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Chapter 7 / Ater Selassie: The Rastafarians Since 1975

This chapter will focus on the historical development of the movement up to 1983. Some of the new developments within the movement since 1975 include: (1) the dethronement and death of the Rastafarians' God-figure, Haile Selassie I; (2) the rise to superstardom of Robert Nesta Marley, the Charles Wesley of Reggae music; (3) the role of politics within the Rastafarian movement during the Manley government from 1972 to 1980; (4) the meteoric rise of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, an offshoot of the movement; (5) the spread of the movement to the Eastern Caribbean islands; (6) the Rastafarians in the United States and Canada; and (7) Rastafarians in the 1980s
There are many other important nuances of the movement which have now appeared both in Jamaica and outside the island which in dicate that the movement is not routinized into a mass entity. These analyses will require another volume.

The Dethronement and Death of Haile Selassie I

The early 1970s brought Ethiopia to the attention of the superpowers---the United States and the Soviet Union. A kingdom that had existed for thousands of years, ruled by a dynasty said to be the direct descendants of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (Somalia, formerly Southern Ethiopia), suddenly entered the arena of big-power confrontation. Alarmed at the Soviet's backing of Somalia and Eritrea, which Ethiopia claimed, the United States proceeded to send military aid to bolster the Ethiopian army. This sudden infusion of Western technology had a ripple effect throughout the sleeping empire which was later to cause its fall. While the old aristocracy remained insulated from Western influence to a great extent, the young officers of the army, with their progressive ideas and desire to bring Ethiopia into the modern age, became impatient. Most of these officers were university-trained and were acquainted with world affaris, either through political studies or through visits abroad. The intervention of the Soviet Union and the United States was an unsettling experience for a sacred monarchy. This was also the period when famine took the lives of thousands of Africans, including many in Ethiopia. In contrast to the low standard of living experienced by most Ethiopians, the Emperor and his court and countless other nobles lived in affluence. The ruling class made little or no effort to bring about reformes necessary to alleviate the condition of the common people. Land and wealth were in the hands of a few; Ethiopia was now ripe for a revolution.
While the well-to-do enjoyed the pleasures of wealth and influence, the army grew more militant. This militancy eventually spread to the universities and to the street. November 12, 1974, marked the beginning of the end of Ethiopia's long-lasting monarchy. On that day militant soldiers in the army, along with other discontents who could not longer endure the hardship, decided to storm the citadels of power in Ethiopia. Ministers of the state and several cronies of the Emperor were arrested. The Emperor's family and other close friends who heeded intelligence reports left the country; Crown Prince Asfa Wossen was convalescring in a hospital in Switzerland. Those who were arrested met with various fates: some were imprisoned, some exectued. Soon after the arrest of the ministers and other friends of Haile Selassie I, a large body of troops entered the palace and placed the Emperor under arrest. He was temporarily placed in an army barracks and later returned to his palace under guard.
The news of His Imperial Majesty's arrest came during my research in Jamaica. Many Rastafarians with whom I spoke could not believe it.
The Lion of Judah died on August 28, 1975, at the age of eighty-three. Early information in the West suggested that Crown Prince Asfa Wossen would be called to the throne. So important was this information to the Rastafarians that some of their leaders began to talk of a Haile Selassie II, but this never came to be. The Provisional Military Council, headed by General Aman Andom, took over the Ethiopian government. For hopeful Rastafarians, the situation became even worse when a Marxist government under General Mengistu Selassie Mariam took power.
It is rumored that Haile Selassie I was buried in dishonor, without the blessing of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. No one has been able to locate his resting place. These mysteries will soon find their interpretatioin in Rastology, because historical facts call for mystical interpretation. The news of Haile Selassie's death sent the Rastafarians into deep meditation, but there was no outward manifestation of sorrow. To the Rastafarians, death is not a factor. Death only comes to the people of Babylon, who are already dead. An example of this reaction was seen in Bob Marley's behavior on his hearing that Haile Selassie was dead. It is reported that ,during the recording session of his album "Rastaman Vibration," he suddenly introduced a new song which was not a part of the album untitled "Jah Lives." It is said that he sang that song almost in a state of spiritual transformation. As it will be shown shortly, the death of the Emperor did not cause a setback for the movement since the 1950s and 1960s agreed that the period from 1975 to the present has been one of phenomenal growth. Several factors contributed to this growth in the 1970s. Some were political, but the most important contribution was the wolrdwide acceptance of Reggae as an avenue of Rastafarian self-expression. This was accomplished through the artistry of Bob Marley. A professor at the University of the West Indies suggests that Reggae gave the movement "aesthetic credibility."

Robert Nesta Marley, O.M. 

