It strikes me as both fascinating and sad that although words exist in other languages from other cultures to describe this concept of mutuality and interconnectedness, there is no such word in English. I’m not an etymologist and I do know that English is an amalgam of many different languages from both Germanic and Latin roots that add to its uniqueness. But I also know that English is the language of Empire and Colonization and it may just be that there was never a need for such a word. After all, a concept of mutual aid reeks of liberation and Empire can’t have that! That’s just a wild supposition on my part, but it seems plausible, so I stand by it.
The concept of ubuntu says that everyone’s liberation, abundance, happiness, and success is connected. No one can thrive as an individual without being part of the whole. Likewise the whole cannot exist without its constituent individuals. The Great Commandment Jesus gave to Love our neighbor and ourselves reflects this. Interconnectedness means that no one is unimpacted by oppression – even the oppressor.
Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.
Fannie Lou Hamer
Forwards & Backwards
Ubuntu isn’t a palindrome, but (I think) it sort of looks like one. Maybe that is a lesson as well. Palindromes provide perfect and symmetrical reflections, but with ubuntu, we’re talking about people. And people are far from perfect. I like that because I have to be reminded that imperfection is OK. In fact, imperfection can actually become beneficial in community with other people.
The only way we are going to get through the current bullshit and what is certainly going to be more and even worse bullshit to come is in community with one another and ubuntu provides that framework.
I Am Because We Are
Now is the time for us to establish communities of mutual aid, micro-economies, trade, and sharing of abundance rooted in the concept of ubuntu because the systems of oppression are about to get worse and we need to be ready. Not only that, but as followers of the Way of Jesus, ubuntu fulfills what he commanded: Take care of each other.
When the oppressive systems inevitably collapse – whether we are alive to witness it or not – what we build together now will provide the framework for a better future that reflects the Kin-dom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
Ang and I were talking about something like this the other day. With the cost of living skyrocketing, both wages and assistance programs have become less and less sufficient to support many people’s way of life. Even those of us with multiple jobs are scraping and sweating just to make ends meet. Maybe what we need is to return to a communal way of living, so that we might support each other rather than each of us floundering on our own.