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Ubuntu in South Africa

A Sociolinguistic Perspective to a Pan-African Concept

Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu

In this chapter, Nkonko M. Kamwangamalu elaborates on a pan-African concept ubuntu (person-hood or humanness) in the context of South Africa. He explicates the tenet of ubuntu by thematizing interdependence and communalism. He traces the cultural root of the concept of ubuntu and asserts that it represents the core values of the African ontology: respect for human dignity and human life, group solidarity, and collective consciousness. Kamwangamalu then critically examines the use of ubuntu in South Africa, especially in the business sector, and maintains that ubuntu is, first and foremost, a social ideal, not a business model. Therefore, in his opinion, rather than simply commercialized, the virtue of ubuntu should be understood, revived, and promoted at the grassroots level in order to build a better society where people acknowledge and value interdependence and develop mutual respect to their diverse cultures. Kamwangamalu underscores the moral nature of ubuntu and its cardinal principle of being human through others, which echoes Karenga’s thesis (Chapter 13). The belief of actualizing one’s humanity through relationships with others is also shared by Native Hawaiian (Chapter 9), Chinese (Chapters 19 and 32), and Islamic (Chapter 15) cultural worldviews.

During apartheid, language was used as an instrument of social control and division among the country’s various ethnic groups. In the postapartheid era, however, language seems to have become instrumental in the country’s efforts to unite its previously divided communities. This is evident in, for instance, TV slogans such as Simunye, which are intended to emphasize the oneness of the new nation; and in concepts such as ubuntu, which of late seems to have attracted much attention particularly in the business sector.

My aim is to discuss ubuntu from a sociolinguistic perspective. This is not the only perspective from which ubuntu could be studied. A socio-historical study would equally make an important contribution to understanding this pan-African concept. Such a study would have a wider scope to include an analysis of ubuntu not only in the African context but also in the Western context. It would, for instance, focus on the roots of notions such as humanitas (humanity), humanismus (humanism) and caritas (dearness, affection, caring), for they are related in many ways to the concept of ubuntu.

The paper is divided into three main sections. The first part considers some of the tenets of ubuntu, with a focus on “interdependence” and “communalism.” To underline the sociolinguistic nature of ubuntu, these tenets will be illustrated with a selection of Bantu proverbs, for proverbs constitute one of the media through which the virtues of ubuntu were transferred from one generation to another. This paper stresses, as does Tshimpaka Yanga (1996), that “the relevance of ubuntu as a universal African conception of life should not be blurred in unstated attempts to sacrifice a continental ideal for some form of ethnic philosophy” (p. 12).

The second section critically examines the uses to which ubuntu has been put in South Africa, especially in the business sector. I argue that for a society where ubuntu has been eroded as a result of apartheid, what is needed, is revival rather than commercialization of the virtues of ubuntu. Suggestions are made for a bottom-up revival, so that the country can bring first its communities, not its business sector, together and build a new nation, based on the virtues of ubuntu.

Then I consider briefly whether ubuntu is uniquely African, or whether its virtues can be found in other societies and cultures. Using historical facts such as slavery, colonialism and apartheid in Africa, and holocaust and Naziism in the West, I challenge the unqualified claim in some studies that the virtues of ubuntu, such as “respect for human dignity,” “figures very strongly in Western thinking” (Prinsloo, 1996, p. 120).

Ubuntu: A Pan-African Concept

Morphologically, ubuntu, a Nguni term which translates as “personhood,” “humanness,” consists of the augment prefix u-, the abstract noun prefix bu-, and the noun stem -ntu, meaning “person” in Bantu languages. The concept of ubuntu is also found in many African languages, though not necessarily under the same name. Quoting Kagame (1976), Yanga (1997, p. 13) remarks that this concept has phonological variants in a number of African languages: umundu in Kikuyu and umuntu in Kimeru, both languages spoken in Kenya; bumuntu in kiSukuma and kiHaya, both spoken in Tanzania; vumuntu in shiTsonga and shiTswa of Mozambique; bomoto in Bobangi, spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo; gimuntu in kiKongo and giKwese, spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, respectively.

