– By Bijoya Sawian
The other day a friend of mine emailed me a FW that left a deep impression in my mind. The more I thought of it the more I am convinced that it is, most certainly, one of the many teachings that we have cast away and, therefore, left ourselves impoverished. It is a gem worth sharing.
‘An anthropologist proposed a game to the children of an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruits near a tree some distance away. Then he told the children that the first one who got to the tree would win the basket of fruits.
The children lined up and the anthropologist told them to run. The children took each other’s hands and ran together. Then they sat together and enjoyed the fruits.
The anthropologist asked the children why they had run like that, all together. He said, “ I thought that one of you would have tried to win.”
The children answered, “It is Ubuntu. How can one of us be happy if the others are sad?”
Ubuntu in the Xhosa culture means- ‘ I am because we are.’
Could we try to apply this to our lives, this simple wisdom of a small tribe of the ‘dark’ continent? We the ‘enlightened’ and ‘progressive’ ones who push and trample ,unconcerned, all along the way ,as long as our goals are reached and our desires satisfied? We who live in enclosed bubbles guarding every possession we have and making space only to accommodate more and more at any cost…and conscience is just another word in the dictionary?
The elections are around the corner. There will be new and old faces in the victory list. When the celebrations are over and the last few voters head back to their obscure towns and villages, do not forget your promises and their contribution even for a moment.
You are because of them.