The growth of the Rastafarian movement from the late 1970s to 1981 was largely due to the charismatic personalaity of Robert Nesta Marley, who in 1975 released his world-famous album Natty Dread. He had been singing for over a decade before he came to world attention with this revolutionary album of songs. Along with the title song were "Revolution," "No Woman, No Cry," "Them Belly Full, But We Hungry," and "Rebel Music." All these songs were stinging commentaries on Jamaica's stifling social and economic conditions. In 1975 Bob Marley became the bard of Rastafarian social values---a prophet crying in the wilderness of the Caribbean; some have even called him the Charles Wesley of Rastafarianism. From 1975 to his death in 1981, his message could be heard from Europe to Africa and from Canada to Australia. He became the idol of the Third World, and his musical message became a rallying theme for the oppressed on many continents.
For all this, Marlye was an enigmatic personality; only a very few people knew him intimately. To the outside world he was a Reggae superstar. Few knew that his songs were "songs of sorrows, pleading for redemption"; and only a few knew that the majority of his songs were praises to his God-figure, Jah Rastafari. To the oppressed youths of the Caribbean and the Jamaican youths in England who were able to penetrate the symbols of his message, his songs were revelations, and many translated this message into a way of life and joined the Rastafarian movement. Soon even Whites began to identified with the movement from America to Europe.
Bob Marley was brn in the humble village of Nine Miles, in the Parish of St. Ann, on February 6, 1945. This is the same parish in which the great Marcus Mosiah Garvey was born in 1887. Marley's father was Norval Sinclair Marley, an English colonial army captain stationed in Jamaica to keep the "Pax Britannica" in the remote regions of the British empire. His mother was Cedellas Malcolm, the daughter of a rugged peasant farmer. Bob Marley was their only child. The union was a common-law arrangement, and therefore Marley's upbringing was haphazard. Marley was sent to the large city of Kingston, where his father handed him over to "wards" unknown to his mother and relatives in Nine Miles. He was rescued by his mother, who took him back to his home village, where he attended grade school for a while. Later in life his mother moved to Kingston, where Marley grew to manhood. As a product of the "deep country," he was both active and thoughtful, and had memorized elements of Jamaican folklore and biblical passages, which were used in conversation by the elders of his community. In Kingston, Marley and his mother lived in the slum known as Trench Town, a place he celebrated in his music. Like most boys in the slums of Kingston, he soon learned survival techniques but he ratained his talent for composing verse. Although he was not literate, he had enough of that mixture of religion and folklore from his rural upbringing to enable him to string words together.
He began to write songs at the age of thirteen and, in1962, he made his firsst recording. At this time Jamaica was experiencing the "Ska and Rock Steady" phenomenon. Marley's early success soon became an obsession, and even with his youth and limited talent he became well known as a budding star. Sensing success, he organized a group of his home village playmates who had also migrated to the Kingston slums. Their names were to become famous on the Jamaican pop scene, and included Peter Tosh, Bunny Livingston (later called Bunny Wailer), and others. They called themselves the Wailers---a name that would become well known throughout the world. During a tour in England a reporter asked Bob Marley to explain the term "Wailers," to which he replied, "In those days we were always crying." The Wailers worked hard at their songs and, in time, they were able to produce an identifiable sound that brought them tot he attention of Jamaican record producers. Bouncing from one studio to the next, often being fleeced by promoters, they were barely able to survive while their songs made others rich.
During this time, Marley's mother, Cedella, had emigrated to the United States, and promised that Marley could join her if she found success there. She later fulfilled her promise and invited her son to join her in the United States. After weighing his future in Jamaica and his troubles with the Jamaican recording studios, he took the advice of his dearest friend---the woman who would soon become his wife---and decided to join his mother in Wilmington, Delaware.
Before leaving Jamaica in February, 1966, Marley secretly married his longtime sweetheart, Alpharita Anderson. A nurse as well as a talented rock and roll singer, she organized a group known today as the I-Three, which later served as back-up-singers to the Wailers. They became famous in their own right, and are still prominent on the singing atage. Today Marley's wife goes by the name of Rita.
Bob Marley's visit to the United States was a short one. He was unable to fit into the hectic life of the American work force. Although he picked up odd jobs here and there, his mind was on his music and the pastoral scenes of Jamaica. In 1967 he returned home and immediately picked up where he left off. After a period of readjustment he reorganized his group, and with the songs he had written during his exile in America new opportunities now arose. The Wailers broadened their repertoire, refined their music, and waited for openings. The music world began to hear the throbbing new sound of Reggae, the music of the King.
By 1975 the Wailers had been converted to the Rastafarian faith; all were "locksed," and by then their thematic focus was the praise of Jah Rastafari. The album Natty Dread was thus a true Rastafarian message to the world. From 1974 until Marley's death in 1981, the Wailers released one album per year. Although the original members of the group had changed, the central charismatic figure, Bob Marley, the high priest and evangelist of Rastafarianism, was the man the world wanted to hear. Along with the Wailers and the I-Three he repeatedly toured the United States, Canada, most European countries, Australia, Japan, and Africa. Despite his formidable success, he remained until his death a member of the Rastafarian movement, a lover of the downtrodden, and an advocate of social justice.
Even after his death Bob Marley was a formidable prophet of the movement. I was present at his funeral in May of 1981, the largest funeral ever held in Jamaican history. Tens of thousands of Jamaicans walked past his coffin in the National Arena, and for days the only conversation one heard from the suburbs to the ghetto was about the contribution of Bob Marley to Jamaican culture. Those who knew Marley's messages wondered whether the Jamaican elite had ever listened to the words of his songs. Despite the lavish praise given by Michael Manley, who had recently been voted out of office for his "heavy manners" (i.e., Edward Seaga), and Edward Seaga, who had become the Prime Minister, the only representatives at the funeral whose presence was truly significant were members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel---the new Rastafarian group of which Bob Marley was a member. Their presence at the funeral drove a wedge between them and the "vintage Rastafarians," who refused to recognize death.
Marley's death on May 11, 1981, was a severe shock to Jamaica in particular and to the music world in general. News of his illness began to appear in Jamaican papers months before his untimely end. I began to file these reports after his sudden admittance into the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where it was reported that cancer had been detected in his liver, lungs, and brain. Marley finally entered Dr. Josef Issels' Cancer Center in Rottach-Egern, Germany, where, in the summer of 1980, the Daily Gleaner reported that his condition was improving. After these encouring early reports there was a silence that was broken on the morning of May 15, 1981, when early in the morning KYW News of Philadelphia interrupted its regular programming with the announcement that Bob Marley, the Jamaican superstar, was dead. He was only thirty-six years old.
When news of the state funeral was announced I quickly made plans to fly from Philadelphia to cover the funeral, which was to take place in Kingston at the National Arena on May 20, with burial ceremonies at Nine Miles, St. Ann, on the twenty-first. I arrived at the National Arena on Wednesday morning, May 20, at 8:00 A.M. The front of the Arena was draped with a large banner printed in boldface letters: Robert Nesta Marley, O.M. At 8:30 A.M. I was one of the first persons to pass the bronze coffin in which Marley's small body lay. He was dressed in a dark suit, his face was serene, his nose prominent, his long locks in wig-form draped over his shoulders. He had a Bible in his right hand opened to psalm 23, and his light colored guitar in his left hand; all this was topped off by the tam of the Twelve Tribes, which bore the Twelve Tribes' colors of Joseph. As I passed through the east exit of the building, Bob's voice came through massive speakers, singing the songs that made him famous. Hundreds wiped tears from their eyes. I remained on the scene until 5:00 P.M. By noon the crowd had grown to tens of thousands. Lining up on the east and west sides of the Arena for five blocks on each side, the crowd was five rows deep, and the temperature was ninety degrees in the shade. There were people from all walks of life: youths from the private schools in their well-pressed multicolored uniforms, members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel dressed in white with their tribal-colored tams; but the majority of the mourners were from the ghetto-the people to whom he was a prophet. By the time Marley's coffin was ready for removal to Madden's Funeral Home at 5:00 P.M. there were close to 5,000 people still waiting. The crowd became a howling mob. The Jamaican police, Marley's perennial enemies, and security persons from the Twelve Tribes did yeoman work keeping order. Aside from some tear gas from the police there were very few problems. Along with the mourners were hundreds of capitalist higglers and pickpockets who did a brisk business. Vendors offered everything from pictures of the Wailers and the I-Three to hurriedly written poems about Bob Marley--all at fabulous prices.
This first day was a mixture of mourning, rejoicing, and festivity. Throughout the day celecrities of the music world came to pay their last respects to the singer of redemption songs. Each celebrity drew a mob. News of their presence created such bedlam that few of us could get near enough to verify their entrance or departure. The news media of the world were present, including the BBC, NBC, CBC, ABC, and French TV, to name only a few.
The morning of May 21 was a bright, sunlit day. The crowds began to gather at 7:30 A.M. The floor space of the Arena was divided into three sections. To the extreme left was the family of Bob Marley; the center was set off for members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, in which Bob Marley had recently been baptized. To the right were the neatly dressed members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, of which Bob Marley was also a member. Seats were provided at the front facing the platform for various members of the Jamaican government and other dignitaries of state. Heading this group was the Governor Genereal, His Excellency the Most Honorable Sir Florizel Glasspole; the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Honorable Edward Seaga, and his government leaders; the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Michael P. Manley; and members of the opposition. The Jamaica Council of Churches was also represented. The ceremonies were presided over by His Eminence Abouna Yesehaq, Archbishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the Western Hemisphere. The service was conducted in Ge'ez, Amharic, and English.
As the service began, the religious tension was evident. The large body of Twelve Tribes Rastafarians, who were denied liturgical preference and who rejected traditional Christianity, sat somberly in their seats, but came alive when Sir Florizel read the First Lesson; shouts of "Jah Rastafari" were heard repeatedly. This became even more evident when Allan "Skilly" Cole, a long-time friend of Bob Marley and Rastafarian, refused to read the designated Scripture and substituted for it one preferred by his brethren. The Arena rang with the praises of "Jah Rastafari, Holy I." The Rastafarians were pleased with the contribution. Another highlight of the proceedings was the Prime Minister's announcement that a new national shrine for international celebrities, to be named Jamaica Park, would be established and that it would feature a statue of Bob Marley. He then closed his eulogy with the words, "May his soul rest in the bosom of Rastafari." This was a political coup. The arena exploded with approval from members of the movement. The service ended with songs from the I-Three, who sang the "Rastaman Chant," concluding with the song, "Some Glad Morning When This Life Is Over, I'll Fly Away Home." From the Kingston Arena the funeral cortege headed out on the long journey to Nine Miles where Marley was laid to rest, passing thousands of sorrowful Jamaicans on the way. Jamaica's first superstar had become history.
The people of Jamaica still ask why he died so young. The Jamaica newspapers were busy for the rest of the month printing the letters of admires from all over the world. Columnists were busy asking questions and writing comments on Marley's impact on the nation and on the world. All this material seems to be summed up in one question: Who was this man? Bill Hall, a religious columnist, asked, "Was Marley a righteous prophet?" To the people of St. Ann, he was not dead. At Tuff Gong, Marley's residence and the studio from which after 1975 he released his albums, one of his bodyguards, Bragga, told me that he sees Marley walking around the premises daily. According to Bragga, Marley did not die of cancer but at the hands of an enemy planted in his entourage during his last tour. Here, then, is another legend in the historiography of the Rastafarian movement. With the deaths of Haile Selassie in 1975, then of the budding young Rasta star Jacob Miller in 1980 and of Bob Marley in 1981, death, a subject that had been ignored by the movement, suddenly became a reality to wrestle with.

