Reviving Ubuntu: Rekindling the spirit of community and togetherness

Some of us are the products of communities coming together to raise us. We are the culminated prayers where a child’s success was celebrated by not just the immediate family, but the whole community.

A neighbour seeing your child misbehaving meant that they assumed the position of a parent and the misbehaviour was rebuked.

We grew up in a time when a village raised a child and that child understood to remain a child the community could be proud of.

We saw this sense of community in times of mourning. The community came together, rolled up their sleeves and put themselves at the front line.

Neighbours knew that they have to make things happen. You were lacking as a woman if you did not have an apron and doek, a light blanket and a knife for peeling vegetables the night before the funeral.

ALSO READ: WATCH: ‘Hello ma’am, what’s my name?’ – SA teacher captures hearts with viral video

These are just some instances where a community was a safe haven. A family knew that they could grieve, because their neighbour would make sure that mourners would be fed.

Fast forward to 2024, a community initiative is called into question. The stokvel is an old tradition where community members would come together, pool money together for December expenses.

The buying power strengthened by a large number of depositors and for that reason, the buying was grand, too. Homes where food would normally be scarce would have large quantities of food, and Christmas Day would be no different for their children.

They, too, would share in the festivities of a family dining together and everyone having enough to eat. This is the perfect example of communities coming together and very literally, putting food on the table.

Today, the woke call the legitimacy of stokvels into question. To them they are a waste of time, not understanding their importance.

ALSO READ: WATCH: ‘We love you Nosi’, nanny receives new car from family

And in the year of the woke, the spirit of communities has dissipated, slowly but surely. The community has become select. Neighbours have become strangers, families drifted so far apart that members no longer know each other, or of each other.

The new word is toxic. Those who disagree with us are labelled as toxic. We claim that they are so jealous of us that distance is better than fighting off their envy.

Truthfully, an absent family member remains better than a present toxic one, but to what end do we continue with distance between families and communities?