It is out of a concrete expression and experience by African people as a community bound by the same value system, culture, evolution and dynamic adaptation of their human civilization that a timeless African adage was born: umntu ngumntu ngabantu (a person is a person through other people - I am because you are and you are because I am). The concept of ubuntu with its roots in humanist African philosophy is grounded on the idea of shared development, prosperity and future as one people and as a community. Community in this context refers to a people bound by a shared value system and whose future is inextricably linked and intertwined. Thus, a community is a cornerstone for the development of society. Ubuntu as a concept also signifies a common humanity, oneness: you and me both.
Ubuntu cannot be mistaken with the liberal tenet of comparing it to charity or hollow compassion. Proponents of western philosophy anchored on I and myself only have taken advantage of this off-setting of the concept to weaken its transformative character and replace it with activities that seek to display a neutral-blind-eye in the face of injustices, especially when such atrocities are committed in the name of non-racialism, reconciliation and peace. Ubuntu is a transformative and a decolonial framework that seeks to place human life at the centre of life above everything else that is opposed to collective human progress.
Ubuntu is one of our values as Mandela University. Part of our efforts in truly becoming an African university that is rooted in its local community, entails being able to harness and underpin the canon of our education with the philosophy of ubuntu. The new kind of graduate the university will send to society ought to be imbued with the intrinsic value of placing the community above the self.
Umntu ngunntu ngabantu!
I am because you are and you are because I am!
Luthando Jack
Dean of Students