STEVE PAULSON: There's been a lot of talk these days, for years now, of what people call “decolonizing the African mind.” What does that mean to you?

JAMES OGUDE: Look, I am a product of the de-colonizing project. I'll tell you why. It’s partly in the sense that I studied at the University of Nairobi under the tutorship of the famous writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o (who's now at the University of California). One of the first things that Ngugi did was to insist that there's a way in which, as Africans, we also needed to hear our own stories, to listen to our own voices, to read our literatures. He then, with two colleagues, worked to abolish what was then the English Department and insisted that it was, instead, going to be a Literature Department. By that he was looking towards a concentric understanding of literature in the sense that you start with local literatures and move out. The idea was never to be insular. He was basically saying that for you to understand other people's stories, you need to understand your own stories, and you have to tell your own stories. For him, that was a moment of de- colonization. Even if those stories were not written, there was a rich resource of original, oral literature out there. People told their stories. In any case, narrative is the first cognitive tool ever given to men. So, if Africans are people, you know, then they must tell stories.

SP: So, it sounds as though you are saying that the de-colonizing project, not so much politically but at a more psychic level, starts in school with what you read.

School is an important institutional structure. In general, colonialism worked through institutions of governance. So, if you really wanted to change, you had to start there. If the English-language syllabus was dominant, as it was, then you had to turn it around. In itself, that is a project of de-colonization. If history was basically about European history, you turn it around and say, “Okay, we need to study African history in order to know where we come from.” If the church was infused by certain forms of worship, then you transform it. In fact, there's no better place where the church as we know it today is being transformed than on the African continent.

SP: So, the church might still be Christian, but is it an African version?

Yes, yes, it is. It is a domesticated form of Christianity, and that's how human beings have always worked: you borrow and you lend, and you borrow to serve your interest. I think that's what most Africans did with Christianity. It is so striking that even more recent narratives sometimes are structured around Christianity or the Islamic religion for that matter. But these are forms that have been radically domesticated to serve the interest of people.

SP: That raises a larger question, almost a philosophical question, about whether there are also different African ways of knowing as opposed to Western ways of knowing. I'm particularly interested in this because you have written about what is called ubuntu. What is ubuntu?

Let me start by saying, yes, there must be African ways of knowing, and I'm using African very loosely, because Africa is complex and there are multiple African ways of knowing. Sometimes you can find common denominators. Ubuntu itself is a Southern African concept, but it resonates with certain other concepts in East and Central Africa, like utu in Swahili. But, as for what ubuntu means: ubuntu is rooted in what I call a relational form of personhood, basically meaning that you are because of the others. In other words, as a human being—your humanity, your personhood—you are fostered in relation to other people.

SP: This is totally different than the Western notion of the self, which is rooted in individualism.

Yes, it is, it is different. Although one needs to qualify that in the sense that there is always this tendency when we talk about African community—a communitarian ethos—to argue that it deletes individuality. It doesn't. What it wants to do is basically to strive towards building a consensus. People will debate, people will disagree; it's not like there are no tensions. The myth that the ideal African context is one where people don't differ, where people share everything, where there are no selfish people. No, that's not what communitarian ethos is. It is about coming together as a community, building a consensus around what affects the community. And once you have debated, then it is understood what is best for the community, and then you have to buy into that.

SP: Could you give some examples of ubuntu in practice?

Consider the South African context in which this nation of people emerged out of a totalitarian regime, fairly authoritarian, a lot of injustice. And then they entered this moment, this desire to transform society. And then you realize that the structures of justice are in themselves inadequate, inadequate in the sense that they are very much rooted, crafted in the womb, of that very authoritarian regime that you're talking about. I'm thinking of structures like judiciary systems, the whole legal system, really. So where, then, do you start to bring a divided society together? How do you decide? Where do you start to bring a society, that is emerging, out of trauma and out of the traumatic conflict?

