Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences

Department of English Language and Literature

British Cultural Studies Post-Graduate Programme

RASTAFARIANISM AND REGGAE AS A MEANS FOR THE AFRO-

CARIBBEANS TO CREATE A COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Seçil Sarıçay Yakut

Master’s Thesis

Ankara, 2007

RASTAFARIANISM AND REGGAE AS A MEANS FOR THE AFRO-

CARIBBEANS TO CREATE A COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Seçil Sarıçay Yakut

Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences

Department of English Language and Literature

British Cultural Studies Post-Graduate Programme

Master’s Thesis

Ankara, 2007

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to offer my thanks and gratitude to my advisor Prof. Dr. Burçin

EROL without whose supportive efforts and guidance this thesis would be incomplete.

Her never-ending positive energy and motivating speeches provided me the necessary

strength to complete this study.

I would also like to thank my former advisor Assist. Prof. Dr. Mustafa ŞAHİNER who

became the Head of The Department of Western Languages and Literature in Inönü

University. His experiences in Britain and his knowledge about the subject contributed

much in constructing the backbone of my study.

I would also like to thank the other academic members of the department for their

helpful comments and worthwhile advice.

Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my husband and my family

for their patience, understanding and endless support while I was writing this thesis. I

also want to thank my friend Nurcan Selvi ŞAHİN for her encouragement and

friendship in this long and hard period.

i

ÖZET

SARIÇAY YAKUT, Seçil. “Afro-Karayipliler İçin Kolektif Bir Kimlik Yaratma Aracı

Olarak Rastafaryanizm ve Reggae” Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Ankara, 2007.

Rastafaryanizm 1930’lu yıllarda Jamaika’da özellikle işçi sınıfı ve köylü zenciler

arasında ortaya çıkmış, I. Haile Selassie’yi Etiyopya’nın ilk ve tek imparatoru ve

Tanrı’nın vücut bulmuş hali olarak kabul eden sosyal ve dini bir harekettir. I. Haile

Selassie’nin tahta çıkacağını öngördüğü söylenen ve pek çok milliyetçi hareketin

öncüsü olan Marcus Garvey, Rastafarianism’in bir mensubu olduğunu kabul etmese de

bu felsefenin gelişmesine katkıda bulunmuştur. Bu hareketin temelinde ise uzun yıllar

sömürgeci toplumların, özellikle Britanya’nın, kölelik sistemi ile bastırılmış ve kimliği unutturulmaya çalışılmış bir toplum olan Afro-Karayiplilerin kurtuluşunun atalarının

evi olan Afrika’ya dönmekte olduğu fikri yatar. Bu tezde şu an dünyaca tanınan ve

bütün zencileri Afrika’ya dönmeye çağıran bir hareket olan Rastafaryanizm’in ve bu

ideolojinin müzikteki yansıması olan ve şarkı sözlerinde fakirliği ve ana kültüre

başkaldırıyı içeren reggae’nin Afro-Karayiplilerin mücadele ve yeniden kendi

kültürlerini canlandırma hareketleri için bir araç olup olmadığı ve onlarda gurur ve

kendine güveni uyandırarak ve onlara huzurlu, özgür, cennet gibi bir dünya söz vererek

kimlik problemlerini aşmalarına yardımcı olup olmadığı araştırılmıştır. Bob Marley ve

diğer ünlü reggae şarkıcılarının şarkı sözleri ayrıntılı bir şekilde incelenerek, hem

Rastafarianism’in hem de reggae’nin ortak bir felsefe, müzik, giyim ve dille zenciler

için İngiliz toplumu içinde ve ona karşı kolektif bir kimlik ve alternatif bir dünya

yaratmada önemli rol oynadıkları; ancak köklü bir siyasi ve toplumsal değişikliğe yol

açamadıkları sonucuna varılmıştır.

Anahtar Sözcükler Rastafaryanizm, Reggae, Afrikalı Karayipliler, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Haile

Selassie, Karayipler, Kimlik, Kollektif kimlik

ii

ABSTRACT

SARIÇAY YAKUT, Seçil. “Rastafarianism and Reggae as a Means for the Afro-

Caribbeans to Create a Collective Identity” Master’s Thesis, Ankara, 2007.

Rastafarianism is a religious movement which emerged in Jamaica especially among

working class and peasant black people in the 1930s and which accepts Haile Selassie I

as the first and last emperor of Ethiopia and as the incarnated form of God. Although he

did not see himself as a member of Rastafarianism, Marcus Garvey, who was believed

to tell the prophecy of Haile Selassie’s coronation and who became the leading figure of

many nationalistic movements, contributed much to the development of this philosophy.

This movement is based on the idea that the dignity and total independence of the Afro-

Caribbeans, who were oppressed and forced to forget their black identity and culture by

the slavery system of the colonial societies - especially Britain - for many years, can

only be obtained in their ancestral home Africa. In this thesis it is studied whether or not

Rastafarianism, which is an internationally recognised movement calling for all blacks

to return to Africa, and reggae, which is an expression of Rastafarian ideology in music

and whose lyrical themes include poverty and resistance to the oppression by

mainstream culture, have become a means for the struggle and revival movement of

Afro-Caribbeans and have helped them to overcome the identity crisis by awakening

pride and self-reliance in blacks and by promising a peaceful, free, heavenly world.

With illustrations of the lyrics of Bob Marley and other reggae singers, it was concluded

that with a common philosophy, music, clothing, language and symbols both the

philosophy of Rastafarianism and the rhetoric of reggae have played an important role

in creating a collective identity and an alternative distinct world for blacks both within

and against the larger system. However; it is concluded that they were not able to bring

about wide ranging political and social change.

