The Heart Never Lies

A smile, an ambrace, a sympathetic look: there are many sides to ubuntu. This humanist African philosophy is all about connections between people and explains what it means to be human.

Family. According to ubuntu, a person only becomes a person through other people. Thought, speech, considerations for others: These are all primarily learned in the family.

Ubuntu is everywhere: It is a philosophy that has to do with being "friendly, hospitable, generous, gentle, caring and compassionate...being someone who will use their strengths on behalf of others - the weak and the poor and the ill - and not take advantage of anyone," says South Africa's Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu.


This African philosophy sees all people as being dependent on each other. They don't like being alone and are happiest as part of a community or group, here like a Water Splashing Festival to celebrate New Year in China by Dai People

People with ubuntu are generous and open and respect others. The individualism and competition so prevalent in daily life puts this philosophy to the test not least because many people consider each other as rivals. Lovers have it easier in this regard: young and old, married or not.

Ubuntu comes from the heart. The word originates from the African Zulus. It means humanity, compassion and public spirit, and stands for a way of life worth striving for.

Ubuntu believes that all people are connected by a universal bond. To degrade another is to degrade oneself, to love another is to love oneself.

"People with ubuntu are approachable and welcoming, their attitude is kindly and well-disposed," writes the South African archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu in his introduction to ME WE: Love, Humanity and Us, a book of Vivid, close-up portrayals of human relationships.

"They are not threatened by the goodness in others because their own esteem and self-worth is generated by knowing they belong to a greater whole.

Friendship, not hostility, compassion, not ignorance, forgiveness instead of revenge: Similarities with ubuntu can be found in many religions and philosophies, but everyday social pressures constantly put it to the test.

Desmond Tutu is convinced that by following the principles of ubuntu, people will be able to learn to resolve serious conflicts like South Africa's apartheid, which was only overcome by the power of recouncilation.

In order to regain dignity and humanity, he says, the victims have to recognise these qualities in their former oppressors.

"The solitary, isolated human being is a contradiction in terms," writes Tutu. "Because we need one another, our natural tendency is to be cooperative and helpful. If this were not true we would have died out as a species a long time ago, consumed by our own violence and hate."