To be sure, traditional African societies were not homogeneous, nor were they entirely peaceful. Philosophers do not want to claim that all Africans lived in the perfect spirit of ubuntu before colonial interventions. Indeed, wars between different groups were common.8 African philosophers also do not want to argue that pre-intervention society was inherently good and worthy of emulating. Such a “narrative of return,” which essentializes what it means to be African and values principles only because they are traditional, would be misguided.9 We can think here of how T’Challa comes to believe the traditional ways of his ancestors were wrong. Yet, we should nevertheless engage with what seems historically to have been a way of seeing the world and organizing society and consider the underlying values and their potential – especially when those philosophies and ways of life have typically been erased. In what follows, I present three examples of African philosophy on the question of our global duties, and highlight how they feature core values of relatedness, mutuality, and a sense of shared humanity.
“More Connects Us than Separates Us”
Etieyibo argues that if we unpack the concept of ubuntu, and the fact that we are persons through our recognition of others’ humanity, then we should be drawn toward a cosmopolitan view: a view that holds the scope of our moral obligations is not affected by state (or other) boundaries.10 While ubuntu was traditionally practiced in small communities, Etieyibo argues that the underlying philosophy does not have any grounds to justify it having to be only practiced within small communities. Ubuntu is based on our shared humanity, not on our shared kinship: it is I am because you are, not “I am because you are my cousin, or clansperson.”
Some argue that today we are at the “end of ubuntu” for various reasons, including the strategic use and manipulation of the concept by politicians.11 Part of the argument is that we no longer have the small communities required to make ubuntu work. Yet, we do not have the counterfactual example of how ubuntu would have adapted to the slow creation of larger communities and industrialization. So we cannot tell how much of the corrosion of the practice of ubuntu and its defining role in society is because of colonialist intervention and how much is down to the reality of living in large cities.
Of course, it seems reasonable to agree that ubuntu as practiced in a small-scale community would not function in the same way. But, is there a way the underlying values of ubuntu – the valuing of mutuality, compassion, respecting, and recognizing the humanity of the other – would have grown and adapted to being the guiding principles of a modern African state? Why did the creators of Wakanda not use this opportunity to imagine such a state? Given its centrality in considerations of the morality of the people of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in Bantu-speaking communities, it is surprising that the proverb, word, or spirit seems largely lost in the Wakanda we find at the beginning of the film.
African Philosopher Michael O. Eze argues that ubuntu provides a foundation for a society that welcomes difference, that lays the groundwork for a “new paradigm of human citizenship that is both universal and provincial” where “we do not have the dilemma of choosing our own kind over the stranger for even the stranger is a potential relative.”12 This account speaks not to the tearing down of all borders or notions of community, but to viewing the rooted community as fundamentally open to others. Indeed, ubuntu can provide a new, stronger grounding for a cosmopolitan theory.
Traditionally in Western thought, the basis for a cosmopolitan view is that we are all fellow human beings and thus of equal moral worth. Human beings have been defined as those who share the quality of being able to reason. Eze argues that this Western cosmopolitanism, as is seen through colonialism, is “not so much about elimination of difference but an invention of a homogenous other.”13 Reason, Eze argues, is provincial: it can be dominated by culture, religion, and other features of our context.14 It is not a reliable ground for a truly cosmopolitan theory. Eze argues instead that ubuntu, and its inherent relatedness, can do much better in justifying a cosmopolitan worldview, adding that ubuntu grounds a duty to “recognize others in their unique difference, histories and subjective equations” and that this sense of humanism “is not only a recognition of our kind.”15
While cosmopolitanism based on reason requires recognizing in others the same ability to reason, a so-called Xerox of my being, the ethics of ubuntu in fact thrives on difference: “the other constitutes an inexhaustible source of our reason to be.”16 Human interaction is a mutual self-creating process, and there is nothing within the concept of ubuntu that prioritizes the recognition and interaction with those of “our own kind” over the other.17 In fact, Eze argues that traditional communities would welcome the stranger and grant them epistemic preference (view them as the superior bringer of knowledge) because of their access to fresh ideas.18 This interaction is motivated, Eze claims, by a “desire of harmonization of ethical virtues and common good.”19
“I’ve Seen Too Many in Need Just to Turn a Blind Eye.”
Ifeanyi Menkiti argues that proverbs and wisdom within African thought and tradition uphold mutuality and the sense of not holding one’s self above others. He presents two proverbs from Igbo cultures (from Nigeria) that he argues can provide “ordering perspective with which we can approach justice.”20 The first, ebele umu uwa translates to “pity the children of the world.”21 The proverb is not a call to feel pity or mercy for those poor children out there, but rather an expression that includes one’s self. It acknowledges that we are all in a situation of requiring pity. The point is not to put us down, but, as Menkiti explains: to “make possible the practice of reconciliation on an ongoing basis; [the proverb] makes possible also the acknowledgements that all of us need and can use, so as not to come down too heavily on ourselves and the moments of personal error, personal failure or professional defeat.”22
For Menkiti, this position of pity and mercy enables one to “better position oneself to uphold the perspective of human dignity, even as failures and breakages occur all around one.”23 It thus encourages a worldview that holds “that human dignity is hard-won; it is precarious and constant effort is needed to uphold it.”24 The expression cannot be easily or simply translated, but the above discussion reveals that it is an inclusive statement, speaking to the reality we all find ourselves in, and a sense of mutually upholding human dignity within it (through pity, forgiveness, reconciliation). Indeed, Menkiti reinforces this sense of mutuality with another proverb: “aka nni kwo aka ekpe, aka ekpe kwo aka nni,” which means “the right hand washes the left, the left hand washes the right.”25 He argues that we would do well to approach international relations through the lens of these “many innocuous rituals of daily life.”26
These examples are not exhaustive of all that African philosophy can contribute to this debate, nor do they suggest there is complete consensus. They do suggest, however, that there is a strong strand of African philosophy that, drawing from traditional conceptions of justice and society, argues for accounts of what we owe each other that lean toward the cosmopolitan, toward the welcoming and inclusion of, dependence on, and respect for the other. Truly, it is striking that these themes are not given a more central place in the way of life of Wakanda, supposedly an example of an isiXhosa-speaking African community, unaffected by any external influences.
“What Would You Have Wakanda Do about It?”
African philosophy offers a stark contrast to typical Western contributions to the global justice debate. Western views tend to focus on how best to distribute resources because they’re concerned with answering