Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

[jah_yout]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">opinions on whether Rastafari has achieved cohesion </div></div>

nothing on this earth has achieved cohesion...

not christianity
not islam
not judaism
not democracy
not capitalism
not communism

NOTHING

the world is a collection of individuals...even if they profess the same philosophies and doctrines

[jah_yout]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Didn't Rastafari deliver the message through <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 14pt">REGGAE MUSIC</span></span>?

I</div></div>

they did...but not all ras are fans of reggae music...most of the bobo shanti sect bun out reggae as reggae has become more of a secular music made for money and driven by artists singing of violence &amp; meaningless sex...

[jah_yout]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wahalla</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I think it is.. But it has evolved away from what it was....then so do most religions....

I actually believe that Rasta prevented the more radical forms of black nationalism taking root in Jamaica...

And it would have stymied the materialism of communism taking root.... </div></div>

but what is Rastafari??? is there any cohesion of definition?..i fi one always rue the state of the elders...their physical state n lack of respect shown them...matta of fact more people use fi show Gad props as if an because..yet those who go tru fighting to achieve the 'livity' most seh is pawt n parcel of Rastafari, dem still can seh cole grung was my bed last .....an nuff who peeps swear is Ras tru dem ACHIEVED high profile, wellllllllllll....so , does Chevanne's research on who n wat is Rasta still stand , or like prosperity preachers, do others change Rastafari to meet their intent rather than living the original intent... i.e they have embraced materialism etc btw Wahalla..do u memba the author of this article...he has a history in the black movement so to speak bak in the days in Ja...yeah man...memba him well as a schooler looking out n up fi di movers an shakers of change in dat era... </div></div>


for a complete over-standing;

one has to start from the root..
in that sense leonard percival howell (the man in my avatar) who was the original gong...and started the ras commune at pinnacle (st. catherine) , must be studied...
it's comical that some people can call themselves ras and not even know of leonard howell

[evanovitch]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">opinions on whether Rastafari has achieved cohesion </div></div>

nothing on this earth has achieved cohesion...

not christianity
not islam
not judaism
not democracy
not capitalism
not communism

NOTHING

the world is a collection of individuals...even if they profess the same philosophies and doctrines </div></div>

ergo, neither would ethnicity so there is no black race...so we should therefore not expect forward movement as a race since there is only individuality and collectivitiy aka cohesion is a misnommer....just clarifying ur statement to mek sure dat is wat u mean to convey

[jah_yout]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

HON. Leonard Percival Howell, is a
Jamaican religious figure. He founded the Rastafari movement and is known as &quot;The First Rasta.&quot; He began preaching in 1933 about the symbolic portent for the African Diaspora - the crowning of the King of Kings, Emperor Haile Sellassi I of Ethiopia as the Messiah returned to earth. Although this resulted in him being arrested, tried for sedition and imprisoned for two years, the Rastafari movement grew. He is still the original GONG!

[Derek]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Derek</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Didn't Rastafari deliver the message through <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-size: 14pt">REGGAE MUSIC</span></span>?

I</div></div>

they did...but not all ras are fans of reggae music...most of the bobo shanti sect bun out reggae as reggae has become more of a secular music <span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">made for money and driven by artists singing of violence &amp; meaningless sex</span></span>... </div></div>

These days yes. Not when I was growing up.

[jah_yout]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">opinions on whether Rastafari has achieved cohesion </div></div>

nothing on this earth has achieved cohesion...

not christianity
not islam
not judaism
not democracy
not capitalism
not communism

NOTHING

the world is a collection of individuals...even if they profess the same philosophies and doctrines </div></div>

ergo, neither would ethnicity so there is no black race...so we should therefore not expect forward movement as a race since there is only individuality and collectivitiy aka cohesion is a misnommer....just clarifying ur statement to mek sure dat is wat u mean to convey </div></div>


not sure what you mean...
but someone (&quot;black afrikans&quot was taken from afrika and endured 400 years of slavery under the yoke of the beast;
the great mighty prophet garvey stated that individuals must organize in order to effect change &amp; progress;

for ras, afrika is the motherland (new jeruslaem/israel) to which we are destined to repatriate, whether spiritually or physically, sometimes both...even though the globe is our oyster,
it is zion-- the fulfillment of prophecy...and wi naah stop seh dat

