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Rastafarianism is a religion and not based on skin colour.
The original Rastas drew their inspiration from the philosphies of Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887-1940), who promoted the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the 1920s. The organization's main goal was to unite black people with their rightful homeland, Africa. Garvey believed that all black people in the western world should return to Africa since they were all descended from Africans. He preached that the European colonizers, having fragmented the African continent, unfairly spread the African population throughout the world. As a result, blacks were not able to organize themselves politically or express themselves socially. Their intellect had been stunted by continuous European oppression. Enslavement had provided blacks with a "slave mentality" so that they had come to accept white racist definitions of themselves as inferior. For Garvey, blacks in the Americas had not only been repressed physically, but their minds had been affected by years of white subordination. Slavery had degregaded them so badly that they actually considered themselves as little more than slaves.8
As a result, programs aimed at the gradual integration of blacks into white society were worthless in Garvey's eyes. His mission was to restore the lost dignity of blacks by severing ties with the white world. As he expressed in the New York Times on August 3, 1920, "We shall organize the four hundred million Negroes of the world into a vast organization to plant the banner of freedom on the great continent of Africa... If Europe is for Europeans, then Africa is for the black people of the world." 9 After spending nearly a decade in the United States and Great Britain, Garvey returned to Jamaica in 1927, where he spread his political views among the black working class. He assured his followers, "No one knows when the hour of Africa's redemption cometh. It is in the wind. It is coming. One day, like a storm, it will be here." 10 He told blacks to "look to Africa for the crowning of a king to know that your redemption is near."11
In 1930, Prince Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned the new Emperor of Ethiopia. Upon his coronation, he claimed for himself the title of Emperor Haile Selassie (Power of the Trinity) I. This announcement was a monumental event that many blacks in Africa and the Americas saw as the fulfillment of Garvey's prophecy years before. 12 After the crowning of Selassie, the Rastafarian movement gained a following and officially began.13 Ironically, Selassie was never a Rastafarian himself, and no one is really sure what he ever thought of his following. 14Also noteworthy is the fact that Garvey himself was admittedly not an admirer of Haile Selassie, and he went as far as to attack the Ethiopians as "crazy fanatics."15
Although Leonard Howell has been proclaimed the first Rastafarian preacher in Jamaica, there were at least three other Rastafarian groups in existence during the 1930s. While each group exemplified a different style of worship and emphasized distinctive aspects of the Rasta "doctrine," there were several common themes uniting these factions. First, all four groups condemmed Jamaica's colonial society. Second, all believed repatriation to Africa was the key to overcoming oppression. Next, all of these groups advocated non-violence. Finally, all four groups worshipped the divinity of Haile Selassie I. The four early Rastafarian groups reflected the movement's history of diversification and lack of centralized leadership. 16
In 1935, the Italian army invaded Ethiopia. This event drew widespread attention to the incompetence of the Selassie Regime, which had left Ethiopia's peasantry impoverished, uneducated, untrained in military service, and entirely unprepared for war. Moreover, Jamaica's economic crisis continued to worsen. Black workers, plagued by malnutrition and poor wages, turned to practical action as opposed to religion as a form of resistance. Spurred on by these developments, the Rastafarian movement became increasingly politicized. During the 1940s and 1950s, leaders intensified their opposition to the colonial state by defying the police and organizing illegal street marches. 17
By the mid-1950s, the Rastafarians were viewed by many in Jamaica as bearded drug addicts, a national eyesore, or a "cult of outcasts." 18 There were frequent clashes between Rastafarians and the police, and Rastafarians were viewed as black racists who wanted to rule over the white man. 19 While the Rastafarian movement did indeed promote racial pride, in actuality, it posed little threat to Jamaica's ruling class. Largely lower class, politically passive, and nonviolent, most Rastafarians were committed only to repatriating members to Africa and worshipping the divinity of Haile Selasie I. Rastafarians avoided the political world for meditation and prayer. 20 In spite of this, throughout the 1960s Rastafarian demonstrations against segregation and black poverty were violently repressed by the Jamaican police and military. Several Rastafari were killed in such clashes, and hundreds more were arrested and humiliated by being forced to have their dreadlocks cut off. 21 In sum, during the period from 1930 until the mid-1960s, Rastafarianism was little more than a local Jamaican religious movement. Not only did no Jamaica-wide Rastafarian Church develop, but there was not even agreement on basic doctrine or a canon of scripture.22
