Still unable to blog from my own computer. Bummer. (When I can, I’ll make links to good agencies worthy of sending donations for Asian tsunami relief.)
I thought part of the problem was my new Linux distro, but now I fear it is a hardware problem. Looking for a new Linux distro to test my theory, I came across Ubuntu Linux. (Which I’ll wait for more mature versions.) From that, I discovered what ubuntu is. Its Wikipedia entry defines it as
Ubuntu is a South African ethic or ideology focusing on people’s allegiances and relations with each other. The word comes from the Zulu and Xhosa languages. Ubuntu is seen as a traditional African concept. Ubuntu is pronounced “oo-BOON-too”.
A rough translation in English could be “humanity towards others.” Another translation would be: “The belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity.”
A longer aim at a definition is this one: “A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” Quote by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Ubuntu is seen as one of the founding principles of the new republic of South Africa and connected to the idea of an African Renaissance.
Quite a familiar concept — if unnamed and underutilized — in Universalist theology. Happy New Year.