[jah_yout]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">HON. Leonard Percival Howell, is a
Jamaican religious figure. He founded the Rastafari movement and is known as &quot;The First Rasta.&quot; He began preaching in 1933 about the symbolic portent for the African Diaspora - the crowning of the King of Kings, Emperor Haile Sellassi I of Ethiopia as the Messiah returned to earth. Although this resulted in him being arrested, tried for sedition and imprisoned for two years, the Rastafari movement grew. He is still the original GONG!

</div></div>


Howell became the most successful teacher of Rastafari doctrine. He enjoined black people to be PROUD of heritage and culture, to have their own “Money” Banks, be self-motivated, strong self-sufficient, where black economies would triumph and to hold high the value of education. Furthermore, he preached to show respect, love and honor. He said, “The white mans doctrine has forced the black man to forsake silver and gold and seek heaven after death. It has brought us to live in disgrace and die in dishonor”

<span style="font-weight: bold">Despite the fact that Howell became the most persecuted man in the history of Jamaica, he must be credited for purchasing over 500 acres of Land at Sligoville, in St. Catherine became known as PINNACLE. It was the center of the Rastafarian Movement, the first free slave, self sufficient and economically empowered African village in Jamaica (an historical move) Many generation of African slaves , in the thousand , came from rural and urban Jamaica settled on the land and made their vision a reality. They lived a natural way of life, in harmony with the universe, showed love and peace to all race and color, lived in unity worked collectively , uphold culture, heritage, freedom and justice, Many who were farmers planted organic food ,other who were skilled in arts and craft made household items. In addition, herbal medicine, roots, tonics and other produces were supplies and sold to the local government, private and public sectors.</span>
Howell was a man of great vision, and mystic spirituality. He created codes and principles based on the teaching of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie 1 and developed the Nyahbinghi Order (a mystical religious order) that defined “death” by the Divine Creator to the blacks and white oppressors. Years later Howell formed “The Ethiopian Salvation Society”

Before his death in 1981 Howell once said:


&quot; I am convinced that the children we are teaching today, will become vanguards and guardians to our freedom tomorrow and better citizens to defend our democracy and to ensure that generations to come will learn from the Holocaust of slavery, and keep the flame of remembrance burning. Help them to understand more about the past, that our history NEVER repeats itself so that we can create a better future for all human race.”

By Catherine Howell

http://www.lphfoundation.org/about.html

[evanovitch]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">HON. Leonard Percival Howell, is a
Jamaican religious figure. He founded the Rastafari movement and is known as &quot;The First Rasta.&quot; He began preaching in 1933 about the symbolic portent for the African Diaspora - the crowning of the King of Kings, Emperor Haile Sellassi I of Ethiopia as the Messiah returned to earth. Although this resulted in him being arrested, tried for sedition and imprisoned for two years, the Rastafari movement grew. He is still the original GONG!

</div></div>

have u ever read CHILDREN OF SISYPHUS

[jah_yout]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">HON. Leonard Percival Howell, is a
Jamaican religious figure. He founded the Rastafari movement and is known as &quot;The First Rasta.&quot; He began preaching in 1933 about the symbolic portent for the African Diaspora - the crowning of the King of Kings, Emperor Haile Sellassi I of Ethiopia as the Messiah returned to earth. Although this resulted in him being arrested, tried for sedition and imprisoned for two years, the Rastafari movement grew. He is still the original GONG!

