It’s been seven months since the Clinton Global Initiative’s 2006 Annual Meeting, but I find myself coming back to President Clinton’s closing session remarks frequently:
Bishop Tutu reminded us that the essential wisdom of Africa about the human condition is captured in the word ubuntu. He didn’t give you the literal translation because it is almost mystical. The literal translation of ubuntu, in English, is “I am because you are.”
He was the first person to introduce me to ubuntu, though the Bantu word has now spread far beyond Southern Africa (i.e. an operating system). It was very humbling to be standing 20 meters from Bill Clinton as he conveyed the importance of our connectivity, expressing an ideology that you belong to a greater whole; your humanity, your being is thought believed to be diminished when others are humiliated, tortured or oppressed.
Fast-forwarding to the present, I’m pinching myself, trying to come to grips with the reality that May 2007 is here. As universities across the country will be holding commencement ceremonies sending out a new class of graduates in the next six weeks, I’ve been reflecting on my own commencement ceremony. Tom Brokaw mused on his perception of global realities, comparing the almost instantaneous access to information we’ve been afforded, with the internet with increasingly complex political and social problems we’re currently faced with:
…welcome to a world of perpetual contradictions, welcome to a world of unintended consequences and unexpected realities. Welcome to a world in which war is not a video game, … in which genocide and ancient hatreds are not eliminated with a delete button. You won't find the answer to global poverty in Tools or Help. You cannot fix the environment by hitting the Insert bar. You cannot take your place in the long line of those who came before you simply by sitting in front of a screen or at a keyboard.
One of the biggest reasons I joined EchoDitto was that we mobilize online for results that make an impact offline too. As we collaborate with clients who don’t work on issues with quick fixes, as we strategize with them to approach complex, substantial, world-changing issues with Web 2.0 technology to drive results I can’t help but get excited. I’ve been trying to steer away from being trite in my commentary, but as widgets and instant messages help the transfer of information feel easy and simple, getting people engaged all over the world is a reality (at least more than ever before)! I know I’m not the first one to comment on our interconnectedness and globalization’s relationship with the internet – but its my first blog post! I feel like it’s a rite of passage.
…remember ubuntu. If we were alone on this planet, alone, and we were the most beautiful, the most brilliant, the most powerful, the most wealthy, and the longest-lived person ever to exist, if we were alone, we would not amount to a hill of beans. And if we did, nobody would know it.
So, ubuntu. For us, it means the world is too small, our wisdom too limited, our time here too short to waste any more of it winning fleeting victories at other people’s expense. We have to find a way to triumph together. And so you have here.
