Column: Valuing humanity key to changing world
Karen Leu
Issue date: 4/18/08 Section: Opinion
Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.
It is a Zulu phrase that I picked up while studying abroad in South Africa, and it represents a concept that I believe can bring new life and greater beauty to our world. Africans claim the phrase is difficult to translate into Western language, but Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu tries his best when he explains it as, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours." Another South African explains, "I am because you are, and you are because we are." It means your joys are my joys and your suffering is my suffering. It means until there is peace in the world, there cannot fully be peace in my heart.
The people I came across in South Africa understood the concept of humanity better than any other group of people I have ever met. Complete strangers would address me as "sister" despite my obviously foreign-looking appearance. Poor Africans who lived in shack settlements would treat us, privileged Americans, to expensive food despite having little for themselves or their kids.
Imagine the implications if we started to see and treat other people as sisters and brothers. Imagine how the world would change if we regarded others' needs as equal to, or even greater than, our own.
I believe that the idea of global humanity can save the world. War, poverty, genocide, racism, climate change - the list of the world's problems goes on and on. But we can do better than this, not necessarily because we are obligated to, but because our lives are deeply intertwined with those of the 6.6 billion people around the world. Until they reach their fulfillment, we cannot reach ours.
What does it mean when we walk past homeless people on the street and so quickly dismiss the image of their often painful existence? What does it mean when we watch news broadcasts of women being raped as an instrument of war and then calmly change the channel? How can we witness systemic suffering and violence the way it exists and not feel moved to create a world where our collective joy outweighs the collective pain?
It is a Zulu phrase that I picked up while studying abroad in South Africa, and it represents a concept that I believe can bring new life and greater beauty to our world. Africans claim the phrase is difficult to translate into Western language, but Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu tries his best when he explains it as, "My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in what is yours." Another South African explains, "I am because you are, and you are because we are." It means your joys are my joys and your suffering is my suffering. It means until there is peace in the world, there cannot fully be peace in my heart.
The people I came across in South Africa understood the concept of humanity better than any other group of people I have ever met. Complete strangers would address me as "sister" despite my obviously foreign-looking appearance. Poor Africans who lived in shack settlements would treat us, privileged Americans, to expensive food despite having little for themselves or their kids.
Imagine the implications if we started to see and treat other people as sisters and brothers. Imagine how the world would change if we regarded others' needs as equal to, or even greater than, our own.
I believe that the idea of global humanity can save the world. War, poverty, genocide, racism, climate change - the list of the world's problems goes on and on. But we can do better than this, not necessarily because we are obligated to, but because our lives are deeply intertwined with those of the 6.6 billion people around the world. Until they reach their fulfillment, we cannot reach ours.
What does it mean when we walk past homeless people on the street and so quickly dismiss the image of their often painful existence? What does it mean when we watch news broadcasts of women being raped as an instrument of war and then calmly change the channel? How can we witness systemic suffering and violence the way it exists and not feel moved to create a world where our collective joy outweighs the collective pain?
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