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to be inferior to those of other continents. As such, they have wholesomely imported Eurocentric values and embraced them to be theirs. It is not the intention of this writer to denigrate any culture or race but rather to bring to light the often unforgotten good of our culture.
Ubuntu is the African value system.
The word Ubuntu itself is derived from the Bantu languages of South Africa and speaks about the essence of being human. It spoke about how people related with each other and how they carried their daily routines even business.
Ubuntu or hunhu as referred to in Shona was so entrenched in the people’s way of life so much that people used it as a benchmark in governing their relations in every aspect of life. People would be referred to as good citizens if they conformed to the principles and values embodied in Ubuntu and they were labelled as villains if they did not conform. Everyone viewed Ubuntu as a way of life in Africa, and the culture was engendered from tender ages so much that a young African child grew up with these tendencies inculcated in them.
Let’s look at the pillars of Ubuntu and what they implied in people’s daily life:
Honesty
Being truthful to others and self always. It meant living up to your word once you said and the ability to be trusted. Honesty is shown by how people upheld their word and lived to their responsibilities. Honesty was also exhibited in trade and daily transactions between people.
Cheating, stealing from people was a deplorable and grievous mistake that was punishable by the traditional courts of the chief.
This value is still important, even more, in this modern world where rampant corruption is slowly eating into our societies, communities and businesses.
Hard work
Africa celebrated hard work. Both men and women were famed for working hard and rewarded for their diligence. Laziness was despised and abhorred.
In fact, hard work was so respected that people who did not uphold these values found it hard to fit into society. It was so hard for them that marriage prospects were highly diminished.
Women were recommended for marriage according to how hard they worked while men were also respected according to the level of their toil. Hard work was always respected as the man who worked hard always had a perfect standing in society and was awarded a good standing.
Respect
Respect is a basic tenet of human interaction within the Ubuntu set up. Ubuntu is famed and acknowledged for the belief that, “a person is a person because of others”.
This was a rooted belief that made individuals in that system accord respect to one another regardless their differences in many things, like age. It is only in the African cultures where you could witness a grey-haired man in his twilight years paying homage to a sprightly and jumpy young lad yet to start teething just because culturally the lad should be accorded that respect. In fact, if a person lacked respect they were commonly referred to as coming from a place where there are no people, or they would rather say he wasn’t brought up the proper way.
It is important that we revert back to upholding this value within our societies so that we restore sanity in our societies.
Fairness
Ubuntu upheld fairness. A person was supposed to treat other people fairly, including even their servants and slaves. Unfairness was scoffed and looked down upon. Unfair people were labelled in the society and as such they could not be integrated into society.
They were labelled villains and given names as such no one would want to deal with them or work for them. As such people used the right scales and measures in doing business transactions. Upholding such a value will result in less complains from workers, business customers and other colleagues that you might do business with.
This is exactly the opposite of what is happening right now as most people walk away from a business deal feeling that they have been handed a short straw. We do not by any means try to insinuate that our Ubuntu system was flawless but it is, however, clear that it is far much better from the prevailing dog-eat-dog system.
It is important that we start to uphold these values in our daily lives and we could surely do away with most of the problems in our community.
Till next week, God bless you all.
Ciao …
The writer is a motivational speaker. He can be contacted on [email protected]
Online Reporter