that dehumanized him,” Ngomane writes. ADADMandela and Archbishop Tutu serve as examples of ubuntu in many of her anecdotes, as they perform grand, healing gestures.

Source: Washington Post January 20, 2020 15:56 UTC