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Best of Today

Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin’s Today programme

Best of Today

BBC

News, Daily News

4.0837 Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Bishop of Dover, presents the highlights from her guest edit of Today. The South African concept ‘Ubuntu’ or “I am because you are” is at the heart of her programme, reflecting on our common humanity. She hears from students at a pupil referrals unit, the charity Justice Defenders who work to improve access to justice, and also a Uighur child refugee exiled in Turkey. Including Mishal Husain and Martha Kearney.

(Image: Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin, credit: Jim Drew)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

0:05.0

Hello, I'm Rose Hudson Wilkin, the Bishop of Dover.

0:09.1

For my guest editor of today, I wanted to look at the South African concept of Ubuntu.

0:16.2

In essence, what does it mean to be human?

0:20.5

I am because you are, or I am because we are.

0:28.2

This acknowledges our common humanity.

0:32.1

Ubuntu was an idea originally from the Zulu language,

0:36.5

championed by the then Archbishop of Cape Town, the most

0:40.5

Reverend Desmond Tutu, who also chaired the South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

0:48.3

Here's the BBC's Africa correspondent, Andrew Harding, who's based in Johannesburg, to explain how the idea spread

0:57.0

around the world and its continued relevance in South Africa today.

1:10.0

The time for the healing of the wounds has come.

1:13.6

A generation ago, as Nelson Mandela guided his nation away from civil war, one word seemed to sum up an almost miraculous spirit of reconciliation.

1:24.6

Ubu, Umbu.

1:26.6

Africa is the birthplace of Ubuntu.

1:31.3

I am because we are.

1:35.3

It was Archbishop Desmond Tutu who led the preaching of Ubuntu through the 1990s

1:40.3

as he oversaw South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission,

1:49.2

urging people to confront the crimes of apartheid and where possible to forgive.

1:55.2

Woon to is an approach to life that is very difficult to describe in English words.

1:59.6

It speaks to the very essence of being human.

2:06.0

My humanity is caught up, inextricably bound up in nuance.

...

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