UBUNTU

By: Eduardo Galeano
Translated by: Bajram Karabolli 

An anthropologist, to test some children of an African tribe, played this game: he placed a basket full of delicious fruits near the trunk of a tree and said:

– The first child to reach the tree and touch the basket will win all the fruits for himself.

The anthropologist gave the signal to start the game, thinking that each of the children would run to get the fruit for himself, but he was surprised to see that all the children started walking together, hand in hand, until they reached the tree... Then , all together, took the basket and divided the fruits.

When he asked them why they did this, when each of them could have taken the basket of fruit for himself and his family, the children, all with one voice, answered:

– Ubuntu.

The anthropologist, very curious, asked the elders of the tribe what "Ubuntu" meant. They explained and clarified that the meaning of this word was: "I am because we are all..."

So the parents and grandparents of that tribe instilled in the children, in their minds and souls, the question: How can only one of us be happy while all the others are in misery?

This "uneducated" tribe knew the secret of cooperation and solidarity, which today no longer exists in all societies that have "overcome" that stage of "backwardness" and that consider themselves "civilized" societies.