Lecture 4 - Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship
This lecture originally airedon CBC Radio One on November 13, 2014.
"Several million years ago, in the Great Rift Valley, one of our earliest ancestors sat by a fire, shapinghumanity's first tool, a hand axe. These exquisite objects are the first utterance of a new emergent consciousness: dig, cut, scrape, chop, pierce, hammer; actions that speak of social organization, extended families living and working together to secure their survival. I am what I am because of what others have been in the past, and what I am now in the present will be a part of me in the future. This sense ofconnectedness,this symbiosis of all humanity, is the very essence of what we can be for each other and how we belong to each other."
AdrienneClarkson
From South Africa, a concept of reciprocity: that living in society demands that we take care of each other - that as it goes for one, so it goes for all of us. Ubuntu, reciprocity, is a statement of family cohesion and coherence that accommodates all living things. It also implies our connectedness - that we truly exist as individuals only when we take responsibility for each other, and that this responsibility goes back to our earliest beginnings as well as deep into the future.
Related links from Canada Writes:
- 6 books Adrienne Clarkson wants you to read (and 1 that she doesn't)
- The 2014 CBC Massey Lectures Reading List
- Tell us your true story of belonging for a chance to win $1,000
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