Sociolinguistically, ubuntu is a multidimensional concept which represents the core values of African ontologies: respect for any human being, for human dignity and for human life, collective sharedness, obedience, humility, solidarity, caring, hospitality, interdependence, communalism, to list but a few. What this means, to paraphrase Kwame Gyekye (1987), is that despite Africa’s cultural diversity, threads of underlying affinity do run through the beliefs, customs, value systems, and sociopolitical institutions and practices of the various African societies. Of the value systems, one that is found in most of these societies is the ubuntu system, of which recent literature offers the following definitions:

• Ubuntu means humanness. It is the humanistic experience of treating all people with respect, granting them their human dignity. Being human encompasses values like universal brotherhood for Africans, sharing, treating and respecting other people as human beings (Bhengu, 1996, p. 5)
• Ubuntu is a process and philosophy which reflects the African heritage, traditions, culture, customs, beliefs, value systems and the extended family structures (Makhudu, 1993, p. 40).
• Ubuntu is the key to all African values and involves humanness, a good disposition towards others, and a moral nature. It describes the significance of group solidarity and interdependence in African culture. It places great value on dignity, respect, conformity and reconciliation in the midst of conflict and hardship (Mthembu, 1996, p. 216).
• Ubuntu is the “collective consciousness” of the people of Africa. It involves alms-giving, being sympathetic, caring, sensitive to the needs of others, being respectful, considerate, patient and kind (Prinsloo, 1996, pp. 113–114).
• The concept of ubuntu is understood as a collective solidarity whereby the self is perceived primarily in relation to the perception of others, that is, persons are perceived less as independent of one another, and more as interdependent of one another (Laden, 1997, p. 134).
• Ubuntu is a statement about being human, about fundamental things that qualify a person to be a person. … Being human is achieved as a person who shows characteristics that qualify him or her to be so regarded … Ubuntu is about how you relate to people and is … a fountain from which actions and attitudes flow (Dandala, 1996, pp. 70, 72).

These definitions, and others, have one theme in common: ubuntu is a value system which governs societies across the African continent. It is a system against whose values the members of a community measure their “humanness.” These values, like the ubuntu system from which they flow, are not innate but are rather acquired in society and are transmitted from one generation to another by means of oral genres such as fables, proverbs, myths, riddles, and story-telling. Below I discuss two of these values, communalism and interdependence, and illustrate them with proverbs from Ciluba, a Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire).

Some Core Values of Ubuntu

Ubuntu as Communalism

Communalism is one of the core values of ubuntu. It is a value according to which the interest of the individual is subordinate to that of the group. In other words, the group constitutes the focus of the activities of the individual members of the society at large. Communalism insists that the good of all determines the good of each or, put differently, the welfare of each is dependent on the welfare of all. As Adonisi (1994) observes, “traditional African values foster a communalistic world-view towards life” (p. 311). Nobody in an African context lives for himself. We live for the community. Africa, wrote Sekou Toure, is fundamentally communocratic. The collective life and social solidarity give it a basis of humanism which many peoples might envy (see Sekou Toure, quoted in Gyekye 1987, p. 209). These human qualities, argues Sekou Toure, also mean that an individual cannot imagine organizing his life outside that of his family, village or clan.

The view that Africa is communalistic is also expressed in Jomo Kenyatta’s comments about the traditional life of the Kiguyu people in Kenya. He points out that according to Gikuyu ways of thinking,

What Jomo Kenyatta says about the Gikuyu people is equally true of any ethnic group in Africa whose ways of life are governed by ubuntu. From Dakar in Senegal to Addis-Ababa in Ethiopia, and from Cairo in Egypt to Pretoria in South Africa, one finds evidence of ubuntu and of one of its cardinal virtues, communalism, in particular. One must admit, though, that as a result of contacts with Western cultures, communalism is perhaps not as much practiced in urban Africa as it is in rural Africa. Comparative studies of ubuntu might shed light on the extent to which communalism is practiced in these areas. It suffices to note, however, that “in Africa, communalism is a strong and binding network of relationships” (Mthembu, 1996, p. 220). Children, for example, belong not only to their biological parents, but are also under the authority and control of any adult in the community. Kinship terms attest to the nature of the relationships that bind the members of a community together. In South Africa and elsewhere in the continent, a member of a community can use the term sister, for instance, to refer to any female and not necessarily to one’s sibling. Similarly, children are taught from young age that they must refer to anyone who is the same age as their father/mother as father/mother, and never to call such people by their names as this would be considered disrespectful.

In what remains of traditional Africa, communalism as core value of the ubuntu system is taught not at school but rather through oral genres such as proverbs, fables, riddles, etc. The following Ciluba proverbs are illustrative. They clearly underscore the rationale behind communalism and support the point that Gyekye (1987) makes in relation to Akan proverbs in Ghana, “that extreme individualism could not thrive in traditional African culture; and that in spite of individual talents and capacities, the individual ought to be aware of his or her insufficiency to achieve his or her welfare through solitary effort” (p. 156).

