Introducing Ubuntu Stoicism book is available at Amazon, my webstore (SA only), Takelot.com, Bargain Books and Exclusive.
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Talking about Ubuntu — I heard Ernst Roets on Tucker Carlson’s Show trying to tarnish the word Ubuntu for his political denigration game.
Let me show you what Ubuntu is and is not.
I wrote a book called ‘Introducing Ubuntu Stoicism: Gain Joy, Resilience, Productivity, and Defuse Anxiety’ to compare the Greek philosophy of Stoicism with Africa’s Ubuntu philosophy.
Here I will focus only on Ubuntu — a Zulu and Xhosa word meaning humility, “good humanity,” or kindness.
First, Ubuntu is a decentralized and sovereign philosophy that one must voluntarily embrace. If you show anything other than kindness, then it is not Ubuntu. (And no university in South African teaches anyone to kill—it would be illegal and subject to prosecution on many levels. If he has evidence otherwise, he should report it.)
Therefore, it is manipulative and dishonest — more so, a denigration of African culture—for Ernst to use the word in a negative context.
No one specifically founded Ubuntu as a philosophy—not academics, not authors. It emerged from African tribes, which, in their sovereign and decentralized societies, developed proverbs to verbally reinforce good virtues. These proverbs promote sanity, motivation, humility, inspiration, meaning, and cautionary discipline.
We grew up on these proverbs.
Various African tribes use this word, sometimes pronounced differently. In Rwanda’s Kinyarwanda and Kirundi languages, it is also Ubuntu. In Sesotho, Sepedi (my language), and Setswana, it is Botho. In Zimbabwe’s Shona, it is Unhu. In Namibia’s Herero, it is Omundu. In the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kongo language, it is Kimutu. The list goes on across many Bantu languages.
Interestingly, Ubuntu philosophy says nothing about race or promoting racism.
It was not created by academics or authors. The term Ubuntu Philosophy serves as an umbrella for these virtues, as I mentioned above — an innovation akin to how humans have discovered medicine and preserved it within their cultures.
“Ubuntu symbolizes humanity, togetherness, virtue, kindness, and other goodness.”
? Introducing Ubuntu Stoicism: Gain Joy, Resilience, Productivity, and Defuse Anxiety