SENTIENT TIMES April/May 2002

Terrorists and Saints: The Wisdom of Ubuntu

By Eric Sirotkin

Last night I dreamed of peace. Each time I opened my eyes, a new face stared back at me in a mirror. In one moment I was a child in the Congo, in the next a Grandfather by a pond in Bosnia, and later a woman, somewhere in the Far East, brushing her long, oft-braided hair. It was reminiscent of the past life booth in Albert Brook’s Defending Your Life, sans Meryl Streep. Yet, it was only when I looked at my reflection and saw the face of an Al-Qaida terrorist, that I awoke with the answer.

Peace is about understanding our interconnected relationship to one another. Our true nature reveals that we are inseparable from both the terrorist and the saint. Nelson Mandela understood, explain-ing in his Long Road to Freedom that “The chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them … The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.”

Another Nobel peace laureate, the Dalai Lama, also describes this wisdom of inseparability: “The nature of modern existence is such that the well-being, happiness and success of one’s own community are very connected with the well-being and interests of other communities and other societies.”

Our nation stands at a crossroad. We can never go back to our quiet, isolated way of life, but we have the choice to decide how we walk forward. America can continue to choose the path of separation, declare war and respond with more killing and vengeance. This models centuries of Western colonialism, in which domination, expanding self-interest and exploitation shaped our world of separate nation-states. Or we can model an ancient worldview based upon the inseparable nature of all life, and walk a path that is more connected, less hateful; more compassionate and less retributive; more healing and less destruc-tive. We have the choice.

Disharmony between people is nothing new, but its expression through modern weapons jeopardizes the very balance of life itself. As more voices for peace challenge the runaway calls for retaliation, the opportunity is emerging to not only stop a war, but to raise consciousness about our inherent inter-dependence. The twin tower explosions woke us up from a deep sleep and the illusion that we are separate from the rest of the world. Even President Bush proclaimed that we can no longer ignore if our neighbor is hungry or in need, “whether that neighbor is next door or across the planet.” Yet, responding to gross injustices from a heartfelt belief in our inseparability takes courage and can lead to creative approaches to justice that restore balance, harmony and hope to a fractured world. What greater tribute could there be to those who lost their lives on and since September 11th, than by making a positive response to their deaths that redefines the meaning of human relationships for the 21st century.
To use the tragedy of September 11th for positive deep systemic transformation, we need only open our eyes and hearts to an innate way of relating. An ancient wisdom, this knowing and taking right action based upon our interconnection with all, has been part of many non-dominant cultures. Native Americans have tradi-tionally understood that we are all related and interconnected. Through my legal work in New Mexico, I came to meet wise Navajo peacemakers who described to me this relationship and connection to all life known as K’e. Chief Justice Robert Yazzie, of the Navajo Su-preme Court, describes K’e as “a deeply embedded feeling we have of our responsibilities to others and our duty to live in good relations with them.” He says it “relates to the kinship of all life, a community view of life,” and is the foundational principle for the world-renowned Navajo Peacemaker process where conflicts and affronts to society have been healed by restoring balance and harmony to relationships, as opposed to relying on retribution and punishment.

In the Acandon rainforest in southern Mexico, a shaman describes our connected nature saying “What the people of the city do not realize is that the roots of all living things are tied together.” Another shaman, of the Shuar tribe in the Andes, explains how our reactions affect the entire world, saying, “Your country is like this pebble.” Throwing one in the river he says, “Everything you do ripples across the Mother.” In Brazil, the Kaxinawa Indians speak of Txai (pronounced “chi”), which translates as “half of what’s in you is also in me, and half of what’s in me is also in you.” Txai is why people, even thousands of miles away, felt the ripples from the terrorist attacks. It is why we will continue to feel the effects as our nation retaliates.

A wise Hawaiian expression speaks with the same wisdom: Ho’omoe wai kahi ke kao’o— “Lets all travel together like water flowing in one direction.” Traditional Native Hawaiians recognize a basic spiritual essence, Mana, that is present in everyone and everything. Separation is only an illusion as people are connected with others whom they meet through their invisible bodies, which are connected by a substance they call aka. Hawaiian communities incorporate this worldview in practicing Ho’o’pono’pono, a method of resolving conflict that rebuilds relationships by looking deeply at the roots of the conflict as opposed to placing blame and meting out punishment. By honoring this interconnection conflicts resolve and a path to peace emerges.

Further to the west the Mardu Aborigines in Australia believe that all living things share a common life-stream, with even the animal’s existence being “an echo of his own.” No word even exists in the Mardu language for feud or warfare. Neighboring New Zealand has taken similar ancient principles from its native Maori population and led the world in incorporating restorative justice principles into its courts through creative victim/perpetrator programs focused on understanding, rather than vengeance.
The Dalai Lama stresses that in a world where we accept our oneness, “it’s impos-sible to have racism or bigotry.” It would be akin to hating ourselves. We are, he says, woven together into an “inseparable net of relationships.” John Donne’s famous lines during the early years of the 17th century, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,” mirrors this consciousness.