1. Ngonga umwe katu udila pa mukaba [Literally: “One bell cannot ring on the belt.”] (One finger cannot lift up a thing.)
2. Tshiadima umwe tshiadia bangi [Literally: “Harvested by one, eaten by many.”]
3. Nkunda ya bangi itu iboba ne mata [Literally: “Beans cooked by many can cook with saliva.”] (Unity is strength.)
4. Babidi kabakukumi batu bakushiya diulu nsoso [Literally: “If two people fight against one person they will win the fight.”]

These proverbs teach communalism, and unity in particular. One notes that each of the proverbs makes reference to numbers: In (a) umwe “one” is followed by the negative particle katu “not” to stress the fact that one only finds strength in working in and with the community; in (b) umwe is used to stress the fact that in Africa we live for the community, and that what one achieves through individual effort, one must share with the members of the community; in (c) bangi “many” is the plural form of umwe “one” and serves also to underline the importance of collectiveness or unity, much as does babidi “two” in (d). The fact that these proverbs extol communalism does not necessarily imply negation of individualism. Rather, and to quote Gyekye (1987), “communalism is the recognition of the limited character of the possibilities of the individual, which limited possibilities whittle away the individual’s self-sufficiency” (p. 156). The Ciluba proverb Bayaya waya biashala washadilamu [Lit: “Go when everyone is going, if you stay behind, you stay for good.”], for instance, extols individual competitiveness, but it does not necessarily undermine communalism.

Ubuntu as Interdependence

The essence of ubuntu is that an individual owes his or her existence to the existence of others. “I am” because “you are” and you are because “I am.” Mbigi and Maree (1995) put it this way, “the cardinal belief of ubuntu is that a man can only be a man through others” (p. 2); while Bhengu (1996) says that “the person … cannot exist of himself, by himself, for himself; he comes from a social cluster, [and] exists in a social cluster” (p. 2). This interpersonal character of ubuntu is the source of many of its distinctive virtues that have been highlighted in the literature, such as patience, hospitality, loyalty, respect, conviviality, sociability, vitality, endurance, sympathy, obedience, sharing, to list but a few (Shutte, 1994; Prinsloo, 1996; Mbigi & Maree, 1995).

Interdependence corresponds to the concept of organic solidarity, which Emile Durkheim, uses in his theory of social production of culture. Organic solidarity, which Durkheim (1915) contrasts with mechanic solidarity, is intended as an explanation for how modern societies, with people specializing in so many different areas, hold together. What it entails is that these societies hold together because their members exchange services with one another, e.g., a farmer exchanges his produce with the teacher who, in return, educates his children. On the other hand, mechanic solidarity, which corresponds to communalism in the ubuntu system, “is a practice according to which traditional societies held together because the shared beliefs and understandings of a people constituted their collective consciousness, and this collective consciousness governed their thoughts, attitudes, and practices” (Griswold, 1994, p. 46).

Interdependence is valued highly in Africa, much as it is in Asia. However, in the West, independence rather than interdependence is the norm. Consequently, these two values, independence and interdependence, tend to clash when those who hold them come into contact. Consider, for instance, the concept of the nursing home, which is an integral part of the Western medicine but is rejected outright in Africa and Asia. In intercultural communication, concepts such as these can cause a clash of cultures. For instance, Yousef (1978, pp. 56–58), reports the clash between the Thompsons, a middle-class American family and their African friend, Grace, a Zambian student, who found it strange if not downright unfeeling and irresponsible that the Thompsons were planning to put Mr. Thompson’s elderly mother in a nursing home. Yousef explains that Grace’s reaction is based on her having grown up in a high-context culture, while the Thompsons’ behavior is based on their having grown up in a low-context culture. High-context cultures are marked by behavioral patterns of interdependence, and they reflect patterns and value systems of people intensely involved in each other’s lives; patterns according to which members of a household are bound for life in cycles of expectations and obligations to each other and to their extended families, friends, tribes, and clans. In cultures such as these the group, as Hinkel (1995, p. 331) points out, defines and controls the individual, that is the individual owes his/her existence to the existence of the group. Unlike high-context cultures, low-context cultures emphasize independence. Therefore, relationships among the members of these cultures are looser and less binding than is the case in high-context cultures. Like other virtues of ubuntu (e.g. communalism, conviviality, etc.), in traditional Africa interdependence is taught through oral genres, as illustrated in the following Ciluba proverbs.