Haile Selassie visited Jamaica on April 21, 1966, while the country was amid an ongoing national social crisis in which Rastas were perceived by the majority as a revolutionary threat that had to be defused. During this first and final trip to Jamaica, Selassie met with several Rastafarian leaders. The visit resulted in two profound developments within the Rastafarian movement. First, Selassie convinced the Rastafarian brothers that they "should not seek to immigrate to Ethiopia until they had liberated the people of Jamaica."23 Second, from that day forth, April 21st has been celebrated as a special holy day among Rastafarians, "Grounation Day." 24
In 1968, Jamaican University lecturer Walter Rodney started the Black Power Movement, which significantly influenced the development of Rastafarianism in the Carribean. Black Power was a call for blacks to overthrow the capitalist order that ensured white domination, and to redevelop their lifestyles in the image of blacks. In Dominica, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago, Rastafarians played a major role in radical left-wing politics. In Jamaica, Rastafarian resistance was expressed through a variety of cultural forms.25
The Rastafarian image went through a significant transformation in the 1970s. Whereas in the 1960s Rastas were perceived negatively, in the 1970s they became more of a positive cultural force, contributing to Jamaica's art and music (especially reggae). In the late 1970s, one reggae musician in particular, Bob Marley, came to symbolize Rasta values and beliefs. But, more than this, Marley played a catalytic role in the Rastafarian movement worldwide. His popularity ensured a diverse audience for Rasta messages and concepts, and his music captured the essence of Rasta ideologies. 26
On August 27, 1975, Haile Selassie died, and a tremendous crisis of faith ensued. 27 With his death came various forms of rationalization from many Rastafarians. The responses concerning Selassie's death ranged from "his death was a fabrication" to "his death was inconsequential because Haile Selassie was merely a personification of God" 28. Many Rastafarians believed that his death was staged by the media in an attempt to bring their faith down, while others claimed that Haile Selassie I had trodded on to the perfect flesh, and sits on the highest point of Mount Zion where He and Empress Menen await the Time of Judgement. 29 There are others, however, who were quite logical in their approach to the theological problem surrounding the Emperor's death. They saw the death of Selassie as changing nothing, except that their God was no longer physically present. Such Rastafarians claimed that He is omnipresent in spirit and visited the clouds with the hosts of heaven. 30
Rastafarians came to the United States in large numbers as a result of the general migration of Jamaicans in the 1970s. They brought with them an image of violence, and frequent news reports detailed murders committed by individuals identified as Rastafarians. Relations with the white culture ever since have been tense, and mirrored the Rasta concept of "Dread," a term used to describe the confrontation of people struggling to maintain a denied racial selfhood. Most Rastafarians are pacifists, although a lot of support for the movement developed out of intense anti-white sentiments. In actuality, violence has been confined to individuals and loosely defined groups. In fact, it has been suggested that Rastafarians are often viewed negatively in the media because many young Jamaican-Americans have adopted the outward appearance of Rastas without adopting Rastafarian beliefs and lifestyles, 31 thereby misrepresenting the Rasta culture.
Since the 1980s, the Rastafarian movement has become increasingly secular. Many of the movement's symbols have lost their religious and ideological significance. Furthermore, the influence of Rasta ideology on Jamaica's urban youth has considerably declined. The Rasta colors (red, green, and gold), in which all Rastafarian banners and artifacts are painted, have been largely stripped of their ideological meaning and are now worn by all. Further, dreadlocks are now sported as a trendy hairstyle by both blacks and whites in Jamaica and abroad.
The loosening of Rastafari ideology has also led women to become increasingly outspoken within the movement. Women traditionally had been forbidden to play an important role in rituals; they were expected to show complete deference to males. Previously, menstruating women were not allowed to cook, and in certain areas Rastafarian women were secluded from social contact. 32 During the last decade, however, some women have began to protest and defy the movement's patriarchal beliefs and conventions. 33 As a sign of change, Rastafari women have become quite vocal against these beliefs and practices, and some have defied such conventions as covering their dreadlocks or wearing only ankle-length dresses in public. Notwithstanding these recent developments, the Rastafari movement retains great moral authority as a result of its pioneering stance on issues of racial identity and color prejudice. 34 |
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