The Role of Politics in the Growth of the Rastafarians 

My 1974 research coincided with the second year of Prime Minister Michael Manley's first term in office. He won the election by offering an alternative to the Jamaica Labour Party's paternalistic rule of Hugh Shearer. To accomplish this Manley turned this attention to the "sufferahs" of Jamaica, which meant the overwhelming majority. One of the important elements that made up the "Jamaican sufferers" was the Rastafarians. Now, the Rastafarians are traditionally apolitical; they do not vote. Their word for politicas is politricks, which sums up their perception of the political game. Despite this, every Jamaican politician sees the Rastafarian community as an important group to have on his or her side. Manley's strategy was to seek an audience with Haile Selassie, and he was finally invited to visit. He returned to Jamaica with a "walking stick" which he said was given to him by His Imperial Majesty. He called the stick the "rod of correction," and he also took the name Joshua---the one who should lead the people into the Promised Land (as mentioned in Chapter 6). These symbols, along with his dynamic way of speaking and his charisma, helped him win the hearts of the poor. The Rastafarians flocked to his meetings: some kissed the rod, and others became possessed with the spirit of "Jah." The 1972 eletion was a sweeping victory for the People's National Party. No one knows how many Rastafarians voted, but many feel that if the Rastafarians were ever going to make an exception, 1972 was the year.
Whether they voted or not we do not know, but during the period of my research in 1974, the Rastafarians had begun to lose faith in the Manley government. One leading Rastafarian had this to say:
As you know, Rastas do not vote. You cannot take out a cat and put in a rat. Mr. Manley came to power talking like a Rastafarian, and made some progressive moves on the behalf of the African people in this country. But after a while he forgot the rod, he stopped talking about Rastafarians, he stopped talking about His Majesty. That rod was to bring freedom to I and I, but the only freedom we see, up to now, is the word socialism.

This Rastaman did praise the Manley government for such things as the freedom to import Black literature from the United States and England, as well as for allowing the visit of so-called radical Black leaders who had been banned from the island during the previous government of Hugh Shearer. Ras D also praised the government for granting more freedom to the Rastafarians, who were now able to travel and to use the facilities of government properties island-wide. However, he lamented that the government had done nothing for the teeming masses of slum dwellers who had been promised a new heaven and a new earth. Other Rastafarians, however, saw the Manley government in a brighter light. When a Rastafarian professor at the University of the West Indies was asked the question, "What role did the Manley government play in the growth of Rastafarianism?" he responded:

Since 1975 the most important influences on he growth of Rastafarianism have been the impact of Bob Marley and Michael Manley. The Manley regime provided a backdrop in which the Rastafarian movement could reveal itself to the Jamaican society. Manley provided space for the Rastafarians because he articulated a Third-World philosophy and Marley opened up that space. It was during this frame of time that we saw the massive expansion of the Rastafarian value system throughout the Caribbean and North America.

The same question was put a "dreadlock" graduate student who was engaged in the study of the oral history of Rastafarianism. He said:

In the time of the first Manley (that is, the father of the present Manley), there was an attempted cooption of the movement by the so-called Mission to Africa in 1961. In 1972, his son coopted the Rasta movement by political magic, through symbols and jargon and "hero-type politricks." During the campaign he basically used Rastafarian language such as "hail the man," "love," and the display of the rod given to him by Haile Selassie. This had an evocative effect on us. His links with Reggae and those bandwagon shows, of which Bob Marley was a part, caused the movement to grow, as the movement at that time associated itself with Manley's socialism. For the first time in Jamaican history the Rastaman was focal, but the focality was Reggae. This link between the government and the Rastaman is still strong, because Reggae is still part of the government's tourist attraction. The Reggae Sunsplash is the latest version of this link.

This dreadlock confirms the role of the Manley government on the growth of Rastafarianism in the 1970s, yet distances himself from its validity. It should soon be clear that, to a large segment of the Rastafarian community, the Manley regime was accepted by some and rejected by others. To get a broader picture of the true impact of the Manley government on the Rastafarians, the same questions was put to a "baldhead" professor, who is by no means a friend of Manley. He comments:

I would say that Rastafarianism spread during the Manley regime as an unconscious---not protest----but separation from a purely materialistic and purely political philosophy. Although in many respects it shared certain concepts such as communalism rather than socialism and/or communism, which they could identify in the rhetoric of the Manley era. But I do not think that the leadership of the People's National Party would have had the faintest idea of how to establish any sort of dialogue with the Rastafarians, except on the basic one---in which Rastafarians would not be too terribly interested---that they belonged to the people, and that they are the oppressed, or to used the Rasta terminology "downpressed." It is almost true to say that Seaga probably has a more effortless grasp of the Rasta vocabulary and understands them more than any of the middle-class, essentially, Fabian socialist, Marxist leadership of the People's National Party.

One can gather that this professor believed that the Rastafarians' growth during 1970s coincided witht he Marley government, but that the government was in no way a contributing factor. He believes that Bob Marley's artistic work during this period gave the Rastafarian movement "aesthetic credibility," thus preparing the way for a wider acceptance of the movement by the mainstream society. It is worth nothing that this professor, who was an admirer of Manley during this first foru years in office, became his worst enemy after the government declared itself for democratic socialism.
What is one to make of all this? In the first place, there seems to be a general confirmation by the three Rastafarians quotd above that Manley had a positive effect on the growth of the movement. The groups had more freedom and "space" in which to perform their various activities, and they made used of it. However, many would deny that Manley had any part in the growth of the movement during his tenure. It is clear that the truth lies somewhere between the two. Manley and Marley had a piggy-back relationship throughout the rule of the People's National Party (PNP). They lived as neighbors on Hope Road in St. Andrew (a suburb of Kingston), where it was reported that the Manleys made several casual visits to the Marleys. During the first four years of the Manley regime, Bob Marley was in the habit of giving free performances for Jamaica at the request of the PNP. Two of these concerts were the "Smile Jamaica Concert" in November 1976 and the 1978 "One Love Peace Concert." It was just prior to the former performance that Bob Marley, his wife, and his manager, Don Taylor, were shot by gunmen who, some believe, had Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) connections, and it was on the latter occasion that Bob Marley joined hands with Seaga and Manley in a gesture of peace. The "One Love Peace Concert" was held during the most trying period for the Manley regime, when it was reported that the country was on the verge of civil war. (Two years later Manley lost office to Seaga.)
That Manley was deeply concerned for the welfare of the Rastafarians there is no doubt. He devoted all his energy to that segment of the population that gave rise to the Rastafarian movement. His socialism in a sense was based on an early Rastafarian creed: "The Blessing be on I and I that the hungry be fed, the naked clothed, the sick nourished, the aged protected and the infant cared for." No politician in Jamaican history tried harder to improve the conditions of the poor or came closer to succeeding. But by the end of his first term rumors of communist sympathies within his government began to disturb the United States; his close ties with Fidel Castro became a political noose around the neck of his socialism; and international credit began to dry up as he nationalized foreign industries such as the Bauxite Company. The well-to-do, with their needed skills, began to leave the island; and by the time he introduced his democratic socialism on July 7, 1977, the die was cast. Dennis Forsythe in his book Rastafari: For the Healing of the Nation sums up the Manley predicament in these words:

