Boyd Varty: What I learned from Nelson Mandela 

"Our own well being is deeply tied to the well being of others. Danger is shared, pain is shared, joy is shared, achievement is shared, houses are shared, food is shared."

I like this guy, his speech is so natural and I felt the emotions

I never get tired of hearing Boyd tell his stories. Somehow his stories make us better people. Thank you.

stunning talk - I felt like a child again while watching this "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives” - Jackie Robinson

Boyd! Thank you so much for doing this. Africa is proud of those such as you. I know, I am proud of you my brother. And you are so blessed for having the opportunity to serve Madiba. And for Solly and Elvis man....bless you my man; through and through!

"O Nelson, Thou Madiba Light of all Men Thy Breath exhaled sent forth the freedom."~Poem I wrote when hearing of his death.

Undoubtedly one of the best TED talks I have ever seen!!

Mandela teach Peace Reconciliation Harmony, and the world needs to learn Ubuntu. Rest in Peace Mandela and Solium and live forever in our hearts.

Although I watched the video on my desk alone, when it ended I unconsciously started to clap my hands with the audience!

Boyd Varty: What an outstanding personality! Hopefully we can learn from Africa - the birthplace of humans...

A very nice talk. The speaker Boyd Varty tells us about the humble nature of Nelson Mandela. Good one.

Beautiful talk Boyd!! Congrats, so proud of you. You were already my hero and this cemented it!

I'm in love now too! ❤️ such a beautiful way to celebrate his memory

Agreed with below!! Watched 5 times. Amazing friendship too.

Amazing is the compassion that few people posses, and yet, animals are capable of it too, sometimes i think we are not so superior as we think we are.

Varty,,how I loved to hear to people like you sharing your experience, relating it to UBUNTU,encouraging the Spirit of togetherness to one another and here is another terminology that says 1. If there is no enemy within us the enemy outside will always be harmless. 2.Izandla ziyagezana meaning that the right hand washes the left hand and the left hand vice versa

A VERY NICE TALK INDEED. IT WAS AN EPISTLE, A LECTURE THAT TEACHES, A POEM ABOUT HUMANITY...A GREAT PRESENTATION FOR US ALL. THAN YOU.--MO

Ubuntu sounds like a beautiful idea. Here in America, interdependence is sadly frowned-upon. Whenever I find myself relying on another person, even for something small, my first instinct is "How can I learn to do this by myself?" as if in preparation for survival as the last person on earth. In my culture, asking for help is a sign of weakness, and sharing strength is said to DETRACT from the human experience. Perhaps that's why we refrain from sharing Africa's cultural lessons, like ubuntu.

Amazing speech man! I am moved. This is the time that the concept of Ubuntu should reach all over the world and make people come together for better tomorrow. Thanks for it!

fantastic, to learn also from animals and their "humanity" which can be equal or greater than ours...

I am an African... The full saying of ubuntu is, "Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu" meaning "A human is a human due to the existence of humans"... "Ubuntu" directly translates to "Humanity" The Black-Africans came to be called the "Bantu" which means "Humans" not because of what it means but due to the language that was used to specify them as the natives of "Africa".

Damn I'm so emotional right this man ✊❤️👑 has a lot of humility

That was wonderful. I LOVE Londolozi and loved Nelson Mandela. What a treat to find this video tweeted by Fodor's. We have the book your father (uncle?) wrote about the history of Londolozi and it is a great read.

The title was a little misleading...

What a wonderful talk. It would be so wonderful if everyone could look within themselves to be what they want to see in the world. Hopefully, they'd want to see love, peace and harmony.

Such a beautiful Talk and so inspiring! Very refreshing to see the meaning of Ubuntu expanded beyond humans to all living creatures! Thank you, Boyd!!!

Well done. One individual can inspire change that spreads far and wide, that would include each of us as well.

Person who has experence in difrent part of world they giving real story in their on speach is realy very enjoyabl thanks

Beautiful story and nicely delivered.

Not gonna lie. The elephant story almost made me cry.

People use to think they have choice about individuality and community sense. That if they have one, they cant have the other. That the first is meant for power, and the second, for feeling good with themselves. They are wrong. The truth is that we are connected no matter what. We are not separable. We can be individualistic, all that is required for that is freedom, not selfishness. The society we live in, however, have created the situations by wich we are rewarded for being selfish - and a culture that calls that individualism to make it look like a good thing - and situations where altruism leads to severe punishment. And since any change is called progress, we are lead to think that we are like that because we are "modern". We are lead to think the absurdity that the price of technological improvement is selfshness, for competition is put as our driving force. The more others fall, the better few are rewarded for being the "winners". And that it is so embedded in the society that we will call that "human nature" from now on. That once we cant see anything else out there, it must be biologically embedded within us, so there cant be any other way. We attributed our technological developments to competition instead of our natural ingenuity - or to the businessman instead of the inventor, if you prefer - so we would stay comfort on the idea that the world is fine, closing our eyes for comfort. Benjamin Franklin said that those who surrender freedom for security would lose either. It seems he was right. The competition idea has failed. We have created an insane society. Helping each other is not something we can only do rarely and in a small way. Its our only - and logical - way out of this mess. If you care about yourself, you have to understand that you are part of a whole and that it is not optional. To understand that requires some brains, not heart, as you are constantly told. RBE for a better future.

YES, live from your HEART... Live the Harmonies, the Exchange, the Ascension, the Revelation, the Truth...of SELF... of Spirit, of Exchange, of Love, of Freedom ... Rose Marie Raccioppi

What fellow people and animals can teach us about Ubuntu. Nicely told, Mr. Varty.

This was a wonderful talk, RIP Mandela.

