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Has Rasta retreated?
A reader close to the rural areas and the Rasta community has asked, "Why doesn't Jamaica have at least one Rasta farm producing organic vegetables? The deadbeat Rasta movement is obviously totally busy condemning Babylon (nothing wrong with that), but many people would like to see how the Rasta community does it better. It shouldn't be impossible to lease a piece of land in a country which prides itself so much on having shed the shackles of the proverbial (white) oppressors."
I am forced to agree with the reader. In the last 60 years the Rasta movement (or, more likely, idea) has been the most vibrant in its increase from where Rasta, as late as the 1960s, was seen as something 'unclean' and unpalatable to even poor Jamaican households.
'Mi nuh wan nuh dutty-head Rasta inna di house!' would be the brusque response from a parent who either carried a Rasta friend over, or worse, whose son or daughter suddenly decided he/she no longer wanted to cut or comb his hair. In the 1960s, it was routine that policemen who picked up Rastafarians would use ratchet knives to cut their hair while in lockup. This was done with much glee.
Somewhere in-between Bob Marley becoming big on the world stage and quite a number of our entertainers conning themselves into believing that wearing dreadlocks and smoking weed meant that they were Rasta, the Rastafarian ideals of Black/African pride, bodily purity and having a reverence for nature and HIM Selassie disappeared. As Marley rose, too many Rastas saw in him their images and forgot that Marley was just another man, though he was an awesome poet/entertainer.
Many of them became what the late Jacob Miller referred to as, 'too much commercialisation of Rastafari."
Where is the great Rasta radio station, school, shopping mall filled with the works of their excellent artisans, herbalists? Where are the Rasta writers? Where is the Rasta temple or Great Hall where brethren can gather and exchange thoughts, ideas and business plans? It seems to me that too much of Rasta is mixed up in mystical gibberish and the elders (are there any left?) have not sought to infiltrate Babylon in order to understand Babylon and extract from it the power which comes from commerce.
So it is no longer a religion, just a set of locked-away cultists preaching to the converted few and feeling sorry for themselves. The commercial ones, the entertainers who chant up 'Selassie' on stage then immediately after that launch into foul lyrics, are pretenders and infidels. They have bastardised Rasta.
If Rasta really wanted to undermine Babylon, it doesn't need a political representative. It needs money. It needs Pinnacle, it needs a strong voice at our universities and it needs the respect it has never truly been given.
The other night I was watching a DVD of Dutty Fridaze where at the very raunchy dance a young 'Rasta' was 'doing things' with a reprobate-looking woman that no true Rasta would do. Not even the crude pretenders respect Rasta anymore.
Seems to me that Rasta is dead. <span style="font-weight: bold">Only the locks remain and even that I can buy in a curio shop. Made in China</span>.
[email protected]
A reader close to the rural areas and the Rasta community has asked, "Why doesn't Jamaica have at least one Rasta farm producing organic vegetables? The deadbeat Rasta movement is obviously totally busy condemning Babylon (nothing wrong with that), but many people would like to see how the Rasta community does it better. It shouldn't be impossible to lease a piece of land in a country which prides itself so much on having shed the shackles of the proverbial (white) oppressors."
I am forced to agree with the reader. In the last 60 years the Rasta movement (or, more likely, idea) has been the most vibrant in its increase from where Rasta, as late as the 1960s, was seen as something 'unclean' and unpalatable to even poor Jamaican households.
'Mi nuh wan nuh dutty-head Rasta inna di house!' would be the brusque response from a parent who either carried a Rasta friend over, or worse, whose son or daughter suddenly decided he/she no longer wanted to cut or comb his hair. In the 1960s, it was routine that policemen who picked up Rastafarians would use ratchet knives to cut their hair while in lockup. This was done with much glee.
Somewhere in-between Bob Marley becoming big on the world stage and quite a number of our entertainers conning themselves into believing that wearing dreadlocks and smoking weed meant that they were Rasta, the Rastafarian ideals of Black/African pride, bodily purity and having a reverence for nature and HIM Selassie disappeared. As Marley rose, too many Rastas saw in him their images and forgot that Marley was just another man, though he was an awesome poet/entertainer.
Many of them became what the late Jacob Miller referred to as, 'too much commercialisation of Rastafari."
Where is the great Rasta radio station, school, shopping mall filled with the works of their excellent artisans, herbalists? Where are the Rasta writers? Where is the Rasta temple or Great Hall where brethren can gather and exchange thoughts, ideas and business plans? It seems to me that too much of Rasta is mixed up in mystical gibberish and the elders (are there any left?) have not sought to infiltrate Babylon in order to understand Babylon and extract from it the power which comes from commerce.
So it is no longer a religion, just a set of locked-away cultists preaching to the converted few and feeling sorry for themselves. The commercial ones, the entertainers who chant up 'Selassie' on stage then immediately after that launch into foul lyrics, are pretenders and infidels. They have bastardised Rasta.
If Rasta really wanted to undermine Babylon, it doesn't need a political representative. It needs money. It needs Pinnacle, it needs a strong voice at our universities and it needs the respect it has never truly been given.
The other night I was watching a DVD of Dutty Fridaze where at the very raunchy dance a young 'Rasta' was 'doing things' with a reprobate-looking woman that no true Rasta would do. Not even the crude pretenders respect Rasta anymore.
Seems to me that Rasta is dead. <span style="font-weight: bold">Only the locks remain and even that I can buy in a curio shop. Made in China</span>.
[email protected]
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