The Jamaican people en masse thus voted for the Jamaica Labour Party, under Mr. Edward Seaga. Michael Manley and the P.N.P. were thus booted out of office by the same public who gave him their overwhelming mandate ofr "Democratic Socialism" only four years earlier. Manley's massive defeat and failure were however more of a "warning" to Mr. Seaga as Manley failed precisely because he had become trapped by and into a model which reinforced our cultural tendency to always look outwards and upwards, but never inwards.... The people of Jamaica have taken up the enthusiastic offer which the J.L.P. has made of applying the classic American solution to solving Jamaica's classic Third World problems and they are now expecting the miracle of economic growth and social development. This was the essence of the "Deliverance" package offered by the J.L.P. to a desperate public in an increasingly desperate world, which would grab at any alternative other than the prospect of another five years of material and cultural decline under P.N.P. bossism that was poised to degenerate more into "bald-headed" totalitarianism under the impetus of a Marxist Model, though I am sure that Mr. Manley and his "progressive" supporters really believed that with the aid of this model the miracle of transformation would have taken place under their rule, had they had more time.
In my first monograph on the Rastafarians in the 1960s, I spoke of the Rastafarians' acute analysis of the political trends in Jamaica. The passage above is an example of this awareness. Their political awareness has not diminished; rather, it has been refined. I do not see the present government as an answer to Jamaica's problems; it was merely an alternative to the "material and cultural decline under P.N.P. bossism." Recent news out of Jamaica has already confirmed that the J.L.P. government is beginning to flounder by having followed the American model. For one thing it has failed to meet its I.M.F. payment, and the government has had to make massive increases in the national budget. The Jamaican dollar at close to five to one officially and as much as seven to one on the black market. A Jamaican citizen told me that during the Manley regime one had money in one's pocket, but there was not much to buy. Today there is enough to buy, but no money in the pocket. Most Jamaican Rastas reject socialism, captitalism, and communism, but their pivotal and visible presence in the community demands that they be recognized, either positively or negatively. Since 1975, that recognition has been positive.

The Emergence of the Twelve Tribes of Israel 

A new dimension was added to Rastafarianism in the early 1970s. It has always been a diffuse mass movement, with attempts here and there to gather its members into various camps under the leadership of a charismatic individual or a mystic. some of these groups exist for a long period and then fall away to regroup under new leadership. One example oof such a group can be found in Nine Miles, St. Thomas, where Prince Emanuel has held his followers together for over a decade. After moving from Back-O-Wall, with the 1969 bulldozing of the Rastafarian communes by the government, he established Mount Zion with his remaining followers. Another community has grown up in Green Bottom in Clarendon under the leadership of the Rev. Claudius Henry, who until 1986 held forth as the successor of Haile Selassie in Jamaica. Henry, who died in 1986, was one of the leading prophets of the movement.
Other attempts to organize the various splinter groups were carried out by the Rastafarian Movement Association, formerly of Laws Street, with little or no success. Rastafarians tend to prefer a loose arrangement whereby various permutations and combinations can take place and new leaders can emerge as the occasion demands. This kind of arrangement has been unable to sustain any coordianted effort among Jamaican Rastafarians. This diffuse epistemological individualism, which makes everyone his or her own interpreter of the movement throughout Jamaica, but has made united efforts almost impossible.
It was for these reasons that all eyes were fixed on 83 Hope Road, when a new group of Rastafarians calling themselves the Twelve Tribes of Israel, made up of neatly dressed suburbanites whose members included some whites, established itself in the neighborhood of the Jamaican Prime Minister and a block from Bob Marley's house, Tuff Gong. Few Jamaicans and no foreign researchers knew of the existence of the Twelve Tribes until it turned up in the suburbs. To the vintage Rastas, the group was a virtual schism.
I began to gather information on this group during my research at the Rastafarian Movement Association in 1974, after hearing a negative reference to "the uptown Rastas who believed they were better than anybody else." Although I was enthusiastic about this new avenue of research, my first visit to them was met with hostility. I was admitted by some of the brethren but was told that no taping, writing, or photographs would be allowed; these strictures were obeyed. During my discussions with them I observed that I was dealing with a different kind of Rastafarian: some were "locksed," others were not. Most of those who gave me audience were highly literate, some were distant, others friendly. I needed to buy a drink to quench my thirst in the hot sun, and offered to buy cool drinks for the crowd and they accepted. This was a departure from my "vitage" informants, who would have preferred to get the money to buy a spliff to smoke communally. My first visit, therefore, was an uncomfortable dialogue. Each question was met with another question about why I asked the question in the first place. My impression of the group I met, who might not have been representative of the entire membership, is that their doctrine was diffuse. Their reference to Jesus Christ was most prominent; reference to repatriation was the next most prominent feature of the conversation; reference to Jah Rastafari was the least. They made several references to their leader, who was called Gad (the sound of the Jamaican a, which has the phonetic characteristic of o. baffled me for many days). This pronunciation is easily confused with "God" in the minds of the average Jamaican, and I have a suspicion that the Twelve Tribes might subconsciously be pleased at such confusion.
The founder of the Twelve Tribes is Vernon Carrington, who was born in Matthews Lane, Kingston. Born in the month of November, his tribal name is Gad. Carrington's address would immediately raise a question in the minds of the most class-conscious Jamaican. He seems to have worked at odd jobs, mostly on the Jamaican waterfront. Later in his life he became a street peddler of refreshments---the Jamaican version of "fast food," which includes potent folk juices. As a man of superior native intelligence and some leadership ability, he became head of the Ethiopian World Federation, Chapter 15, which was located at 7 Davis Lane in Trench Town. To better understand the connection between the Rastafarians and this new group, a word on the Ethiopian World Federation is necessary. It was founded in New York in 1937, by authority of Emperor Haile Selassie I. The purpose of the oraganization was set forth in the Preamble of its Constitution:

We the Black Peoples of the World, in order to effect Unity, Solidarity, Liberty, Freedom and Self-determination, to secure Justice and maintain the Intergrity of Ethiopia, which is our heritage, do hereby establish and ordain this Constitution for the Ethiopian World Federation, Inc.

