For a period of time, I have tried to establish whether the English language has a set of idioms that relate to the concept of ubuntu – I am because we are.
I recall when we were preparing for Census 96, the question that confronted us was the slogan for counting. In this respect we were split in the middle by race white versus black. The discussions went to and fro on what to use as a catchy slogan – Count Me In or Count Us In. The resolution of the divide was the deployment of ubuntu – I am because we are. So, Count Us In won the day.
The challenge, however, is where there is no accountability the collective concept about responsible leadership is abused. Culture is a central piece of economics. Strip economics of culture and you are left with a dry bone of financialisation, with no bearing on people and the planet, but is solely anchored in profit.
In the ubuntu concept are idioms that account for, act on, and encourage unity against odds. For instance, existing in all Bantu languages are idioms that actualise the I am because we are.
These are “Sejo senyane hase fete molomo”, which translates into a modicum of food is shared among many mouths as well as “Bana ba monna ba arolelana hlohoea tsie”, which means the tribe shares the head of a locust. The Chinese greeting like the Bantu greeting is a question about whether you have eaten. For if you have not, then there is something terrible and it requires resolution. In similar ways the Bantu ask how did you sleep? That greeting bringing empathy to the fore attracts a discourse towards a resolution of a problem. I have been hard pressed to find an English idiom equivalents to these universal Bantu approaches to life.
The public service of South Africa refers to a mantra called “Batho Pele” – People First which is a derivative of ubuntu. The question that confronts us in South Africa is the extent to which the Bantu culture in the form of its universal principles of care are actualised in our economic and social policy designs.
Terry Flew, a professor of digital communications and culture at the University of Sydney in 2009 said, “I refer to cultural-economic geography as that strand of research in the field of geography that has been informed on the one hand by the ‘cultural turn’ in both geographical and economic thought, and which focuses on the relationship between, space, knowledge, and identity in the spheres of production and consumption, and on the other to work by geographers that have sought to map the scale and significance of the culture or creative industries as new drivers of the global economy.”
If we were to factor these in our economic policy, then we would translate economy as that which is in the service of society. The markets would be defined differently and the District Development Model, which hither to has been much about nothing would derive its intended meaning and anchor the definition of people, time and space in their interaction and taming of natural elements in favour of people, the planet and sustainable lives and livelihoods.
Philosopher Morena Mohlomi’s sage leadership of the 18th Century is reminiscent of the meaning of cultural economic geography when he writes about what a responsible leader does.
The critique by Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, a professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics in “Killing Economic Geography with a ‘Cultural Turn’ Overdose” is a crucial read. It does not negate the cultural dose per se, but seeks as Morena Mohlomi points out that new instruments of power have to be sought to drive intergenerational value.
Rodríguez-Pose argues for exploration into evolutionary political economy, economic sociology, feminist economics, and cultures of economics. In this regard the Chinese are known to have embedded the “Did You Eat?” concept in the Ever-Normal Granary as the driving force.
In South Africa, the question is how has the ubuntu concept undergirded our International Monetary Fund – World Bank inspired macro-economic philosophy. Nkosazana Zuma’s District Development Model tried albeit in vain to redefine our macro-economics. It was a gallant effort, but petered out and ran out of steam before it could accelerate. Many a slogan that provinces adopted have gone the same route.
The only development communication mantra that survived is the one in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). It outlived the Reconstruction and Development Programme and the National Development Plan. Operation Sukuma Sakhe that was introduced by Sbu Ndebele has held in KZN and has successfully provided the baby steps towards a definition of ubuntu as an anchor for cultural economic geography.
We need new instruments of power to guarantee intergenerational value. We have to search for development in our Bantu language evolution – the non-Bantu languages miss the development concept of the Bantu. They would not as they were destined to conquer and destroy the Bantu anyway.
Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a research associate at Oxford University, a board member of the Institute for Economic Justice at Wits, and a distinguished alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of South Africa.
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