This is where the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was chairing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, decided that there's a way in which we can dig into our culture and find something that will help us to bring about restoration, to bring about healing, a humanitarian value that transcends our differences, as it were. Then he decided that was ubuntu, and he combined it with what he called the Christian Dei Imago theology, which basically means that we are all made in the image of God. So, fundamentally, we are the same, our differences are fictitious, are manufactured. And we have the ability, as people, to dig into our human values, to go for the best of them, in order to bring about healing and to bridge the gap. That's when he popularized, the idea of ubuntu. It was then that ubuntu was re-activated, and is part of what I study. What I do in my book, Ubuntu and the Everyday, is to draw attention to areas where ubuntu gets practiced in the everyday.

ANNE STRAINCHAMPS: As you described Archbishop Tutu’s work, the first thing that came to my mind was police violence in the United States and Black Lives Matter. Could ubuntu offer a different kind of resolution for African American communities who have suffered police violence to come together with the police force?

Yes, I argue that there's a sense in which ubuntu can become a universal ethic, a universal value, since all value systems, if they are of any use at all, can become universal. Ubuntu is about dialogue, the ability to engage, to have an engagement between the perpetrator and the victim. I think that is often lacking because your typical legal process is: send the police there, silence them, block the road. That is not the solution. The solution is in people talking at the level of community. Can the community engage with the police if they feel that the police are being brutal? How can peace be brokered so that you initiate a form of dialogue between the community and the forces that they perceive as against their interest?

STEVE PAULSON: So, we've been talking about ubuntu in this legal sense of how to redress wrongs, and I am wondering at the more everyday level, how ubuntu plays out in terms of what constitutes “a good life.” In the West, that seems to be rooted in the concept of selfhood: how I think about, or know, myself or the course of my life and achievements. It's not necessarily defined by my relationship with other people. Is there a different way of thinking about the self in this African tradition you've been describing?

There's a sense in which ubuntu as a concept, and the African communitarian ethos, imposes a sense of moral obligation regarding your responsibility for others even before you think of yourself. You must, as the Russian critic Bakhtin would say, look into another person’s eyes and have that person return the gaze. When the gaze is returned, that is what humanizes you, this recognition.

SP: There's empathy built into it.

An empathy, yes, there's empathy, there's trust, that is built in this process. That, for me, is the moral obligation that sometimes is absent when undue emphasis is placed on individualism and the self, when it’s “all about me,” and everybody else comes second. Yet, even the West is haunted by other, competing, values such as human rights. There have always been movements in the West that have prioritized the other over the self. That's why, as I tell people, all human beings fundamentally have a certain element of conscience even when our societies may push us to be individualistic. A measure of responsibility is part of our obligation whether it comes to us through religion or through other practices, you know, a moral obligation of duty to others.

ANNE STRAINCHAMPS: How far back does ubuntu go? I mean, what's its history?

Its etymologies run deep, really, as very much part of the Bantu communities. In fact, my research has driven me to realize that it is found in a number of African communities in different variations, different linguistic connotations. But you find it in West Africa, the Cameroon region, where most of the Bantus originated from and then traveled south. You find it in East Africa too. So, it's got a deep history, as old as humanity itself.

AS: Did you grow up with ubuntu in any way?

Look, some of these values, they're not written but you feel them in your day-to-day practice. You grow up, like in the rural community that I grew up in, and you know you're not just your father's child, you also belong to the community. When I was growing up, a person could eat anywhere, you know, go to the neighbor and the neighbor would take care of you. If you were hungry, when there were funerals, the community came together, everybody would put their resources together and take on responsibilities for the whole community. When there were births, the whole community celebrated and provided what they had. That's why we have rites that come with birth, and we have rites that come with death, and why people celebrate. It is all a way of affirming life, and affirming that life is not lived as an individual, it is lived among others.

STEVE PAULSON: So, if someone has trouble or a family has trouble, the the neighbors, the village, will pitch in and help.

Yes, certainly the villagers will pitch in to help. And, without being idealistic, there will also occasionally be deviants. That's why the idea of personhood becomes very important. If you are a deviant, if you deviate from the norms of the society, if you are evil or if you are selfish, then people don't see you as a human being, they actually see you as an animal.

SP: What does that mean? How would that actually play out in practice?

