Contents
- Time for Reflection
- Business Motion
- Topical Question Time
- Point of Order
- Gender-identity Healthcare for Young People
- Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
- Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill: Financial Resolution
- Appointment of Members of the Standards Commission for Scotland
- Decision Time
- Two-child Benefit Cap
Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Right Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Good afternoon. I am coming to the end of my term and, all year, this is the word I have shared: ubuntu. All year, this is the truth that I have seen evidenced in the everyday: ubuntu.
Every moderator is asked to choose a theme, and I chose this Zulu phrase. It is difficult to translate into English, but, as near as we can manage, it means, “I am because you are,” or, “I am because we are.” That is a deeply theological statement. It is a powerful piece of subversive wisdom. It is a word that we need to hear and heed today.
No one is an only child; we are created to be in community. No one “makes it on their own”; we all stand on the shoulders of everyday giants, people who play their part—who love, listen, learn and live their lives in an intricate web of humans being. There really is no them and us; there is only us. When we do each other down, we dilute our common humanity—and our common humanity is an extraordinary gift.
Think about it. When you pour your cereal or coffee in the morning, behind that there are growers and harvesters, producers and packagers, researchers and those marketers who convince you that this is the breakfast for you. They make your morning happen. When you read or watch or hear something that moves you in your bones, people you will never meet made that possible. They mixed and measured, wrote and reconsidered words and ways to evoke wonder in you. Do we understand that, or do we just consume and assume?
Ubuntu—I am because you are. In a world where so many struggle, unseen and ill-considered: ubuntu—I am because you are. In a world where those who have arrived do not want to move: ubuntu—I am because you are. What we do and do not do matters to siblings we may never see: ubuntu.
Over the year, I heard the word sung out in numerous projects, parties, panels and places across Scotland, with people living for each other, finding themselves completely in service to their siblings. This year, I choked that word out at a service in Dungavel as I stood with asylum seekers stuck in a system bereft of humanity, and I witnessed love alive in innumerable people and places, where there was a vibrant, relevant response to need right in front of them.
Ubuntu. It is not a foreign phrase that is difficult to interpret; it is a universal truth to transform us. Scottish Parliament, you lead us into a now and a future. I am because we are. Live that truth.
Air adhart
Business Motion