The constitution granted the Ethiopian World Federation 500 acres of land in Ethiopian's Goba Valley, known as Shasemani. The Emperor intended the land to benefit all Western Blacks, especially those who supported Ethiopian in the war against Mussolini. As early as 1938 a branch of the Ethiopian World Federation was established in Jamaica, with its own charter and dues-paying members. The EWF suffered many splits, which resulted in many little groups all calling themselves Ethiopian; Charter 15 of Trench Town was one of these. The EWF in Jamaica was always in close connection with the Rastafarians who predated them. The result of this connection was always a simmering tension. The granting of lands in Ethiopia took on a millenarian aspect in the eyes of this back-to-Africa group, who claimed that the gift was primarily for Rastafarians. The Ethiopian World Federation in Jamaica sees the migration to Ethiopia as an orderly move by those members who could afford it, and, from time to time, has helped members emigrate to Shasemani. The Rastafarians, however, see emigration to Africa as repatriation, in which large masses of the cult will be miraculously transported to the promised land. (For further reading on repatriation, see pages 90-99.)
Vernon Carrington, who was the head of Charter 15, appears to have been a protean individual in whom various elements were fused. He was a member of the Ethiopian World Federation, a Revivalist, and a Rastafarian all at the same time. This is the sort of psychological mixture that produces dreams and visions. Carrington began a systematic study of the Bible, reading it through several times along with other books on Judaism, Egyptian religion, and Ethiopian religion, and as a resutl developed a new synthesis of Christianity, Rastafarianism. He calls this synthesis the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The group is distunguished by the following practices and beliefs:

1. Each member must read a chapter of the Bible daily and must finish reading the whole Bible in three and a half years.
2. The number twelve is pivotal. According to a spokesperson for the group, it not only has an implication for posterity, but also has genealogical, spiritual, and metaphysical significance. The human being has twelve faculties and tendecies; there are twelve tribes mentioned in the Bible, twelve disciples, and twelve signs of the Zodiac. All these have metaphysical implications for both human spiritual and physical functioning.
3. Each person entering the movement is given a name based on the tribe into which he or she was born. This method is based on the phase of the moon at the time of the person's birth and is roughly equivalent to the signs of the Zodiac, plus or minus one. They use the ancient calendar of Egypt, which started with the month of April. This calendar, they believe, was used by the ancient Hebrews, so-called Children of Israel. The months, tribes, and their colors are as follows: April is Reuben, whose color is silver; May is Simeon, whose color is gold; June is Levi, whose color is purple; July is Judah, whose color is brown; August is Issachar, whose color is yellow; September is Zebulun, whose color is pink; October is Dan, whose color is blue; November is Gad, whose color is red; December is Asher, whose color is gray; January is Naphtali, whose color is green; February is Joseph, whose color is white; and March is Benjamin, whose color is black. There are other modifications, but this is an example of the genealogical sophistication of the Twelve Tribes.
4. The Twelve Tribes, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Unification Church, believe that the chosen are limited to 144,000.
5. Jesus Christ was manifested in his second coming in the person of Jah Rastafari, Haile Selassie I. Thus Jesus Christ and Haile Selassie are used interchangeably.
6. As with the vintage Rastafari, repatriation is a goal, but the methods of repatriation are different.
7. Again, like the vintage Rastafarians, the "holy weed" is central to the movement.
8. Unlike the vintage Rastafarians, who refused a ruling head, the Twelve Tribes openly revered Carrington Gad as the Prophet.
9. Unlike the vintage Rastafarians, membership and the payment of dues are central to the movement.
10. Unlike the vintage Rastafarians, a monthly dance to Reggae music is almost a ritual. Bob Marley, who was a prominent member and whose name was Joseph, is revered among them. One of the Twelve Tribe's members told me that Marley was their "chief sing and player of instrument," thereby enshrining him in a biblical context.
11. The movement has no racial barriers; its membership consists of all races. While this is also true among the vintage Rastafarians, in the Twelve Tribes it is a distinct policy.
12. Unlike the vintage Rastafarians, men and women have equal roles; as a matter of fact, they have been among the trend setters in women's equality.
How do members of the Twelve Tribes view themselves? The answer was given to me by one of the group's leaders, who is active in setting up a branch of the Tribes in Philadelphia. He believes that there are slight differneces between the vintage Rastafarians (or to use their official name, the Rastafarian Theocratic Assemblies) and the Twelve Tribes, but according to him the Twelve Tribes deal at a higher level of consciousness. He eequates the Twelve Tribes with the standard of sixth form; the other Rastafarians deal at the lower grades. The Twelve Tribes are like the thirty-third degree in the Masonic Order---the highest level to which one can attain. Although these differences are not openly acknowledged by others, the sect maintains a very exclusive stance and rarely associates itself with other groups. For example, the group was absent from the Rastafari International Assembly, which took place on July 18-25, 1983, at the University of the West Indies, just three miles away from their headquarters.
This behavior prompted me to seek out the feelings of other Rastafarians toward the sect. My first informant was a prominent lecturer and a former member of the Twelve Tribes. According to him, the Twelve Tribes of Israel represent an important development for and articulation of the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica. He maintains that the Twelve Tribes have provided some conceptual meaning to Rastafarian lives, through a clearer in terpretation of Rastafarian doctrines. They were the first to bring the movement uptown, and they thus made it easier for middle-class youths, who were afraid to go into the ghetto, to become members. They have probably provided the most convenient interchange between society at large and the Rastafarian movement to date. Because the sect is built around Reggae---the music of the King---they have had great success in recruiting members. It is also the only Rastafarian sect with a significant number of white members in executive positions. My informant pointed to the Tribe of Benjamin Headquarters in New York City, whose head is a white American. This he called the contradiction of the movement.
When asked why he left the movement, his answer was direct and almost emotional. First, according to him, the Twelve Tribes are more like a Christian sect than a Rastafarian group. There is only a thin line dividing the sect from true Christianity. On the other hand, it is also like a dancing club, which separates it from both Rastafarianism and the Jamaican version of Christianity. They are the first group to deny that dreadlocks are necessary for one to be a Rastafarian. Although wearing dreadlocks is not necessary in order to become a vintage Rastafarian, many members of the older groups will not associate with those who refuse to grow locks. To them it is a sign of being "natural." My informant did, however, agree that the Twelve Tribes are a legitimate sect of Rastafarianism, and he saw nothing wrong with them in this light. He stated that there are 5,000 different Christian denominations, and they all seem to be doing well despite their many differences. But the regimentation and the doctrinaire aspects of the Twelve Tribes movement turned him away from it.
According to my informant, the old Rastafarians arrived at a consensus through a process of reasoning. This is not so in the Twelve Tribes. The authority for any explanation is Vernon Carrington. His pronouncements are the final word on any matter. He is the vital force of the movement. The Twelve Tribes are based on an epistemological authoritarianism, in contrast to the Rastafarian cult, which is based on epistemological individualism. Some Rastafarian informants have called the Twelve Tribes the most organized body in Jamaica; others describe them as the most heretical and Christian of all the Rastafarian groups. An article, purported to have been written on behalf of the World Council of Churches an endorsed by the Jamaican Council, concurs that the Twelve Tribes is the most Christian sect of the Rastafarian movement. The Daily Gleaner of July 17, 1983, carried the following article, headlined "Jamiaca: Breaking Barriers between Churches and Rastas":

The Twelve Tribes now accept the entirety of Scripture. They emphasize Jesus of Nazareth and hold that it is through him that all people must be saved. But members are still alienated from the established church. Thye usually refer to what they see as the hypocrisy of those Christians who claim to practice love while justifying many forms of oppression or of those who uncritically accept many aspects of Westernization in the name of their faith yet condemn indigenous black forms of expression as un-Christian.
These developments in the Rastafarian ideology have heightened the movement's ecumenical potential, calling for solidarity with oppressed peoples all over the world. Furthermore, now that the largest, most influential body of Rastafarians has moved closer to the orthodox Christian position, the way is paved for serious dialogue and collaboration. The research into the Rastafarian movement by the Jamaican Council of Churches has therefore come at an opportune time. The churches have the possibility of reconciling themselves to a large and significant section of the Jamaican population. The challenge they face is to present themselves as genuinely committed progressive and aware---willing to share in the hurts, struggles and hopes of the oppressed and alienated.
The Twelve Tribes of Israel did not receive this article gracefully. They saw it as one of Babylong's continuing attempts to coopt the movement's members.
The Twelve Tribes have expanded to England, and there are branches in the United States and Canada. A similar endorsement of the "dreadlock" Rastafarians of Great Britain was made by the Catholic Commission for Racial Justice in January of 1982. It recommended that:

1. Rastafarianism should be recognized as a valid religion, and the members and leaders of other riligious groups should attempt to engage the proponents of Rastafarianism in dialogue with a view to mutual learning and sharing.
2. Christians and Christian churches should take whatever opportunitites they may have or are able to create to relate to Rastafarians as they would to the believers of other non-Christian faiths. For instance, Rastafarians often lack places to meet, and Christian churches could consider allowing Rastafarians to use their premises.
3. The Christian churches and other religious groups should exercise appropriate influence over their own institutions (for example, schools, children's homes, etc.), so that they might relate to the members of the Rastafarian movement with true knowledge and sound understanding rather than with an attitude born of fear, ignorance, and prejudice.
4. Rastafarian styles of dress (for example, locks and head-dress) should be accepted as authentic religious expressions and legitimate cultural forms.
6. All authority figures should scrupulously avoid any form of harassment and discrimination against Rastafarians. It is especially important that professional workers such as teachers, social workers, police, and prison and probation offecers should be sensitive to the tendency to stereotype black people, in general, and Rastafarians, in particular.
7. Social and community work agencies should take positive steps to serve a multiracial, multicultural society and in so doing recognize the importance of learning from and correctly representing the variety of culturally based views and practices. Rastafarians should be in a genuine position of not only obtaining effective help but also giving it.
This article was met with great joy in the Jamaican Rastafarian community, even though it came from the Catholic Church, which Rastafarians view as the embodiment of all evel. I saw the report as a mature peice of journalism and its recommendations as a sympathetic and deeply felt expression of the human spirit.
My knowledge of the Rastafarians in England is very limited. For a perspective on the movement in England, the reader should consult Ernest Cashmore's work The Rastaman: The Rastafarian Movement in England. This study deals with the English Rastafarians from 1970 to 1978. The book has received very negative reviews in Jamaica. But I find it generally helpful in explaining the factors that led to the Rastafarian explosion in England. Chshmore sees the Rastafarians in England as emerging from various Black Power groups that took on a definite Ethiopian ideology in the 1970s. The Rastafarian movement was the result of an alienation from society on the part of second-generation Jamaican youths: "Having been provided with a kind of blueprint by Reggae music, they attempted to make used of it by familiarizing themselves with the baisc Rastafarian ideology and developing objective signs of affliation (though not necessarily in that sequence)."
According to Cashmore, Rastafarianism in England is not simply a reflection of its Jamaican progenitor, but a re-creation of it. But there is a difference in outlook between the two groups. Jamaican Rastafarians sought "complete political emancipation as a solution, at least for the time being. But for the Rastaman in English society, he must prepare for the Redemption." As in Jamaica, Rastafarianism in England is probably the largest Black cult at present. However, more research on the group is badly needed.

The Rastafarians in the Eastern Caribbean 

The larger number of representatives from the Eastern Caribbean at the Rastafari Theocratic Assembly (held at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, July 18-25, 1983) was solid evidence that the Rasta movement is now a force throughout the region. Unlike most Jamaican Rastafarians, who have had years of experience with police brutality and now enjoy an atmosphere of relative calm, Rastas from the Eastern Caribbena are a new phenomenon, and they are having serious confrontations with their governments and police. Several of these movements were established after the death of Haile Selassie. Most of those attending the assembly were young, articulate, and revolutionary; a few wore the garb of combat soldiers. There were representatives from Grenada, Dominica, St. Lucia, Guyana, St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, The Grenadines, Barbados, Trinidad, and Tobago. Although the movement is also present in Guadalupe and Martinique, there were no representatives from the French islands; this was probably because of language barriers.
Rastafarianism in the Eastern Caribbean, as in England, came in the wake of a floundering Black Power movement. The ideology of Black Power was unsuitable for places like Guyana and Trinidad, where Blacks and Indians always lived in a state of confrontation. Dr. Horace Campbell, writing in the Caribbean Quarterly on the rise of the Rastafarians in the Eastern Caribbean, said: "As long as the question of race lay at the core of their ideology, without an understanding of the question of class and the specific conditions of Indian and African worker, Black Power as an ideology could not have a future."
Dr. Campbell states that in the 1970s the islands of the Caribbean faced a staggering unemployment rate of 30 to 40 percent with no hope for improvement in sight. It was under these conditions that the youths of the Eastern Caribbean decided to opt out of an imperialist society and reject the "carrot" of a materialistic dream. They took to the mountains, the beaches, and the shanties and converted to dreadlocks; thus, most of these movements came into being without the trappings of the divinity of Haile Selassie. In Grendada, Rastafarian groups formed agricultural communes, adopted symbols of resisitance that had become well known in Jamaica grew locks resorted to herbs, and wore tams of red, gold, and green. By the time the People's Revolutionary Army emerged in Grenada under Maurice Bishop, 400 Rastafarians were ready to join in the successful overthrow of Eric Gairy. This revolutionary involvement of Rastafarains in Grenada, who were later added to the army and police force, sent a shock wave up and down the Eastern Caribbean, and youths of all races flocked to the banner of Rastafari. Today, the Rastafarian phenomenon is a revolutionary force in all the Caribbean islands. As in early Jamaica, the movement has not had an easy time. The forces of reaction have unted against Rastafariansism, using various techniques of mass arrest. Many governments have resorted to framing Rastafarians and have used other coercive techniques to inhibit their growth, but as the Reggae singer prophesied, "the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory." Rastafariansism in the Eastern Caribbean has become a new alternative, not only for African youths, but also for East Indians. Here too the movement will demand further scholarship.