1. Muntu apa muntu apa ki mbowa [Lit: “A man here a man there means no fear.”] (We can achieve anything if we support one another.)
2. Mwena mutumba mmwanenu [Lit: “A neighbor is a sibling.”] (Care for your neighbors in the same was as you do for your siblings.)
3. Bukwata nyanebe mbukukwata [Lit: “Your friend’s problem is your problem.”]
4. Bubedi bwa disu mbubedi bwa diulu [Lit: “The sickness of the eye is the sickness of the nose.”] (Your neighbor’s problem is your problem.)

These proverbs indicate the value of mutual aid and interdependence as necessary conditions not only for an individual’s welfare, but also for the welfare of the community as a whole. Interdependence has implications for South African society, and particularly for the walls that apart-heid erected among the country’s communities. For instance, if neighbors treat one another as siblings in the ubuntu sense, as Bhengu (1996) puts it, “regard my neighbors’ mind as an open book of discovered knowledge, recognize my neighbors as the reverse side of an entity to which I am the obverse” (p. 3), the walls that apartheid erected among the communities will not take long to come down. Bringing these walls down is, in my view, one of the most serious challenges that post-apartheid South Africa faces at the moment.

The values of ubuntu are, of course, too numerous to discuss them all here. However, I assume that those illustrated above, interdependence and communalism, provide a glimpse into what ubuntu is about and how it is transmitted from one generation to another in the African context.

Ubuntu, Culture and the Business Sector in South Africa

I shall argue that ubuntu is first and foremost a social, rather than a business, concept. Therefore, if post-apartheid South Africa is to build a society based on ubuntu, one must first raise awareness about, and revive the apartheid-eroded virtues of, ubuntu at the grassroots level before one embarks on disseminating these virtues in the business sector. Doing the opposite, as seems to be the case, is tantamount to building a house without first laying a foundation.

Ubuntu and Culture

Culture is the socially learned, shared assemblage of practices, perceptions, attitudes, world view, value system and beliefs that determine the texture of our lives as members of a given community (e.g. Sapir, 1963; Bowers 1992). Quoting Peterson (1979), Griswold (1994, p. 3) remarks that when sociologists, for instance, talk about culture they usually mean one of four things: norms, values, beliefs, or expressive symbols. Roughly, Griswold notes, norms are the way people behave in a given society, values are what they hold dear, beliefs are how they think the universe operates, and expressive symbols are representations, often representations of social norms, values, and beliefs themselves. We express these values, beliefs, perceptions, etc. in a number of ways, one of which is language. As Hyde (1994) observes, “though people are not necessarily prisoners of their language, it is undoubtedly true that the way a culture sees the world is reflected in its language” (p. 300). This is because “as people come to value certain things and do them in a certain way, they come to use their language in ways that reflect what they value and what they do” (Wardhaugh, 1992, p. 218). The concept of the nursing home referred to earlier, which according to Yousef (1978) caused the clash of cultures between an American family and their African guest, illustrates how what is considered a value in one community or culture may not be so regarded in another. What people value, culturally or otherwise, is context-bound. Accordingly, “while management principles are universal, the context in which they are implemented is critical to the form and shape they should take in any particular environment” (Lessem & Nussbaum, 1996, p. 11). It is against this background that ubuntu seems to have found its way into the business sector in South Africa.

