Xenophobia and the end of ontological ubuntu

Abstract

A central notion of Ubuntu depicts it as a philosophy unique to African affinity and views Africans as communalistic and Westerners as individualistic. Given the reality of xenophobic practices, this paper advances arguments that question this thesis, arguing that the basis for such peculiarity does not inhere in Ubuntu as a distinctive African philosophy; rather it is reflective of the stage of development on each side of the divide. Pursuant of this argument, the paper distinguishes between ontological and axiological Ubuntu. While ontological Ubuntu (OU) refers to, among other constructs, the ‘authentic mode of being African’, axiological Ubuntu (AU) is a prescriptive moral ideal to which all humanity ought to aspire in an era of modernity. Using the method of critical analysis, the paper submits that xenophobia and other forms of socio-political exclusions greatly contradict the central tenets or humanism of OU and render it untenable in modern times. Conversely, AU is reflective of modernity with its emphasis on individualistic modes of production. Modernity has come to stay and Africa must approach it, not by OU or a ‘narrative of return’ to a philosophy uniquely African, but by AU, an ethical theory that must guide our pursuit of a humane society not just as Africans, but as human beings. To this end, and contrary to the argument that Ubuntu has ‘reached its end’ in its entirety, the paper concludes that something is left of it, though not uniquely African.