The Rastafarian Movement in United States and Canada 

Representatives from the United States and Canada at the Second International Assembly of Rastafari, held in July 1983, all testified to the trememdous growth of Rastafarianism on the North American continent. Although there were members present from Montreal and Toronto, the largest delegations were from the United States, from cities such as new York, Boston, Rochester, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Chicago, and Los Angeles, to name only a few. Both the vintage Rastas and Twelve Tribes have branches in North America. One Twelve Tribes spokesperson told me that "there are Twelve Tribes in every state of the Union, but our headquarters is in New York. "Although there has been no systematic research on the Rastafarian movement in the United States, I have evidence that there are Rastas in almost all the states in the Union. From time to time I have received letters from Rastafarians in prison from Mississippi to North Dakota. Outside of the large metropolitan cities, however, the movement is highly sustpect, and dreadlocks are under constant surveillance by the police. In the summer of1983, a column by Jack Anderson entitled "Terrorists Infiltrate Rastafarians; U.S. Fears" claimed that "a little-known Marxist-oriented black supremacy group" had penetrated the Rastafarians. Anderson went on to warn that "terrorism experts believe that the racist Marxist-tinged criminal elements of the cult, already armed to the teeth, will begin striking at American political targets in the next few years.... One reason for official alarm is that the criminal Rastafarians have succeeded in getting brand-new small arms, possibly by intimidating Jamaican who work at U.S. arms factories." Anderson quoted a U.S. Custons Service intelligence report as stating that "while many religious Rastafarians are peaceful citizens who do not believe in the use of violence...the distinct subculture and use of illegal drugs had enabled criminals, the mentally deranged and revolutioanries to penetrate the sect.... Because of its obsession with black supremacy, drugs, and its adherents' asocail conduct and lifestyle, the cult is in conflict with all forms of authority.... Even without the added potential of organized criminal or Marxist manipulations, these factors make explosions of Rastafarian violence not only possible, but probable."
This column was followed by another entitiled "Jamaica Ex-Primier linked to Rastafarians." It stated that "law enforcement officials and documents also reveal that the renegade Rastafarians have links to former Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley."
These syndicated articles were reprinted in most of the EAastern Caribbean island papers within a few days. The two articles were alarmingly dangerous in that they contained elements of truth closely juxtaposed with errors and innuendo. Anderson's prediction that armed elements of the cult would begin striking at American political targets in the next few years was too vague to believe. Moreover, the suggestion that criminal elelments among the Rastafarians might be receiving small arms from "Jamaicans who work at U.S. arms factories" could have precipitated a witch hunt among Jamaican-American citizens. The articles did throw some light on the Rastafarian communities in the United States, and the existence of criminal elements among the Rastafarians cannot be denied. But the articles' insistence that these elements are not Rastafarians was probably overlooked by mose readers.
Another indication that the Rastafarian movement has affected American lives may be deduced from the two documentaries done by Dan Rather. Beginning on December 7, 1980, Rather, anchorperson for CBS nightly mews, did two documentaries on the Rastafarian movement on the prestigious program "60 Minutes." The first show covered the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica, and featured interviews with Professor Rex Nettleford, Arthur Kitchen (a well-known Rastafarian journalist for the Jamaica Daily Gleaner), and a medical doctor involved with the movement. The broadcast was a fair interpretation of the Jamaican movement, with positive points made by all those who were interviewed. Bob Marley and the world of Reggae were duly highlighted. The second show covered the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, located on Star island (Miami Beach, Florida) and at White Horses (St. Thomas, Jamaica). At the time of the broadcast the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, which claimed a connectioin with the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida, in which they ahd been indicated for the use of marijuana as a sacrament. The juxtaposition of these movements, both originating in Jamaica, both using the name of Rastafarianism, and both using the "holy herb," was a bit confusing for the ordinary viewer. For this reason a brief discussion of the Ethiopian Coptic Church may be helpful.
The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church emerged in Jamaica as one of the splinter groups of the Ethiopian World Federation. all of which claimed allergiance to Ras Tafari. The church started at Mountain View Avenue, and drifted from one place to the next in the Corporate Area of Kingston until 1976. When it was incorporated as a church, Keith Gordon served as its bishop, Laurenton Dickens as chief eldr, and Walter Wells as elder. From its earliest days the church was never recognized by the Rastafarian movement. One of the university Rastas who did research on the various splinter groups told me that, in earlier years, the Zion Coptics used to call dreadlocks "ropeheads." In the early 1950s meetings between the Coptic Church and the Rastafarian movement took place but ended in disagreement over doctrine. By 1976 the church had adopted Rastafarian-like beliefs without accepting the divinity of Haile Selassie. Soon thereafter, White hippies from Florida visited them and underwent a conversion experience. These hippies returned to Florida as priests of the movement and set up a branch of the church whose present headquarters is now at Star Island. The church's most dominant doctrine was the sacralization land group and their sudden rise from rags to riches enabled them to return to Jamaica in the late 1970s as an entrepreneurial calss, bying up large properties all over the island, becoming large farmers, and employing many Jamaicans, who at the time were unable to acquire work. On some of these large properties airstrips were built to receive the planes of Ethiopian Zion Coptic officials who flew from Miami to their plantations in Jamaica. In 1980, on a visit to Jamaica, I was told that there were at least eighteen illegal airstrips on the island associated with activities of the Coptic Churhc.
Most of the people I talked with had high praise for the industry of the movement. On every minibus was an advertisement for the movement's paper---The Coptic Times---which is professionally printed on the best paper ever seen in Jamaica. Few politicians would talk to me about the movement, but those who did had high praise. Most Rastas still do not see the movement as a Rastafarian sect. Some called it a "drug smuggling organization," while others became silent at the very mention of the church's name. In 1981 the Jamaica Bar Association requested that the movement be studied so that its true activities could be documented. To this day no one has undertaken such a study. The original Jamaican founders of the movement have faded into the background as the American branch has usuped the front page in both Jamaica and the United States. The Ethiopian Zion Coptic case in Florida finally came to trial; the church lost the case, and the leaders are now in jail. Although the movement has close doctrinal ties with the Rastafarians, it is important to distinguish between the two movements. The true Rastafarians believe in the divinity of Jah Rastafari; the Ehiopian Zion Coptic Church, like members of the Ethiopian World Federation, believers in the kingship of Rastafari, but it also holds that marijuana is an absolute, an eternally "sacred weed" that is an indispensable part of their religion. At this writing, the movement continues, but with a low profile.

The Rastafarians in the 1980s 

Rastafarians around the world are celebrating their fiftieth jubilee, which began in 1980 and will continue for seven years. This jubilee has precedent in Leviticus 25:10: "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you: and ye shall return every man unto his family." The Rastafarians' interpretation of Leviticus 25 is quite different from that of Orthodox Jews. Not many of the injunctions of Judaism are relevant to them. For the Rastafarians the most important activities of this jubilee period are stepped-up recruiting and an attempt to harmonize the activities of the various "houses and mansions," as the different groups are now called. The vintage Rastafarians intend to confront various governments and even the United Nations over their commitment to repatriation, in a ploy to obtain more freedom for the movement. Another activity involves the concept of International Assemblies.
The Rastafarians have always met periodically in what is known as Nyabingi, but this has always been a local affair during which smoking and discussion take place. They have now enlarged this activity into an international meeting to which members from all over the world are invited to discuss problems like repatriation, education, the "holy weed," the PLO, socialism, and capitalism. The first conference was held in Toronto in July 1982; the second was held in Jamaica on July 18-25, 1983. Present at the meeting in Jamaica were a Rastafarian attorney, university professors, Rastafarian writers, international Reggae stars, a variety of professionals, and people from the ghettoes. These meetings promise to move Rastafarianism from the free-form "reasoning" to which it has been accustomed, to parliamentary procedures previously unknown to the movement. In the second assembly in Jamaica, the chairpersons included a lawyer and a university professor. This is a marvelous trend for a movement which started as a fringe group, for it indicates that the leadershiop is gradually moving into the hands of educated men and women. There is an effort under way to enhance the image of the Rastafarians' Theocratic assembly, as the vintage Rastas now call themselves, so that they can better compete with the sophisticated Twelve Tribes of Israel, which they view as nontraditional and even heretical, In addition the newly educated Rastafarian youths are being given more prominent roles in the movement. Education is not only admired but encouraged.
Another step forward made by the vintage Rastafarians is their new attitude toward women. Originally, women were generally not active at public meetings, and if they were present, they took no part. Women would sometimes serve as recording secretaries at business meetings because they were more often that not better educated than their husbands. A recent article by Maureen Rowe, a Rastafarian woman, that appeared in the Caribbean Quarterly had this to say of Rastafarian women: "The Rastafari beliefs regarding the female are clearly based on the Bible and fall in line with the premise that Rastafari is a patriarchal movement. 'Reasonings,' the traditional way of sharing information, cementing views or interpreting the Bible, take place primarily among the males." she went on to say, however, that the female was often instructed by her husband about the proceedings, and in this way she was kept aware of the general status of the movement. It is her opinion that the relationship between men and women did not differ too much from that of the Jamaican peasantry. Rowe states that this male dominance in Rastafarianism began to give way about 1980. One of the new elements of the jubile seems to be the independence of women. Rowe claims that "while daughters are not challenging this reasoning, their behaviour is more in keeping witht he concept of independence. Daughters are manifesting more and more commitment to Rastafari. This was apparently strengthened in 1980 as daughters began asking more and more what they could do for Rastafari."
Professor Ras Semaj told me that the change in the position of women in Rastafarianism is one of the most encouraging developments in the movement since 1975. Prior to this, a "Rastaman-woman" was a person who was told what to do, what to wear, and how to behave. Since 1975, the influx into the middle class of independent and intelligent women has changed the picture drastically. Today there are "Rasta-women," not "Rastamen-women." According to Professor Semaj, this has created problems for some of the older saints, but the days of the quiet woman are over. A rousing speech on behalf of women in Rasta was given in the afternoon session of the second assembly by Ras Iration:

I respectfully implore this "Isembly" to acknowledge that the creation is administered by two complementary heads, male and female. Being the individualization of Rastafari Supreme Life, sexual equity is a fundamental principle of nature for the organization of the Rastafarian family. It is the fundamental concept of Rastafarianity that male and female are the continuation of eache other; daughters are indispenable and even more so at this stage of our struggle. No liberation, national or international, can ever be accomplished without the in-depth involvement of daughters. We must realize that our daughters cannot give their needed potential contributions from an inferior status. We must give our daughters their natural respect and dignified recognition, where by addressing the core and rudiment of our cultural disorder.

