What hurts you hurts me. What heals you heals me.

Lately I have been thinking about the African word "Ubuntu" described in a book I read years ago, God Has A Dream by Desmond Tutu.

This is the premise:

The South African Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, an extraordinary man of Xhosa descent, has described the meaning of ubuntu in a few of his books. 

…It is the essence of being human. It speaks of the fact that my humanity is caught up and is inextricably bound up in yours. I am human because I belong. It speaks about wholeness, it speaks about compassion. A person with ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a greater whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are. The quality of ubuntu gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanise them. - Archbishop Desmond Tutu “God Has A Dream” © 2004 Published by Doubleday

More and more, we are discovering that everyone and everything is interconnected. What hurts you hurts me. What heals you heals me.

It is obvious that our attitudes and emotions have an effect on those around us. Similarly, feelings of wellbeing or despair in a group (or community, or nation) permeate through the members of the group.

The consideration of others used to play a much larger part in human interaction in earlier times. In recent times however, human interaction has been based on individual needs, achievements and desires.

This more self-centered approach to life and decision-making has undoubtedly produced more wealth and power for some, but the cost to humanity, the poor, and to the planet has been huge.

- Excerpted from Genuine Happiness website.

More to describe the word Ubuntu:
Ubuntu is recognised as being an important source of law within the context of strained or broken relationships amongst individuals or communities and as an aid for providing remedies which contribute towards more mutually acceptable remedies for the parties in such cases. Ubuntu is a concept which:

1. is to be contrasted with vengeance;
2. dictates that a high value be placed on the life of a human being;
3. is inextricably linked to the values of and which places a high premium on dignity, compassion, humaneness and respect for humanity of another;
4. dictates a shift from confrontation to mediation and conciliation;
5. dictates good attitudes and shared concern;
6. favours the re-establishment of harmony in the relationship between parties and that such harmony should restore the dignity of the plaintiff without ruining the defendant;
7. favours restorative rather than retributive justice;
8. operates in a direction favouring reconciliation rather than estrangement of disputants;
9. works towards sensitising a disputant or a defendant in litigation to the hurtful impact of his actions to the other party and towards changing such conduct rather than merely punishing the disputant;
10. promotes mutual understanding rather than punishment;
11. favours face-to-face encounters of disputants with a view to facilitating differences being resolved rather than conflict and victory for the most powerful;
12. favours civility and civilised dialogue premised on mutual tolerance.