❤❤❤❤❤ Amazing. I luuuuve UBUNTU. Thank you endlessly for sharing 🌞

briliant live example of humanity

Extremely we'll spoken sir

Totally glad i clicked on this talk.

This was a kiff talk, I'm poep scared of crocodiles!! :) And to the haters, please...cashing in? Honestly? If you didn't grow up in SA with the feeling of Nelson Mandela being a Grandpa you never met, then you actually don't get it at all. We all felt impacted by his death, we all had prayers and moments of silence at work, we all put down flowers for him. If Boyd hadn't dedicated his talk to Madiba (his talk is all about Ubuntu, don't forget how that links to Mandela's ideals and principles) then I would have been surprised. And to the person who splabbed on about the terrorist movement, why don't you bother reading Long Walk to Freedom and see where his original approach of non-violence and peaceful protest got the movement originally? In fact, just read Wikipedia or go to the Apartheid Museum or the Hector Pieterson Museum, his life and approach to the world is a lot more apparent there. Pretty hard to renounce violence if the government in charge basically won't allow races of colour to be educated, to have decent jobs, or even to move freely in the country. The number of black South Africans beaten to death, shot, assassinated or 'accidentally killed' while detained during Apartheid are insane. Many of them children. You could legally do more harm during Apartheid than illegally - go figure.

This guy's amazing! wonderful talk too

The herd of elephants slowed down because of the crippled elephant. But her condition was congenital. It was something out of her control, not her fault. In human society, should we all 'slow-down' because we need to advance as a group and not leave anyone behind? How can we tell apart the true innately disadvantaged from those who just wouldn't strive enough? If I want to run faster and get to the finish line first, I believe I'm entitled to, as long as I'm not running over you or leaving a rotten trail behind. It's true that humans are collective beings, and to lend a helping hand is fabulous, but I'm against shutting down individual differences. One must be able to move forward, to improve, to progress, to achieve, at your own pace.

Excellent talk! Thanks for sharing!

Awesome talk. Ubuntu!

god damn this is probably my favorite ted talk EVER..gahh!!

What a great exposé! Ubuntu!

Great talk. Thanks Boyd!

Very moving.

I know it's dumb and irrelevant but...he is very attractive.

This was beautiful .

Wow Boyd, that was absolutely amazing!

Truly amazing.

Much respect.

Beautiful

A Great Tribute to Long Walk of Freedom.

I learned could we have an executive branch leader for our counties in the USA to offer executive pardon from the death penalty in the USA because people have died here n Lane County while incarcerated and I remembered Cry Freedom, The Steven Biko story along with this Nelson Mandela series on RU-vid...maybe that can change our government.

Very moving....

Umntu ngumntu ngabanye abantu- ubuntu

am supposed to be studying bout Nelson Mandela but I'm really glad I stumbled upon this :)

Fantastic. Thank you. Ubuntu.

Lovely talk Boyd.

He inspired many around the world. Son of Qunu village.

i am proud of you.

He trailed off completely. Had nothing to do with Nelson Mendela.

Excellent.

Very nice lesson UBUNTU =SYNERGY

may he rest in peace

Perfect

Un discours très instructif et très émouvant

Brilliant

What a beautiful talk :) To think, he *just* learned of Mandela's death hours before.

I learn't that Nelson Mandela was an inspirational leader and also a good person. But I hate the fact that the whites sent him to jail for 25 years. I think he had a great leadership opportunities.

Nice speech

I am appalled, no one in the comment section is talking about how the title should read "learnt" instead of "learned"!

perfect

Got a small house with big heart in it

Anyone else spot the 2 people in the front row wearing Google glasses at 14:52?

What I learned from Sally

It's cool.

I didn't want to watch this. I felt it was too soon for a TED talk to cover Mandela's death. My guess was that someone tacked on Mandela's name to their talk for more some reason. Sadly my fears were justified.

I love this talk, but I'm pissed that yet again Africa is portrayed as this wild place where people live with animals.

I feel like I should be watching this with Lion King music in the background.

We have many Mandela in China but no Willem de Klerk

It was good but had little to do with Nelson Mandela. It should have been titled something like "The Concept of Ubuntu."

Such a misleading title. The talk was good on it's own. There's no reason to capitalize Mandela's death.

9:39 Google glasses nice

YEEEPPP, Ditching Windows.... UBUNTU here We Come~~~~

Visit SA now to see what is left of his dream...

The Same Quite man from the garden....

Misleading title. But great talk though.

Wrong title

I love these informational videos, but I have to go back to studying psychology. Byye

Talk was great but it wasn't about Mandela. Feels a little like TED is trying to capitalize on his recent death. Title is misleading.

This talk would have been much more powerful if the speaker invited "Solly(sp?)" to speak and thenhe translated Solly. Because Solly is the hero of the story, the proper owner of the "Ubuntu." It's amazing how a black man risks his life to save a white man when we hardly ever hear about the other way around. Did our collective conscious mind learn to believe white lives actually matter more? I am neither black nor white, but it's interesting to observe a white man take all the credit for what a black man did. But that's the story of our history isn't it? I am just thinking about a scenario where a white man saved a black man from a crocodile. The white man would still go around give a Tedtalk about how he saved a black man and be a hero. Haha. It's funny.

with all due respect this guy got so much @#s after this

Ubuntu is a one-word description of African civilization...It is not an idea. Anyway, I am not sure what this talk had to do with Pres. Mandela

hilarious elvis name

As to the title, that two wrongs make a right?

Oi

This talk was NOT about what Boyd Varty learned from Nelson Mandela. It's sickening for TED to cash in on social attention by creating a misguiding title for this video.

Man... ya gotta wonder where the humanity of 93 thumbs down people is hiding at.