UBUNTU CANNOT BE SUSPENDED: Whoever Tries Has Already Lost Their Own
By Prof. Narnia Bohler-Muller
Jacinvta Ngobese-Zuma in the crowd. (Image: Facebook)
When the leader of an anti-immigrant movement told her supporters in Bellville last weekend that "Ubuntu is suspended until further notice," she was not merely being inflammatory. She was attempting something more ambitious and more dangerous than a hard line on migration. She was trying to revoke the moral grammar of the country.
Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma, addressing a March and March crowd that had walked Voortrekker Road demanding the arrest of undocumented immigrants, framed it as a withdrawal of generosity. South Africa was the rainbow nation, she said; its harmony was mistaken for an invitation; outsiders "took advantage of our Ubuntu." And so, the conclusion: Ubuntu su...