Ubuntu/Umunthu and Malawi's Aspiration for a Democratic Order

Ubuntu or Umunthu is very roughly an idea that spouses the view that there cannot be a "me" without an "us". This very simplified expression of Ubuntu carries with it various connotations with cross-cutting and very often inter-penetrating implications. However, because of the Ubuntu concept's deep rootedness within the bedrock of the Bantu people's very social fabric especially as a campus for navigating within a social and material world with some sense of morality, very often the contradictory aspects of this concept are generally downplayed as misinformed or misappropriated usages of the Ubuntu philosophy itself as a vague code for the existential navigation of the community embedded African as opposed to being acknowledged as the very indications tension within the pragmatics of Ubuntu itself as a life philosophy.

As a moral campus, in this case particularly pertaining to one’s continuous sense of responsibility towards the community, Ubuntu looks at social cohesion and an interdependence sustained within and by a flourishing communal system. Furthermore, the fibre that sustains this Ubuntu communal system is relational; that is, inter-human relations essentially what give the Ubuntu communal system its life-force or energy. The nature of these relationship may not and need not imply deep personal and emotional relationships. Rather they require a deliberate framing of a communal worldview or a sharedness of perspective pertaining to the character and nature of the material as well as immaterial world which then informs the basis whereupon a distinctly characterized communal system can be developed, and organized by human relations in order to exist meaningfully within the parameters of that [or those] envisioned world[s]. That is, a constructed togetherness or we-ness or us-ness.

The utopia that accompanies the Ubuntu philosophy or ideology [or even concept] is that the individual is acutely aware of the 'fact' that their existence is without meaning in the absence of others, and secondly, that in working together as a collective a lot more can be achieved, and thirdly, that the benefits of such achievements can be evenly [perhaps fairly] redistributed to all as determined by the relational networks. The implicit perception of which further implies that all human beings or persons within that social fabric are valued and treated as equals because of their selfless contributions to the communal system as well as their intrinsic value by virtue of being human. These would connote very beautiful and wonderful things as the outcomes of this very truly selfless ideology of Ubuntu whose morality seems to stem from the very pragmatics of living as human beings amongst other human beings amidst a world that is not fully comprehensible to any one mind. The communal pragmatics of Ubuntu therefore permits the finite mind to transcend the limitations of an individual human being by generating the existential experience of being amongst others, and seeing one’s contributions, albeit obscured within the mysterious mechanics of communal system vis-à-vis the external world, contribute to collective progress as well as the ‘colonization’ of that rampant, not completely comprehensible world.

On the flip side, Ubuntu’s philosophy is riddled with contradictions. Right within this blissful communal fabric which is relationally based and determined, emerge loci of power and authority, presented and masked as overseeing and guardian entities of the Ubuntu spirit. These entities are not themselves exempted from relationship as very often they are held by individuals who belong to the communal fabric itself. Their ability to render this oversight function often rests upon their demonstrated mastery, however defined, of various elements of the Ubuntu philosophy, and their ability to arbitrate amongst lapses in the communal system or fabric is both as a result of some historical pedigree as well as certain amount of mystery necessitated by the initial recognition of the finite mind of the individual, and the deity-like pragmatics of the fully functional Ubuntu philosophy as it is acted out by members of communal system. This condition necessitates the creation of illegitimate forms of power and authority and material accumulation – and indeed this critique about power illegitimacy emerges from within the Ubuntu philosophy itself which would, if exactly articulated, reject any kind of notions of differential importance amongst human persons. Furthermore, the material accumulation by those in authority also becomes masked within the ultimately unknowable rewards system of the relation based Ubuntu system.

What is of paramount importance to me however is that the Ubuntu communal system is all the time a system that is activated by the continuously conscious political animal called the human being – who, even when not intending to cause harm, is keenly aware of [or at least free to act into] the spaces opportuned to him or her by the varying depths of the different relationships within that complex Ubuntu system. An obviously, these complexities of relations carry within power connotations. That awareness comes with it abilities to act and mobilize various resources of the communal system from the very tangible material things right into the very complex and intangible symbolic things of that communal system. What then comes to be seen as pragmatic contradictions as a result of misappropriated and misunderstood Ubuntu obligations and responsibilities for the person to carry out, are in fact, the mere instances of impracticalities within the very Ubuntu system itself, stemming directly from its relational basis for [apparently organic] communal organization. This is not to mention, the very active role of individuals with considerable influence within the communal fabric to begin to activity prescribe meanings and contribute to the creation of symbolic conventions that further cement, within ambiguities of the Ubuntu communal system, their positions of continuously growing privilege.

The exact application of Ubuntu as a philosophy is in fact the reluctance to hold anything – symbolic, real or both - to any measure of exactness preferring rather to allow the relationship between any two persons to preside over the characterization of that incident with the vary wide goal-posts of inter-relational preservation on the one hand, and communal interests on the other. Here, relational or communal interests or both then determine what description will be accorded to an incident, albeit within the specific cultural system of that communal system. Any designated description, varying upon who is involved, makes different contributions to the culture code within which the Ubuntu philosophy operates. To those who see Ubuntu as the creator of culture itself, it is important to mention that unique historical experiences induce differing implementations of this very benevolent philosophy, and thereby creating unique cultures out of, to sensationally put it, what was initially a uniform philosophy of Ubuntu [if such a thing ever existed at all]. By extension therefore, Ubuntu designates the occurrence of a counter State, counter modernity, and consequently counter democratic practises. Ubuntu’s practical application necessarily would most likely than not create precedence for patrilineal political orders as evidenced in Malawi, both from the inherent description-of-incidences haggling tendencies as well as the brutal instrumentalization of the philosophy itself to maintain or develop privilege. This distinction in my mind is only analytical, otherwise, the logical outcomes of such developments ultimately lead on to the same conclusions already asserted above.

The reconciliation of Ubuntu to the democratization efforts of Malawi therefore entails an acceptance of some core themes coming from the adoption of democracy itself as a foreign system to the Ubuntu one on the one hand, and also accepting an adaption of Ubuntu philosophy one the other hand. In the latter case, the goals of Ubuntu’s philosophy are not foreign to the goals of State or the goals of democratic values. However, the mechanics through which such goals are realized are fundamentally different. Democracy as seen as the custodian of modernity embraces the deliberate articulation and codification of specific practices that sanction the various activities that occur within that system. And therefore the guard against a disruption to the state of affairs is impersonal, and always acting uniformly toward all members of that system who transgress or conform to it in those codified instances. Ubuntu, however, requires for a relational arbitration, that prescribes or imbues an incident with approximated relationally-informed descriptions, and their resultant consequences. The vein of this rendition is not to presuppose that Ubuntu is inferior or superior to Democracy, but rather that Ubuntu need not necessarily be based on relationships especially over the governance of huge social systems such as Nation States as its practice is ultimately inextricably linked to forms of governance that would in the last instance undermine its very spirit. It is important to note that democracy as an adopted system was arguably preferred because it seemed to silently champion the values of Ubuntu.

However, and particularly in post-independence upheavals for democratic transitions, the democratic model of governance was adopted in order to check or curtail the excesses suffered from an overbearing locus of power that seemed to undermine the vast entirety of the Ubuntu communal system at the national level. In which case, democracy was the preferred and silent critique of a rogue relation-dependent system which would serve as an add-on to this philosophy of community. I imagine that it would not be impossible to affix this brief analysis to Malawi’s historical archive, and to then see vividly how, intentionally and/or unintentionally, a benevolent philosophy such as Ubuntu could readily contribute, in its pragmatics, to the creation of dysfunctional states such as Malawi, Africa’s Warm Heart.