Milking Ubuntu

Well, friends, I made it to Johannesburg in one piece. I’ve discovered the secret to conquering 17 hour plane rides: Tylenol PM. I’m serious- I’m buying stock.

I’ve been here less than 24 hours and I’m already fairly overstimulated. There are so many little tidbits I could share, from the disturbing gentleman sitting next to me on the place, who was screening a charming little film called “Taliban Bodies” on his laptop- to the conversation I observed at dinner last night between the children of my landlord about whether the room in the Apartheid Museum that is lined with nooses is too upsetting to really be useful as a statement (especially since they're probably not the "real" nooses anyway).… but the one I’m thinking about at this moment actually comes from the supermarket.

After checking out the local “corner store,” I gratefully accepted a ride from the administrator at Wits who works for the International Human Rights Exchange (IHRE, for which I am teaching) to the Roseland mall- an indoor shopping mall with everything from movie theatres to grocery stores to upscale house wares boutiques. As I was stocking up on everything from TP to toast, I began to notice a common theme in grocery packaging- references to human rights. For example, the milk I bought reads:

Mageu Number 1
Give Your Body a Boost!
WE SALUTE THE SPIRIT OF UBUNTU

For those who don’t know, “Ubuntu” is a Bantu word meaning (depending on who is doing the defining) dignity, community, humanity. Some see it as a type of humanitarian philosophy, encapsulated in the idea that “I am who I am because of who we all are.” It is a sense of connectivity to others, an affirmation of shared humanity. It is also one of the explicit founding values of the new Republic of South Africa, one which also appears frequently in its law and jurisprudence. Apparently, it is also an ideology supported by at least some part of the dairy industry. Do you suppose it makes the cows more harmonious? More able to understand and appreciate one another's essential bovineness? I'm being flippant, but it’s interesting to me- this commoditization of rights and dignity. I wonder where else it will appear…