Francia Márquez: what is the ubuntu philosophy that inspires the policy of the new vice president of Colombia – Up Jobs News

Ubuntu is a word that gives name to a life philosophy of great importance and symbolism in South Africa.

In Spanish it translates “I am because you are”, or as the now Vice President of Colombia has adopted it, “I am because we are”.

Márquez explained that he understands ubuntu as a “wager for life” that “teaches us to see each other and build ourselves collectively. To recognize that I am insofar as you are, that our humanity is intertwined with nature, that we are part of it and not owners. “.

But the new vice president of Colombia is not the only personality in modern politics who has publicly referred to the term. former US president Barack Obamafor example, mentioned it in his speech at the funeral of the South African leader Nelson Mandela in 2013.

The president said that ubuntu captured Mandela’s legacy and his recognition of how “we are all connected in ways that are invisible to our eyes.”

Mandela himself had recounted, in an interview, that when he was young a traveler from his country had stopped in his village and had not had to ask for food or water because as soon as he arrived, the local people offered it to him. “That’s just one aspect of ubuntu, but there are many,” he said.

In Africa, “many cultures/tribes believe in the concept of caring for the well-being of others,” says Michael Kaloki, a journalist for BBC Africa.

“For example, when a visitor comes to your home, you want to make sure they eat their fill, even if sometimes that means your family doesn’t have enough left to eat.”

And as Zimbabwean author and entrepreneur Gertrude Matshe explained to BBC Brazil, one way of understanding the term is to think that just as the cells of the same organism are codependent, so is humanity: “We need each other to optimize our physical and mental well-being”.

According to Kaloki, although the term ubuntu is part of the identity of the Bantu peoples, an ethnic group from sub-Saharan Africa, it became popular in the south of the continent.

It is precisely there where some of the populations most affected by the racist regime, known as apartheidwhich began in 1948 and which segregated Afro-descendants by prohibiting them from mixing with whites.

So when apartheid came to an end in 1994, ubuntu was established as a way to collectively heal that past of painful discrimination.

“We were moving from a repressive past to a democracy. The problem then was: how do we move forward as a society, how do we rebuild South Africa,” says James Ogude, a professor at the University of Pretoria, in a recent BBC documentary called “What we can learn from the African philosophy of ubuntu”.

And it was there that the South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu he spoke of ubuntu as a conflict resolution philosophy. Tutu proposed looking into society’s past “to find a value system that will help us with restorative justice, forgiveness and healing,” explains Ogude.

So, ubuntu, as a concept, offered a philosophical basis to unite blacks and whites, as well as blacks from different territories and communities. It was a way of explaining and contextualizing a way of life that has always been practiced in Afro-descendant communities in South Africa.

“Ubuntu is not something that I was taught growing up in Zimbabwe. I learned it by observation, seeing the people around me. I remember my parents always used to say: ‘Do something small every day to help at home, to help in the community, because that builds up into big things.’ So that became my way of life,” author Gertrude Matshe explained at a conference.

And something similar has been said by Márquez about his childhood in Cauca, in the south of Colombia:

“Parenting in my community is based on values ​​such as solidarity, respect and honesty. We are taught […] to value and love the territory as a living space.”

Perhaps the most important thing within the ubuntu philosophy is that it is considered as an interconnection and care beyond human relations.

“It implies that we are co-creators, it is based on the recognition of our interdependence, on the balance of biodiversity.”

“The awareness that our humanity moves beyond the relationship between humans, that is, between humans and non-humans precisely because we are involved in their ways of life and they in ours,” Ogude said.

This is also reflected in the notion of time as a continuum, since it is key to recognize the past of the universe in order to think about its future. Recognize the world that has gone before us to act in our present that, in turn, will be the past of generations to come.

According to Professor Ogude, what ubuntu has taught him is that “what we call alien knowledge or indigenous systems that we have here in Africa, and in many other parts of the world, have a lot of value.”

And it is a recognition that has also been very present in the political discourse of the new vice president of Colombia.

“I am an Afro-descendant woman, I grew up in an ancestral territory that dates back to 1936. I am part of a process, of a history of struggle and resistance that began with my ancestors brought into slavery,” said Márquez.

A recognition that has landed with its work plan for equality with the environment and with the ethnic groups that have been present since the beginning of Colombia as a country.

Hence, at the beginning of his career in national politics, he shouted cheers to the various social groups.

In four years, when Márquez ends her term as vice president of Colombia, it will be known if the phrase “I am because we are” will have had a real impact on the country, or if it will go down in history as a campaign slogan.

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