UBUNTU: How do your virtues and values compare? Ubuntu or "uMunthu" (Chichewa) and "Botho" (Setswana) is a southern African ethic focusing on people's positive relations with each other. "I am what I am because of who we all are." (Leymah Gbowee) 'A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated, diminished, or oppressed... You are known for your generosity, kindness, compassion and honesty.' ( Desmond Tutu) 'A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. Are you going to do well in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve?' (Nelson Mandella) Botho defines a process for earning respect by first giving it. It encourages people to applaud rather than resent those who succeed. It disapproves of anti-social, disgraceful, inhuman and criminal behavior, and encourages social justice for all. UMunthu the African worldview is about living as one family, belonging to God. "We say 'I am because we are', or in Chichewa kali kokha nkanyama, tili awiri ntiwanthu (when you are on your own you are as good as an animal of the wild; when there are two of you, you form a community) ... (your neighbor's child is your own, his/her success is your success too). In Rwanda and Burundi, ubuntu means, among other things, 'human generosity' as well as humanity. In Rwanda and Burundi to "have consideration and be humane" towards others; thus it has the extended meanings of 'generosity' and 'free, given at no cost'. It also has the general meaning of "human's essence", as it will be said of a person who shows no mercy nor consideration to others that they are an animal (igikoko, inyamaswa). In Kitara, a dialect cluster spoken by the Nyankore, Nyoro, Tooro, and Kiga of western Uganda and also the Haya, Nyambo and others of northern Tanzania, obuntu refers to the human characteristics of generosity, consideration and humane-ness towards others in the community. In Kiswahili, a language spoken throughout the coast of East Africa and some of Kenya, the word may refer to "utu", which means humanness. It is a concept that condemns acts and deeds that seem unfair even in the slightest. The Bantu speakers of East Africa are believed to have originated from the Congo basin and in pre-colonial times "utu" was the main philosophy governing them. It meant that everything that was done was for the benefit of the whole community. In Luhya (umundu), Kikuyu (undu), Kamba, Meru (untu) and Kisii languages, spoken mainly in the Western, Central, Eastern and Nyanza provinces of Kenya, the "umundu" stands for humanness or the act of being humane to other human beings and to nature in general. In the Shona language, ubuntu is unhu. The concept of ubuntu is viewed the same in Zimbabwe as in other African cultures. There are three maxims of Ubuntuism: 1) The first maxim asserts that 'To be human is to affirm one's humanity by recognizing the humanity of others and, on that basis, establish respectful human relations with them.' 2) And 'the second maxim means that if and when one is faced with a decisive choice between wealth and the preservation of the life of another human being, then one should opt for the preservation of life'. 3) The third 'maxim' as a 'principle deeply embedded in traditional African political philosophy' says 'that the king owed his status, including all the powers associated with it, to the will of the people under him'. While sharing is incorporated within "unhu", it is only one of the multiplicity of virtues within "unhu."

• published: 05 Mar 2013
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