Ubuntu and the Business Sector

In present-day South Africa, ubuntu has become the hallmark of the business sector. Its use in this sector is, among other things, primarily intended to enable business leaders to understand the cultural and behavioral context in which they are developing their approach to business; to develop management principles which incorporate African values; to give cultures that were previously kept apart by apartheid an opportunity to celebrate their diversity and build on the strengths of that diversity; and to enable business leaders to shift paradigms in the conduct of business (Mbigi & Maree, 1995; Lessem, 1996a, 1996b). Shifting paradigms entails, in the words of Lessem (1996b), “changing management style from dictatorship to relationship, shifting orientation from manager to mentor, engaging in affirmative action, and thereby reversing discrimination and, finally, following the indigenous African management practice of ubuntu” (p. 7), practice which builds on virtues such as those discussed in previous sections, namely interdependence and communalism. The popularity of ubuntu in the business stems both from these and several other ingredients regarded as critical to Western psychological therapies—warmth, forgiveness, compassion, respect, dignity, empathy, supportiveness, co-operation, mutual understanding and a shared world view, ingredients which can be used profitably in the business sector. These ingredients contrast, as Adonisi (1994) observes, with clinical approaches. The latter, to a large extent, reflect positivistic assumptions about people, tend to elevate the individual above his social group, encourage the individual to strive for personal goals, and in the process compete against the very social entity that has brought individuals into being. Because ubuntu insists on the spirit of togetherness, “it is inconceivable that individual careers can be formed and actualised outside of the communal context that provides meaning and anchors in life for people” (Adonisi, 1994, p. 311). In this regard, Lessem (1996b) remarks pointedly that “unless business leaders in southern Africa can tap such a spirit of ubuntu, align it with Eastern and Western management techniques and turn it into a material force for reconstruction and development, they will have no collective or individual future” (p. 187). Accordingly, ubuntu is expected “to transform our economic practices and make us as competitive as any other economy that has transformed itself by discovering the fundamental values of its social context” (Dandala, 1996, p. 71).

The next section looks at how the business sector disseminates ubuntu to transform economic practices and increase production.

Disseminating Ubuntu in the Business Sector

Since ubuntu is now seen as Godsend to help business prosper, management has developed strategies to disseminate the values of ubuntu in the business sector. Some of these strategies include, for instance, conferences, seminars, workshops as well as training courses on ubuntu. The focus of all these activities has been on the teamwork and sense of group responsibility flowing from ubuntu—in contrast to the sometimes destructive individualism and over-competitiveness in Western systems. Besides, books have been written to advise companies on how best they can use ubuntu to manage their business, ensure good human relationships among their personnel and, above all, have a competitive edge. Among the books, one notes the following: African Management: Philosophies, Concepts, and Applications (Christie, Lessem, & Mbigi, 1994); Sawubona Africa: Embracing Four Worlds in South African Management (Lessem & Nussbaum, 1996); Ubuntu: The Spirit of African Transformation Management (Mbigi & Maree, 1995).

All the above is good news indeed, but only in so far as no profit is lost or no company goes bankrupt. However, one must pause and ask: Is ubuntu really about profit-making? Isn’t the basic point of departure for ubuntu the view of man as social being? How much ubuntu do business leaders, as social beings, practice themselves at the grassroot level? Do they, for instance, treat their neighbors as siblings as required in the ubuntu culture? To what extent does business encourage free flow of information within its ranks? From the ubuntu perspective, members of a group or company are dependent on one another for their own welfare as well as for the welfare of the group or company as a whole. Therefore, Khoza (1994) cautions that one cannot cultivate a community spirit, which companies claim to pursue in their business, by withholding information from one another. In short, slogans such as “information is power” (Adonisi, 1994), whose goal is to guard knowledge, defy the virtues of the very ubuntu system the business sector claims to promote.

It seems to me that the efforts to extol ubuntu via published literature, training courses, workshops, and conferences risk remaining a pie in the sky if those involved in these efforts do not perceive the contrast between the virtues of ubuntu and the profit-based modus operandi of the business sector. On this particular point, South Africa is perhaps the only country in Africa where ubuntu is so much talked about. This is understandable especially as ubuntu has been eroded by apartheid and the walls it has erected among communities. In other African countries, however, ubuntu is the norm, it is felt, it is practiced and reflected in the daily behaviors of the members of a community. With the walls that divide South Africa still standing tall, one wonders whether efforts to revive ubuntu shouldn’t focus on bringing these walls down first rather than on teaching companies how to use ubuntu to remain competitive.

I now shall turn to the last part of this paper and examine briefly whether ubuntu is uniquely African or whether its virtues can be found in other cultures. I shall argue that some of the virtues of ubuntu, such as interdependence, may be unique to African and Asian cultures, for these are high-context cultures, as described earlier. Other virtues such as hospitality, compassion, empathy, tolerance, respect, etc. could be found in other cultures.

