Mandela's Word.

In a TED Talk a South African, son of a white safari owner and who met Nelson Mandela as a boy, eulogised also over an employee born under a tree and brought up in the bush. This employee could turn his hand to anything which, considering his simple upbringing, the guy found amazing. He was also ‘pathologically helpful.’ The guy used this employee as an example of ‘ubuntu’ an African word meaning; “I am because of you”, but that I know as a version of the Linux open source operating system. So how did this employee who didn’t know the meaning of the word school learn so many skills? Could it be because of ubuntu? It feels an almost perverse concept when we’re used to thinking in terms of self-expression, self worth, success, celebrity and hierarchical power that our schools, commerce and politics are structured on. But ubuntu turns them on their head. It suggests a state of being where our very existence is predicated on being in an equal relationship with everything we encounter. Imagine then the employee’s reaction to a broken down truck. He knows nothing of mechanics but will ‘see’ what’s in front of him in a spirit of curious helpfulness. He is both the servant of the truck and its master mastering the fault and serving the truck. He will enjoy his personal achievement and the achievement of the truck in equal measure. He will learn ‘because of the truck’ and be grateful to it. Personal progress, self-expression and self worth will result from the experience but it will not have been his goal, he will have served the truck not bettered it. He will not in his ubuntu relationship with the world feel a jot elevated or more important.

Ububtu shows the disaster that is our education system. In almost every respect it is the reverse. I know precious few people who approach life in this ubuntu way but those that do are immensely capable, knowledgeable and inevitably successful.