What Can Ubuntu Do? A Reflection on African Moral Theory in Light of Post-colonial Challenges

Abstract

There are competing interpretations of ubuntu as a moral theory, and these various understandings of it entail diverging moral-political responses to real problems in the world. The Marikana massacre is one such moral-political problem, and the various interpretations of ubuntu might recommend various responses to it. This chapter, in some sense, critiques, and, simultaneously, supplements Thad Metz’s relational interpretation of ubuntu that recommends reconciliation as the best response the government could offer to the Marikana massacre. Unlike Metz, I adopt a self-realisation approach to ubuntu, and argue that Marikana must be understood within the broad narrative of historical injustices with cheap black labour as the core of the issues. I proceed to argue that the government needs to address some of the vestiges of cheap labour that is part of the core causes of protests before we can talk meaningfully about reconciliation. Ubuntu should demand, in part, that inter alia economic historical injustices be addressed for the sake of making humanity possible for all, particularly victims of oppression.