</div></div>

have u ever read CHILDREN OF SISYPHUS </div></div>

have not

[blugiant]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: MorwenEdhelwen1</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks for posting this article, evanovitch! Funny thing is, was just doing an Internet search on Rastafarianism before I saw this post. </div></div>

see wat mii mean bye ovatandinn kultural locateshan. ism ann schism babylon tings dat affend sum

THE HALF THAT'S NEVER BEEN TOLD

HISTORY IS WRITTEN BY THE WINNERS

Another interesting longshot to consider from 1935 was that all four major leaders of the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica - Howell, Robert Hinds, Joseph Hibbert and Archibald Dunkley - were all in prison at the same time. For a period of a few months that year, there were no leaders available to preach African Consciousness anywhere on the island. There was no one to lead the charge to answer the call to defend Emperor Selassie I and Ethiopia.

da half that never been told

[blugiant]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wahalla</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I think it is.. But it has evolved away from what it was....then so do most religions....

I actually believe that Rasta prevented the more radical forms of black nationalism taking root in Jamaica...

And it would have stymied the materialism of communism taking root.... </div></div>

given de histaree aff rasta inn jamaica doan buy yu argument

[evanovitch]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body">HON. Leonard Percival Howell, is a
Jamaican religious figure. He founded the Rastafari movement and is known as &quot;The First Rasta.&quot; He began preaching in 1933 about the symbolic portent for the African Diaspora - the crowning of the King of Kings, Emperor Haile Sellassi I of Ethiopia as the Messiah returned to earth. Although this resulted in him being arrested, tried for sedition and imprisoned for two years, the Rastafari movement grew. He is still the original GONG!

</div></div>

have u ever read CHILDREN OF SISYPHUS </div></div>

have not </div></div>

okay, have u ever read:

Rastafari: roots and ideology
Barry Chevannes
Syracuse University Press, 1994 - History - 298 pages



Rastafari: Roots and Ideology is the first comprehensive work on the origins of the Jamaica-based Rastafaris and <span style="font-weight: bold">includes interviews with some of the earliest members of the movement</span>. The book is a rich historical and ethnographic work which will be of interest to religion scholars, historians, scholars of black studies and a general audience interested in the movement of how Rastafarians settled in other countries.

[evanovitch]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

<span style="font-weight: bold">Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews.</span>

Chevannes, Barry. (Editor). (1995).
Basingstoke, Hamps., England: Macmillan and The Hague: Institute of Social Studies.

(<span style="font-weight: bold">took this out of the boxes in the garage last week with the intention of a rereading</span>

Contributors: Jean Besson, E. Ellis Cashmore, Barry Chevannes, Roland Littlewood, H. U. E. Thoden van Velzen, Wilhemina van Wetering.


Note: The primary focus of this book is the relationship between the Rastafari and other African-Caribbean religions, not the use of ganja per se.


Excerpt(s): Since its founding the Rastafari movement has gone through three distinct phases of growth. The first phase lasted through the 1930s and most of the 1940s. Theologically , the main impetus was given to propagating the idea of a Black God among a people whose image of God was of a bearded White father in the sky and of a White man on a cross. (page 11)


The second phase began among second-generation converts who entered the movement in the 1940s but who were in revolt against practices they thought were compromising. The innovations and practices they instituted were to become the hallmarks of the new image of the Rastafari: dreadlocks, ganja-smoking, Rasta talk ... (Barry Chevannes, Chapter 1, Introducing the Native Religions of Jamaica, page 12)


For the majority of Rastafari members rituals are of two kinds; reasonings and the `binghi', both sometimes referred to as a `grounding' or a `grounation', from which has come the verb `to grounds', meaning to get along well. The reasoning is an informal gathering at which a small group of brethren share in the smoking of the holy weed, ganja, and in a lofty discussion. As the brethren sit around in a circle, the host cuts up the ganja, mixing into it a small quantity of tobacco from a cigarette. The matter is stuffed into the chillum of a water pipe (called a `huka' by the East Indians), from whom the whole ganja complex was borrowed, but called a chalice or cup by the Rastafari, who compare it to the sacred communion of the Christians. He whose honor it is to light the pipe, or chalice, pauses and recites a short prayer before, while all participants bare their heads. Once lit, the chalice is moved counter-clockwise around the circle, until all have `supped'. Reasoning ends, not formally, but when the participants one by one don their tams or caps and depart. (Barry Chevannes, Chapter 2, New Approach to Rastafari, page 17)