Well, you get ostracized. People talk about you. They say that so-and-so is selfish. They say that this one is not a human being. It means that you have abdicated your responsibility to others, that you're self-centered, that you're not interested in the lives of those around you. That principle extends even to animals because the ubuntu cosmology, especially among the Bantus, is about the totality of the universe. You have a responsibility to the plants around you. You have a responsibility to the animals. You have a responsibility to the ancestors, and, by extension, to the Supreme Being. So, there's that connection, that when you do anything, whether or not it’s a form of sacrifice, it is about creating harmony within that hierarchy of human beings, ancestors, the environment. Many people don’t realize how deeply revered is the environment in ubuntu; that’s why, in many African communities, you sacrifice to the lakes.

SP: What does it mean to sacrifice to the lakes?

The lakes are a source of life, you know, and the river is a source of life. They give you fish. In certain contexts, for example, you are not allowed to engage in overfishing. If you caught too much, you're obliged to return some to the lake, and you pray to the lake gods to ask to continue nourishing and giving people life. These are symbolic rituals that people go through to bring about harmony within their society.

ANNE STRAINCHAMPS: We’ve been talking about Ubuntu as a moral and ethical system, but I wonder if, in a deeper sense too, almost an epistemological level, if it's a different way of understanding what it means to be alive or to have a sense of self.

Precisely. Ubuntu emphasizes a principle of what I call co-agency in which the human and the environment are fostered through a fundamental interdependence in life. I think that interdependence is what ubuntu privileges.

AS: So, a different sense of what it means to be conscious?

Yes, because ubuntu brings a different form of consciousness that does not privilege the self. The only way that the self can realize itself is through others. And, when we talk about “others,” it’s not just other human beings but rather also the plants around you, whether appreciated as a source of livelihood, medication, or whatever you are reliant on, like the water around you and the goodwill and blessings that come from a higher being, your ancestors, and so on. So, there is a connection that, this life is almost circular, if you like it, there is no break, as it were.

AS: It's a vision of unity.

Yes, a vision of unity.

AS: Individuals are not separate from the rest of the world.

There's no distinction, and that's why I was saying that the principle of co-agency is fundamental to an understanding of African communal ethos, to an understanding of ubuntu.

STEVE PAULSON: Do you see this idea of ubuntu as fundamentally in conflict with Western individualism or do they actually complement each other?

They can complement each other, and they should complement each other. And that's an important point. A number of African philosophers have argued that, ultimately, it is about the dialogue between the self and the other, and there is constant tension that exists between the self and the other.

SP: I could imagine some people thinking, “I can't do anything that I want to do because the people in the community are always saying ‘don't do that,’ or ‘you should be doing this.’” So, there are reasons why people gravitate towards individual freedom.

Well, individual freedom is not necessarily contradictory to the idea of ubuntu, which is why I was saying that it is about building a consensus within the community in a way that helps the community. In one of our books, Ubuntu and the Reconstitution of Community (2019), published by Indiana University Press, we make the point that there is a sense in which, at every point, society needs to renew itself in order to move forward, especially during moments of crisis, conflict, and trauma. You evoke values such as ubuntu in order to constitute yourself anew, to regenerate yourself, to renew yourself. And, in that process of renewing yourself, there has to be a debate, there has to be struggle. As you do that, you move towards a consensus, and you agree that what we now have is in the best interest of the society. I may have my differences, but I will have to subordinate them. Yet you've been given a chance to express yourself, you have not been silenced. And, if you read much of African narratives, in all the meetings that they have, there are always vicious debates. I don't know whether you've read any of Achebe's Things Fall Apart. In that book you’ll find this woman who reports to the community that she is being beaten by her husband on a daily basis, and in this debate, the woman is given a chance to talk. The people are given a chance to talk, and the man is reprimanded.

SP: So, you're saying that it's not necessarily a formula for conformity, that you just have to follow the communal rules.

No, the very rules are constantly reconstituted. There are no rules that are cast in stone. The community is always moving, it is always engaged in a process of dialogue. If you read Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the main character, Okonkwo ends up killing a lad called Ikemefuna who was given as a sacrifice. One of the clans had a clash with another clan, and this boy was paid as ransom. And then the gods say he has to be killed, and there's a huge debate. This boy has grown up loved by Okonkwo's family. Okonkwo loved him because he was hardworking, but the gods say that he has to be taken to the border and killed. One of the friends says to Okonkwo “This boy has called you ‘father,’ and now you just can't go and kill him?” And Okonkwo says, “But the gods have said so.” And the friend responds, “No, but the gods don't say that you're the one who should kill him! Why do you want to have a hand in this?” So, this vicious contestation goes on. Why are the gods becoming bloodthirsty? Why do you trust them? These are serious contestations. Among the Igbo, if the gods were not serving the interests of the community, they would take them to the border and abandon them there. That's how pragmatic some of these societies were. So, that debate was always there.

