“Ubuntu” and Mother’s Old Black Bible

In his essay, Amon Munyaneza addresses the individualism and self-interest that pervade contemporary Western and African society. He contrasts the African term Ubuntu, which signifies the interrelatedness of personhood, with the dehumanization and eventual conflict brought on by so-called ‘enlightened’ principles of individualism and self-interest that have been embedded in the modern cultural marketplace. Munyaneza notes that self-interest and the exaltation of ‘choosing for one’s self’ has even infiltrated the church—to the point where churches often resemble supermarkets as much as they do places of worship in their attempts to offer services and products to attract potential customers/worshippers. In contrast, Munyaneza cites the example of his own mother and the truth he learned from countless times reading to her from her ‘old black Bible’. Though illiterate, she understood the truth God communicates though the Bible, the truth of Ubuntu, that our personhood, our humanity, is intimately bound up in our relationships with one another. Munyaneza states his case in conclusion: “…life with one another is more important than our individual or group preferences. Choosing the former over the latter is literally a matter of spiritual life and death.”