Following are excerpts from a 10/12/2013 article by travellerev entitled: "Ubuntu Versus Wetiko Or Why John Key Going To Mandela’s Funeral Is So Very, Very Wrong And Yet So Very Right Too."

"What struck me is how... all these world “leaders” who we all know are doing exactly the opposite of what Mandela stood for, fell over backwards to hail Mandela... and thus hijacked the very goal of his presence here on this planet for their own purposes.

"... look at the philosophy from which Mandela came, the concept of Ubuntu [as compared to] the concept of Wetiko ...

"Ubuntu... means that we are all part of the same spiritual body. We are not individuals so much as individual expressions of the same universe and to acknowledge one another as being part of the same human family and energy we become human in the fullest sense of the word. Not just that, we become part of the expression of that same universe as it manifests itself on this planet. (my interpretation)

"It means for example that if a stranger passes a village that person does not have to ask for food or a place to sleep as that is understood to be the need of one’s self and thus of the other and to deny the other is to deny yourself. It is, I feel, similar to the Buddhist concept of oneness and that of many of the philosophies of what we call first nation peoples. To be part of the human race means to be part of the fabric of life and the universe. The damage we do to others we do to ourselves and in doing so we damage the planet and life itself...

"Wetiko, described by Paul Levi with the Western term of malignant egophrenia, is the name given by many tribes of the North American continent to what they see as an inner disease of the spirit, soul and psyche that explicates itself through the canvas of the outside world. It acts as a virus in that it can spread to other individuals when they get in touch with an infected individual. It can grow and infect entire groups... as the very opposite of what the concept of Ubuntu... [wetiko] tries to convince the sufferer that only his/her own personal gain is important and that what happens to others around him will not affect him and are therefore not his responsibility.

"In other words the Wetiko infection separates the “individual” from the spiritual nourishment of being part of the human species and also of the sensation of being part of and at the same time the whole of the universe. This means that the sufferer is no longer part of life and of this planet and this universe. Maybe even the whole concept of peace in the afterlife and the concept of paradise is a manifestation of the sickness of Wetiko and the craving of its victims to get back to the concept of Ubuntu and connectedness.

* wetiko - "The [Cree Indian] concept of Wetiko or Malignant Egophrenia or how we are all infected with a mental virus that destroys our spirituality, soul and Psyche. A virus which is contagious and which has those affected worst by it act in the most extraordinarily (self) destructive ways." - travellerev

"... it is fitting that this group of very ill people separated from us through their infection with the Wetiko should be there at the very place Mandela won’t be, confronted with their own isolation, loneliness and illusions of grandeur."