The perilous cyclical consequences of the current war, that sear-ches for peace by engaging in retaliation, conjures up Donne’s warning that “any man’s death dimin-ishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

This is not a new concept in the United States. Ralph Waldo Emerson exalted: “All men have my blood and I have all men’s.” After viewing the horror of the civil war, Walt Whitman wrote of everyone as individual leaves of grass, but with a com-mon root system. He sang out the spirit of relationship that can lead us in this troubled hour toward a path of peace, “ … what I assume you shall assume/For every atom belonging to me/as good belongs to you.”

Over the past decade I traveled many times to the tip of Africa, where I observed a metamorphosis taking place, as the era of apartheid, the ultimate example of institu-tionalized separation, was being transitioned to a new nation premised on an ancient knowing of interconnection called ubuntu. In confronting gross crimes against humanity and the brutal murders of thousands of people, the new South African government chose to reject retribution, and founded the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Parliament passed an Act of National Unity, declaring “There is a need for understanding, but not for vengeance, a need for reparation, but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu, but not for victimization.”

Ubuntu, like the Navajo K’e or the Kaxinawa Txai, is about human relationship and our inherent connection to one another. As a holistic minded lawyer, I was intrigued by this notion and met with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for an expla-nation. After breakfast in a noisy East London restaurant, we settled into a small corner table and he modeled ubuntu through his joyous smile and welcoming heart. “It has no direct Western translation,” he said, but described it as a way of living wherein “You are human only in relation to others.” This connection, our ubuntu, he remarked, “is the essence of being human. It explains how one can laugh and express joy, even in the face of these horrendous crimes.” Then leaning in, he smiled and shared with me the wisdom of ubuntu—a path to both internal and external peace, proclaiming, “the solitary individual is an illusion. We are corporate. What I do to you I do to myself as well.”

My journeys from the Navajo Peace-makers to the transformative reconciliation efforts in South Africa have taught me that creative problem solving in the 21st century will not come from a barrel of a gun. When attacked we have the choice to respond in ways that build us up as a global civilization and help us end the cycle of violence. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke wisely when he implored us to see that “the tragic outcome of violence is always bitterness.”

Accepting interconnectedness on a personal level curtails hatred, self-interest and vengeance. Teaching it in our schools changes attitudes for future generations. If our governments and institutions adopt this perspective, relationships across the planet have the potential for healing.

In South Africa, the acceptance of ubuntu by the new government averted a bloodbath. Today, across America, I am encouraged by a movement in the spirit of the ubuntu stirring within our legal institutions that reflects ubuntu and develops concrete alternatives to resolving even the most egregious conflicts. Thousands have used methods of Legal Wellness, Collaborative Law, Mediation, Restorative Justice, Therapeutic Juris-prudence and Holistic Lawyering to achieve just and lasting results. The central theme in each of these methods, as well as the global-wide indigenous peacemaking efforts, is that justice that is retributive, or that leads to more bitterness or killing, is contrary to the essence of our connected human nature. People are learning that we can have justice without becoming what we abhor.

Terrorists who engage in criminal conduct should be held accountable, but through an international criminal tribunal and a re-invigorated United Nations, thus modeling for our children civilized accountability, rather than vengeance and war. Killing others, whether through assassinations or the “acceptable collateral damage” of a relentless bombing campaign is unimaginable in a connected world. It only opens the door to an endless cycle of martyrs and further acts of retaliation against American Society. Look no further than the current Israeli efforts to use violence to secure peace. “An eye for an eye” Gandhi said, “leads only to a world of blind men.”

Living the wisdom of ubuntu and learning from the traditional peacemakers can bring more peace to our shaky world. It is not a Pollyanna fantasy. The fantasy lies with those who think we can do business as usual. Re-defining human relationship from a point of unity arises from a natural expression of what is already inside each of us. Knowing our true selves does not involve learning as much as unlearning our belief that we are alone or separate. That is the heart of a spiritual journey—the road to peace.

From the ashes of a human tragedy, we have the chance to reshape the course of human history. These ancient principles all show us the way. Manco, an Ecuadorian sha-man, explains that the Quechuan term camay relies on the connection between all living things and loosely means to breathe unity into. “When one of our parts is out of balance,” he says, “we can help bring them back. That is when we camay.” As if describing a recipe for peaceful relations in the 21st century, Manco says, “We are all one, everything you see around you and way beyond, we are all branches of the same tree. We humans are the ones who need to be camayed—the community must remold itself.”

So take a deep breath. Open your heart. Rediscover the essence of being Human—the clear wisdom fire within—by breathing a little unity into your world.

Eric Sirotkin, a resident of Ashland and Albuquerque, is a mediator, lawyer and co-creator of the Professional Wellness Institute’s Legal Wellness Program. He was the chair of the NLG/NCBL International Monitoring Project of the South African Truth & Reconciliation Commission.

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