Ubuntu in Other Cultures

One issue that Western philosophers have raised in regard to ubuntu is whether it is unique to Africa or whether its virtues can be found in other societies around the world (Broodryk, 1996; Prinsloo, 1996; Shutte, 1994). Broodryk (1996) notes that for something to be unique, it needs to be extra-ordinary and incomparable. Consequently, when one considers the uniqueness of ubuntuism, one has to ask whether there are characteristics (e.g., compassion, respect, hospitality, solidarity, togetherness, etc.) which cannot be identified in any other -isms, of which he lists the following: Communism, Marxism, Communalism, Capitalism, Liberalism and Conservatism. After describing the characteristics of each of these ideologies, Broodryk (1996) argues that “if ‘unique’ means unusual, incomparable or extraordinary, then ubuntuism is not unique to one culture, for all people have this magic gift or sadly lack it. In some of us, these qualities exist” (pp. 31–35). Makhudu (1993) supports this view by saying that the qualities of ubuntu or humanness exist in every person, though I must emphasize, once again, that these qualities are not innate but are rather acquired through socialization. Along these lines, Edgard Sienaert (1984, p. 226), quoting Paul Renucci (1953, p. 9), views humanism as

Ubuntu is indeed unique to Africa, where the Bantu languages from which it derives are spoken. However, the values it evokes seem to be universal since they are apparently shared by societies world over, as the above and the following quotations suggest. For instance, Prinsloo (1996) points out that “human dignity figures very strongly in Western thinking, especially in legal and religious contexts and forms a strong basis for (Western) humanism” (p. 120). He goes on to say that “sharing” is also regarded as part and parcel of socialism and even of capitalism where participatory management is or was applied. Thus, argues Prinsloo, “ubuntu shares a world spirit and serves, perhaps, to emphasize this world spirit and remind Western and other thinkers of its importance” (p. 120). This discovery, Prinsloo concludes, can lead to a joint application of principles of human dignity to all spheres of life in order to create relatively harmonious communities. Unlike Prinsloo, and in what appears to be an afterthought, Broodryk (1996) notes that some aspects of ubuntu may be unique to Africa.

There is, as an anonymous reviewer has remarked, the need to engage, at least briefly, in the semantics of humanism to avoid blurring the meaning of this concept. If the first sentence in the above quotation is anything to go by, it seems that Broodryk distinguishes between ubuntu and humanism. To him, ubuntu is an ideology of which humanism is but an aspect. It seems to me, however, that ubuntu can be encoded in English as humanism. Put differently, ubuntu means humanism, the art of being human. Therefore, trying to separate the two, as Broodryk does, is misleading and can create confusion.

If one assumes with Broodryk and others that ubuntuism is neither unique nor “purely African,” and that “human dignity figures very strongly in Western thinking” (Prinsloo, 1996, p. 120), then a number of historical facts, among them holocaust, Naziism, slavery, colonialism and apartheid, require an explanation. How could these facts originate in the West where, if Prinsloo and others are right, there is a strong belief in human dignity and in the values of humanism. This is an important question, but one which is beyond the scope of this paper.

Similar questions can be raised in regard to pre-colonial, equally dehumanizing practices, such as muti and witchcraft-related killings in the South African context. Are these practices ubuntuistically acceptable? With regard to witchcraft for instance, Nekhudzhiga of the Institute for Multi-Party Democracy (Braamfontein), cited in Yanga (1996, p. 17) from The Citizen, 5 May 1996 remarks that:

Besides, how can Africa, a continent which has produced innumerable political human monsters and dictators, have humanistic pretensions? It seems to me that ubuntu (i.e. humanism) is an ideal whose virtues are perhaps too numerous and of too high a standard for any human being or community, whether in Africa or in the West, to conform to them all. Black South African communities, for instance, though well aware of the virtues of ubuntu, have not been able to live up to them, for they continue to engage in dehumanizing practices such as muti, a practice which involves killing a human being for the purpose of using his body’s parts to advance one’s own cause or status in the community. Similarly, apartheid was designed in South Africa despite the fact that its architects were well aware of the virtue of humanism (Broodryk 1996; Prinsloo (1996).

Conclusion

This paper has critically examined the concept of ubuntu and its use in African societies, with a focus on South Africa. I have argued that ubuntu is first and foremost a social rather than a business-related ideal. Therefore, there is a need to understand, revive, and promote the virtues of ubuntu first at the social, grassroot level, to practice ubuntu in our own communities and with own neighbors if one is to build a better society, a society where neighbors treat one another not just as neighbors but as siblings in the ubuntu sense; a society where people acknowledge and value interdependence and develop mutual respect for their diverse cultures. Only after we have made progress in these areas can we claim to be good agents for societal change and for the spread of ubuntu in other sectors including the business and management sector.

The need for developing ubuntu culture is expressed in the following letter, quoted in Sonja Laden (1997) from Drum Magazine (1995). This letter, incidentally, calls for “reviving the spirit of neighborliness (ubuntu) in our communities”:

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