As ganja trading and smoking came in for increased suppression by the police, some Rastafari groups tried to restrict its use. Hinds, for example, had strict rules, which forbade bringing it into his Mission, let alone using it there, while allowing members the private use of it. Youth Black Faith, however, decided on a different course. Seizing on the name herbs, and reasoning that it had divine sanction, so that Government's attempt to suppress it was tantamount to an attempt to suppress the people, the Warriors and the Dreadfuls led the House into adopting ganja as an integral part of their movement, Wato explains:



We don't count ganja as a criminal offence. We show the policemen at all times that we rather if you destroy us. For God says, `The evil things 'pon this earth is the hand-made things'. These are the things that brought up falsehood 'pon the people, those is the things that destroy the people. So this is not the things that hand-made, this is God's natural creation, and it always virtuous to show the man the Bible and Revelation 22: `The herbs that bear the various fruits, the leaf of it shall be the healing of the nation'. And in Psalm 104 him says; `All the herbs that bearing seeds upon the land is made for man'. So this is the chief argument we always confront them whenever we have an attack by the police.


And to make sure that their use of ganja was explicitly religious, Wato said that the Youth Black Faith instructed members of the House not to carry it on their person, so that police action could be targeted not at the individual but at the whole assembly of the faithful:


If the policeman intervene in our congregation, him couldn't find no other charge. The Father say: `When they persecute you fi other things it is not; but when them persecute you fi the word, I Jehovah God is with you'.


Thus they did not try to hide ganja or hide their use of it. But by giving it ritual sanction they were in effect expressing their contempt for the state and society. (Barry Chevannes, Chapter 4, The Origin of the Dreadlocks, pages 85-86)





Compilation copyright © 1995 – 2001 CSP

[evanovitch]

Re: Rastafari:Ja's greatest legacy totheworld..yea/nay

Nettleford, Rex. 1970. <span style="font-weight: bold">Mirror, Mirror: Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica</span>. Kingston: William Collins and Sangster Jamaica Ltd.

and of course, his:

<span style="font-weight: bold">The Rastafarians in Kingston Jamaica</span> (with M.G. Smith &amp; F.R. Augier). Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. 1967.

[quote][During this volatile time of self-definition, Nettleford expressed a commitment to articulating and making accessible the cause of minority groups, (i.e. notably Rastafarians) in the face of what he calls &quot;the underlying lack of social conscience among the more fortunate classes in Jamaica&quot; (54). In an attempt to deflect the nations prominent preoccupation with European aesthetics and cultural attributes, Nettleford turned towards an intellectual engagement with the social pariah of Jamaican and Caribbean society at the time -- the Rastafarian. The Rastafarian's brandishing of the symbol of protest against Babylon and European hegemony was worn on their heads, with the growing of locks, released from their tongues, through the creation of a new indigenized creole lexicon, and embodied in their walk, which valorized the kings and queens of a regal African lineage.

<span style="font-style: italic">The significance of their presence in the pivotal moment of Jamaica's independence cannot be underestimated as Nettleford has indicated: </span>

&quot;More generally <span style="font-weight: bold">the role of the Rastafarians has been to bring to the attention of the Jamaican society the urgent need to root identity and national cohesion in a recognition of the origins of its black majority and to redress the imbalance of history's systematic weakening of any claim to achievement which descendants of Africans would otherwise make in the New World. In this they have been a revitalizing force, albeit a discomforting and disturbing one</span>&quot; (110).
These qualities of defiance and self-determination are what illustrate the resilience and creative ingenuity of the Jamaican people and it is what Nettleford seeks to express, make accessible and foster among the masses. /quote]