ANNE STRAINCHAMPS: So many places in Africa now are focused on a rush to become hyper modern, with universities investing heavily in STEM, energy, and so on. Are you concerned at all about ubuntu being forgotten? Or do you feel like there's a way it could be revived and work in kind of a hyper-modern society?

That’s a very interesting and complex question because one of the arguments against ubuntu is that, in the post-colonial moment, we are cosmopolitan. And in that context people ask whether these things have relevance. As society in Africa becomes increasingly individualistic, in which cities become sites for the survival of the fittest, how does one practice ubuntu if you yourself don't even have a roof? How do you even survive, let alone think of the others? Yet, to the contrary, if you study African urban sociology, one of the most fascinating things is the way modern urban inhabitants reproduce some of these networks of support. The anthropologist Johannes Fabian has done fantastic work in trying to understand what goes on when, for example, people from rural areas move into Addis Ababa, or Johannesburg, or Nairobi and they realize an acute sense of alienation. What do they do? They build a network of support among themselves. So that's the first thing you do when you arrive in a city and you don't have a place, you go to your next cousin, and you stay with him until you get a job. And then you can move on. Sometimes, in South Africa, they call it the Black Tax. When students talk about the Black Tax, you know, they are referring to this responsibility to our siblings. If you finish university, you have to educate your cousins, not just your brothers, but also your cousins.

So, these networks persist. And they persist precisely because of an awareness of our interdependence, an awareness that you have a moral obligation to support those around you. They have incredible familial networks. In fact, this was a case when a son was getting circumcised. Circumcision is an important ritual among some of these communities. So, everyone saves money to make sure that they’re able to buy a bull. To do that, you rely on others, you put money together. For South Africans, this concept is called Stokvel: the cooperative network that most people in the townships literally survive on because the mainstream banks do not give them money. So, you form your own networks of basic human economy. These networks, in spite of cosmopolitanism, or whatever, sometimes continue to persist. That is not to say that, in certain areas, they're not in danger of disappearing or that fundamental elements, such as responsibility to others, are not being eroded. That is also taking place. But even as that happens, other formations are also being imagined that are akin to ubuntu. They may not be called ubuntu, but they function as networks that people can rely on in order to support themselves.

STEVE PAULSON: So, we've been talking about how ubuntu plays out in various communities, and I'm wondering how it has played out in your own life. I mean, are there specific things that have happened to you, or choices that you make because of this tradition of ubuntu?

Yeah. I think because I was brought up in a network where I was supported by others, I was sent to school by my brother when my father passed away when I was under five and it's my brother who took the responsibility to send me to school.

SP: What did your brother do?

Well, one thing he did was to pay my fees. He moved me away from the rural area and took me to the city where he was staying, paid for my fees in a private school, which was a lot of money. I always look back and say that, if it were not for his intervention, perhaps I would just be some herd boy around the village looking after cows and doing manual work. But that also meant that, you see, I inherited a responsibility: I've had to educate those around me, my brother's kids, my sister's kids. In fact, at one moment, in Johannesburg, I was hosting seven teenagers all going to the university. And it did not end with my own family. I also started building a network, because at the time, when I went to South Africa, there were lots of postgraduate scholarships that were not being taken up. So, I decided that I would start recruiting students from Kenya, from Nigeria, from Uganda. I see that as an expression of ubuntu in certain ways. Thank God I had the space! I had a big house at that time thanks to the job I had in South Africa and I could afford it. And, I let you know, we were using over five liters of milk per day. I can't tell them not to eat cereal! I don't know whether that happens in the West.

SP: Yeah, it happens, but maybe not to that degree.

Yeah, I know many Western families also take care of people from here on the continent and live with them. And that's why I say that some of these values cut across cultures. Fundamentally, deep down, we have an element of ubuntu in us.