U Words for Peace

South Africa, 1994. The Boer War (1899–1902) still rankling. Inkatha versus ANC, AWB versus Everyone Else. Necklacing.

Who would have given Peace a chance?

I can remember Julius Lewin’s valedictory tutorial when, in 1966, about to upsticks and leave our sinking ship, he looked into the future for a small class that included Bram Fischer’s son, Paul. “A revolution is not around the corner.” He gave the Nationalist government 30 years. He was pretty much spot on, in that and in much else. I also remember him commenting at some point that, when the handover happened, South Africa had several advantages over other African countries, namely that, in spite of everything, there was still “a reservoir of goodwill” (i.e. between the factions).

Now Tutu’s Rainbow Nation has become a key player in the conflict resolution industry. (Sorry about the creepy jargon.) Yes, it’s still one of the destinations that carries what amounts to an FCO “health warning” with high levels of crime, abysmal driving standards and the now almost universal risk of indiscriminate terrorist attack. But when it comes to forgiveness, Ubuntu rules and this brings me to my first U word.

U IS FOR UBUNTU.

“Ubuntu” in the Nguni languages (“botho” in the Sotho languages) is a concept that emphasises humanity.

Ubuntu ungamntu ngabanye abantu. Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.

A person is a person through other people.

Desmond Tutu has explained ubuntu in No Future Without Forgiveness (1999, Doubleday) and in God Has A Dream (2004, Doubleday) as “the essence of being human” as a concept in which “my humanity is inextricably bound up in yours”.

“A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good; for he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are…”

Read Further Links:
Dr Timothy Muriti in Practical Peacemaking Wisdom from Africa: Reflections on Ubuntu
and Professor George Devenish’s Understanding the True Meaning of Ubuntu in Politics

U IS ALSO FOR UMMAH

I would have thought The Ummah would also be a powerful force for unity. How does it fit in here?

Now I’m on more uncertain ground and I would appreciate helpful comment.

The OED definition includes this reference: “The flexibility of government in Islam goes back—doesn’t it?—to the concept of ‘Umma’ in Islam, the idea that Islam came actually to build up an Umma, a community, rather than to impose a doctrine” (Jnrl.R.Soc.Arts CXXIV 613/1)

Isn’t The Ummah a concept in which there is also a supportive community? Yet the news, and blogs, make gloomy reading. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown refers, in The Independent to Darfur, where “an appalling number of African Muslims are being hounded, raped, killed and dispossessed by Arab militias - brothers-in-arms, fellow Muslims of the Ummah”.

Divisions between sects seem to mean that The Ummah applies only to that community which shares the same approach to the teachings of Islam.

Is this so? If so, why?