He received a standing ovation from the women present.
The prominence and acceptance of women in Rastafarianism seem assured, as long as there are men like Ras Iration in the movement. Another important woman author in the movement is Barbara Blake (Makeda Lee), daughter of Evon Blake, a leading Jamaican journalist. While she was living in England, she became the first Black interviewer/reporter on British television. After she returned to Jamaica in 1972 she joined the Manley government in the Ministry of Information. Her book Rastafari: The New Creation has a short chapter on women in the movement under the heading "Rastafariqueen." Although she broke no new ground, her emphasis on male/female equality in the movement is a sign of growing awareness of the subject.
Today's Rastafarians have come a long way from their "birds of passage" existence in the 1930s. Rastafarians now occupy enviable positions in Jamaica. There are Rasta physicians, pharmacists, professors, journalists, pilots, teachers, nurses, bus drivers, technicians, mail carriers, photographers, city council members, mechanics, carpenters, farmers, sculptors, entertainers, masons, shoemakers, tailors, and accountants, to name only a few of thier trades and professions. There are Rasta basic primary schools, and there is talk of Rasta secondary schools and even a university. The movement has become such magnet to the youths of Jamaica and other islands that, in the public schools, teachers will soon be required to learn the Rastafarian dialect, a form of speech which is replacing the Jamaican Creole and Standard English. Despite this obvious progress, the movement still holds to its mellenarian psychology by defining non-Rastafarians as "Babylon" and "baldheads" and seeing Christianity as the religion of the pope, who is the devil incarnate. In their language, ethics, eating habits, and self-definition, the Rastafarians continue to be anti-Jamaican and anti-Western.
There is, however, a growing contradiction within the movement.

The Impact of Rastafarianism as a New Religion

Millenarian movements, of which the Rastafarians are a classic example, seem to emerge suddenly, thrive for a moment, and then die; or if the conditions for growth are present in the social environment, they gather momentum and, like a hurricane, become a threatening social force.
From the point of view of those who govern, such a movement always appears to be a new political force that must be eliminated immediately. There are numerous examples of millenarian movements in the history of this phenomenon that were seen by the ruling powers as an imminent threat to the status quo and that suffered greatly from the overreaction of the ruling class. The Cargo Cults of Melanesia, the Ghost Dance cult in the United States, and Kimbanguism in the Belgian Congo are a few such examples. Early Rastafarianism was also viewed as a political threat during the colonial period and suffered various forms of oppression until 1976. However, if the millenarian movement is not eliminated entirely, it generally gathers moisture, like a weak hurricane trhough, and regroups itself around its early discontents. Its martyrs become important weapons in its struggles. Vittorio Lanternari views the striving of subject people to become emancipated as the religion of the oppressed. The Rastafarian movement in the Caribbean has now become entrenched as one of the new religions of the area. From a period of religious crudity, it has moved through the many stages to what one may call "religious refinement." It has established itself in the nation; it has its liturgy, its holy men, and identifiable "rastology" ; and now it holds it own conventions. Dr. Hearne of the University of the West Indies states, "The Rastafarian movement is no longer a mere revolutionary movement; it has become a part of the establishment, a part of officialdom."
Professor Semaj, responding to a question on the impact of the Rastafarian religion on Jamaica, recalled the recent comments by Jamaican columnists who are not overly sympathetic to Rastafarianism but have admitted that the religion has become a pwerful alternative to Christianity and recent Marxist ideology. Among those named are Carl Stone, a university sociologist and director of Jamaica Demographic Polling; Wilcot Perkings and Mark Rickets, columnists for the Daily Gleaner; and the fundamentalist church columnist Billy Hall.
At all-out attempt is underway to separate the Rastafarian religion from Reggae culture. Although outsiders link Reggae with the Rasta religion, few people know that the music is an imitation of the Rastafarian religious drumming known as Nyabingi music. Bob Marley was an established singer of Reggae before he embraced Rastafarianism; Jimmy Cliff is one of the early founders of the movement, but he has left it at various times. Many of the Reggae stars who sing on stage today are not Rastafarians even though they wear dreadlocks. Most Rastafarians do not even listen to Reggae. Reggae emerged from the secular beats of Ska and Rock steady, which were imitations of American rhythm and blues in the 1960s, and it later took on the African drum rhythm of Count Ossie of Mystic Revelation, a Rastafarian group in Rock Fort. Rastafarian religious music is still Nyabingi, which emerged from the African Buru drumming taught to Count Ossie in his youth. Although when Bob Marley became a Rastafarian his songs began to include praises of Haile Selassie, true Rastafarians do not accept regge music as divine.
The Rastafarians now use the word "livity" to define religious feeling. The word denotes the belief in Haile Selassie as God; attendance at Nyabingi meetings for religious reasoning, prayer, and fasting; belief in the hygienic code of Rastafari; the religious use of the "holy herb" ; the belief in imminent repatriation; and the wearing of dreadlocks, although this is becoming optional. The Rastafarians will tell you that the movement is made up roots, trunks, branches, and leaves. The roots are the doctrines enumerated above. The trunks are the elders of the movement, who give religious instruction. The branches are the various houses or mansions, as the different groups are called. The leaves are the various members of the movement. There are many trees: "Their leaves shall not wither and whatsoever they do, they shall prosper." This biblical quotations, repeated by Ras Bungo Hugh of Montego Bay, suggests that Reggae music does not come from the roots and trunk of Rastafari. When pressed to elaborate on the scripture, he was silent. It is my opinion that the Rastafarians in Jamaica are distancing themselves from Reggae culture, which has been recently coopted by non-Rastafarians in such events as Reggae Sunsplash, during which some Rastafarians and non-Rastafarians from all over the world, white and black, sing Reggae and smoke the "weed."
Professor Semaj, in an article written for the Caribbean Quarterly, attempted to define "livity" in a theoretical way. He insisted that "the Rastafarian way of life thus represents a conscious departure from participation in an alien culture and a recognition of an African cultural orientation in terms of world-view, ethos and ideology." He sees the Rastafarian movement as having the potential to harbor warriors, parasites, and hypocrites, like any other segment of society. But despite these contradictions, he believes that the Rastafarian movement is still one of the most viable fronts from which to launch a cultural revolution for the liberation of Africans in the diaspora. He concluded with a warning to the movement: "Unless other individuals who share the vision of Rastafari begin to contribute to the development of a social theory, we will find that the next fifty years of Rastafari will show some trends which will be best described as backward or even stagnant."
Few Rastafarians have as yet heeded Professor Semaj's warning, although some Rastafarian spokespersons at the Second International Assembly seem to have had an awareness of the problem. Despite the growth of the movement, there are signs of stagnation. The ethos of the movement has become disoriented; the Rastafarian concept of divinity is not as meaningful to many since the deaths of Haile Selassie I and of Bob Marley, their prephet. There seems to be a weakness at the center of Rastafarian ideology, and if the center cannot hold, things may fall apart.