Ubuntu Reconciliation

Ubuntu, expressão das línguas Xhosa e Zulu, tem sido uma das noções mais recorrentes nos debates sobre África e os africanos nas últimas décadas. Isso pode ser constatado em diversos campos das humanidades, do direito à filosofia política, da etnografia à teologia, da sociologia ao serviço social, da linguística à pedagogia. Ubuntu recebeu igualmente diferentes usos políticos, em constante expansão e renovação. Pode-se notar finalmente um transbordamento do conceito para outros campos de crescente apelo, como a ecologia, as literaturas de autoajuda e empresarial e a computação. Desse modo, ubuntu parece adquirir progressivamente mais e mais usos e sentidos. Revisando o que se produziu sobre a noção nos últimos anos, percebe-se que compreender seu significado se tornou um problema para um número crescente de acadêmicos, na África e em outras partes do mundo. No entanto, considero que o maior problema de pesquisa posto para o analista não é propriamente definir o que é ubuntu, na medida em que ele efetivamente pode ser diversas coisas. O mais interessante-que é a motivação desse artigo e poderá dizer muito sobre as sociedades e contextos nos quais o apelo ao ubuntu tem sido mais forte - é observar como ubuntu se tornou um conceito da moda, como veio a se tornar trendy. A proposta então será realizar uma genealogia ou história do conceito. Se possível, será interessante também sugerir - ainda que preliminarmente - algumas razões que expliquem toda sua circulação.

In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx famously quipped: " The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. " And yet, I wonder, does this aphorism make sense to a prisoner, especially to an African prison intellectual? Rather than wishing death upon philosophizing, some incarcerated men and women turn to the art of philosophizing with a passion,which they may not have pursued outside the prison walls. This paper focuses on the philosophical reflections of South African anti-apartheid freedom fighters and Kenyan intellectuals who found themselves at odds with the neocolonial Moi regime. Furthermore, the African principle of Ubuntu (connoting communalism and dignity) will be explored.

The ideas for this reader came out of a conference organized through the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER) at the University of Alberta in 2013. With the high expansion of global citizenship education scholarship in the past 15 or so years, and with most of this scholarship produced in the west and mostly focused on the citizenship lives of people in the so-called developing world, or selectively attempting to explain the contexts of marginalized populations in the west, the need for multidirectional and decolonizing knowledge and research perspectives should be clear. Indeed, the discursive as well as the practical constructions of current global citizenship education research cannot fulfill the general promise of learning and teaching programs as social development platforms unless the voices of all concerned are heard and validated. With these realities, this reader is topically comprehensive and timely, and should constitute an important intervention in our efforts to create and sustain more inclusive and liberating platforms of knowledge and learning. " This collection of cutting-edge theoretical contributions examines citizenship and neo-liberal globalization and their impacts on the nexus of the local and global learning, production of knowledge, and movements of people and their rights. Case studies in the collection also provide in-depth analysis of lived experiences that challenge the constructed borders, which derive from colonial and imperial restructuring of the contemporary world and nation-states. The contributors articulate agency in terms of both resistance and proactive engagement toward the construction of an alternative world, which acknowledges equality, justice and common humanity of all in symbiosis with the social and natural environment. It is a valuable reader for students, scholars, practitioners, and activists interested in the empowering possibilities of decolonized global citizenship education. "

The common conception of Ubuntu/Botho is that it is a theory of African humanism. Many reasons suggest however, that its application and understanding in the contemporary socio-political imagination in societies where Ubuntu/Botho is preached, is merely as a practical ideology. Viewed as an ideology, it role as an ethical guide for conduct is also contradicted by the very same practices that constitute Ubuntu. How do we reconcile Ubuntu for example, with the genocide in Burundi and Rwanda or the deeply entrenched political corruption in contemporary Africa? My presentation underscores the limitations and dangers imposed upon Ubuntu/Botho when held as an ideology, and seeks to examine different ways in which Ubuntu/Botho may be applied as a contemporary African humanism that is not tied to ideology. Redeeming it from the shackles of ideology enables its availability as a genuine ethical practice and healthy humanism. In redemption of the concept, I will present Ubuntu/Botho in an historical context as a philosophy and culture of African peoples with relevance for our conversation on diversity, humanism and shared wellbeing. I will explore the role of Ubuntu/Botho as a dialogic philosophy of culture that is mutually transformative. Ubuntu/Botho is thus additionally understood as a healing tradition, a call for diversity and for personal responsibility.

https://ubuntudialogue.org/ubuntu-philosophy-of-dialogue/

God’s intent is for the church to be an ecumenical body, with particular and contextualized manifestations, but always united in the trinitarian love. To prove my thesis, the following paper will show evidence of God’s intent for an ecumenical unity in the Church. It will do so by first, describing God’s intent of unity through Jesus’ words in John 17; second, demonstrating the evidence of God’s intent for unity through the apostolic tradition of the Apostles Creed; and third, depicting philosophical and theological proof of the need for ecclesial unity which is purposed to fulfill God’s mission.

In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx famously quipped: " The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. " And yet, I wonder, does this aphorism make sense to a prisoner, especially to an African prison intellectual? Rather than wishing death upon philosophizing, some incarcerated men and women turn to the art of philosophizing with a passion,which they may not have pursued outside the prison walls. This paper focuses on the philosophical reflections of South African anti-apartheid freedom fighters and Kenyan intellectuals who found themselves at odds with the neocolonial Moi regime. Furthermore, the African principle of Ubuntu (connoting communalism and dignity) will be explored.

Could the TRC foster the Human Rights for the citizens of South Africa. After the regime change In South Africa, the new government faced many problems. What to do with the many violations of human rights during the Apartheids regime. Why did they choose for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission? This research showed that the focus on providing a strong identity of the black population, instead of guarding a victim identity, played an important role to stop the cycle of violence and thereby fostering human rights, as violence and war are the worst enemies of human rights, especially for women.

In his Theses on Feuerbach, Marx famously quipped: " The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. " And yet, I wonder, does this aphorism make sense to a prisoner, especially to an African prison intellectual? Rather than wishing death upon philosophizing, some incarcerated men and women turn to the art of philosophizing with a passion,which they may not have pursued outside the prison walls. This paper focuses on the philosophical reflections of South African anti-apartheid freedom fighters and Kenyan intellectuals who found themselves at odds with the neocolonial Moi regime. Furthermore, the African principle of Ubuntu (connoting communalism and dignity) will be explored.