Key Words

Rastafarianism, Reggae, Afro-Caribbeans, Marcus Garvey, Bob Marley, Haile Selassie,

Caribbeans, Identity, Collective identity

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Özet i

Abstract ii

Table of Contents iii

Table of Figures iv

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Rastafarianism and the Afro-Caribbean Identity 27

Chapter Two: Internationalization of Rastafarianism through Reggae 55

Conclusion 86

Figures 93

Works Cited (Primary Sources) 103

Works Cited (Secondary Sources) 107

Works Cited: Visual Sources (Figures) 124

Works Cited: Audio – Video Sources (CD) 126

Appendix (Audio – Video CD) Appendix 1

iv

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1: The Location of the Caribbean in the World 93

Figure 2: The Caribbean Islands 93

Figure 3: Marcus Garvey 94

Figure 4: The Flag of the UNIA 94

Figure 5: Haile Selassie 95

Figure 6: Haile Selassie at Coronation 96

Figure 7: Haile Selassie’s Wife – Empress Menen 96

Figure 8: Cannabis 97

Figure 9: Ganja 97

Figure 10: Bob Marley Smoking Ganja 97

Figure 11: Dreadful Rastafarian Images 98

Figure 12: A Dreadlocked Rastafarian 98

Figure 13: Bob Marley Wearing a Rastafarian Woollen Cap 99

Figure 14: Lion of Judah 99

Figure 15: I-tal food 100

v

Figure 16: Bob Marley 100

Figure 17: The Abyssinians 101

Figure 18: Capleton 101

Figure 19: Peter Tosh 102

Figure 20: Burning Spear 102

1

INTRODUCTION

Rastafarianism is a religious movement that emerged in the early 1930s due to the social

and poor economic conditions of the black people in Jamaica. It is a response to the

subordination of black people by the white who placed them at the bottom of the social

order during the colonial and post-colonial period. The Rastafarians believe that Africa

is the birthplace of mankind and is the throne of Emperor Haile Selassie I – the former

Emperor of Ethiopia – who is believed to be the 20th century manifestation of God or

the Black Messiah. The movement views Ethiopia as the Promised Land, and the

Rastafarians try to turn back to Africa, especially Ethiopia, where their roots are, and a

better life awaits them. The effort of Rastafarianism is to try to remind blacks of their

African heritage and encourage them to stand up against the white oppression and the

colonial world, which they call Babylon.

Reggae is closely linked to the movement of Rastafarianism. Rastafarianism forms the

basis of reggae music and most of the lyrics include the themes of resistance to the

oppression of blacks and the Rastafarian ideal of returning back to Africa.

As much as its history and philosophies are taken into consideration, the definition of

the Rastafarian movement is a matter of controversy since there are different opinions

on the subject. Leonard E. Barrett and Ernest Cashmore, whose works on the

Rastafarians are accepted as classics, characterise Rastafarianism as a cult or more

extensively as a messianic-millenarian movement (Barrett 110, Cashmore 8), whereas

for Stephen D. Glazier, Edward T. Pettiford and many other followers of the movement,

it is a religion with a black incarnated God, Haile Selassie, with a prophet, Marcus

Garvey, and with the holy books, the Bible and Kebra Negast, the Book of the Glory of

Kings of Ethiopia (Glazier 283, Pettiford, “Rastafarianism”). Cashmore accepts

Norman Cohn’s definition of a millenarian movement and puts Rastafarianism into this

category because it provides the five criteria of such a movement which he defines as

follows: it will be a collective response; the salvation will be activated in this world; the

transformation will occur very soon; it will be a total subversion of the present order;

and it will be miraculously achieved with the help of a supernatural agency (8). Barrett

2

agrees with Cashmore, and he further states that the movement is not only millenarian

but also messianic, because the Rastafarians saw Haile Selassie as a real messiah in the

flesh until August, 1975, but in the spiritual body since his death (109). Whether

millenarian, messianic or both it will be more appropriate to define Rastafarianism as a

movement or a cult since it is not an institutionalized religion such as Islam, Christianity

or Judaism.

The Rastafarian movement has spread throughout much of the world through

immigration, and it has become popular with reggae music, especially with the songs of

Bob Marley. Although the movement has a wider recognition in different parts of the

world, including the Caribbean Islands, North America, the United Kingdom, and

Africa, little demographic information exists about its membership (Kebede 358).

Current estimates suggest that there are one million Rastafarians throughout the world

(Murrell, “Rastafari Phenomenon” 1).

As the Caribbean region, also known as West Indies, (see Figure 1 and 2) had been a

major colony of Britain for centuries, it is not possible to evaluate Rastafarianism and

reggae as separated from the history of colonialism and slavery. Barrett notes that the

early history of Jamaica is “one long tale of sad intrigue, human suffering, lawlessness,

and immoral profit, at the centre of which were the African slaves – the ancestors of

present-day Jamaicans” (29). Although slavery was abolished over one hundred and

seventy years ago, its memory is still in the minds of people today, and its repercussions

are still being dealt with. The irreversible effects of Columbus’s discovery of the

Indians, the displacement of millions of Africans from their native habitats, long years

of suffering under the harsh conditions of slavery and similar oppression systems,

forced immigration to Britain, and the discrimination applied in the so-called Mother

Country all contributed to the emergence of Rastafarianism and reggae as a means for

blacks to voice their grievances, and to unite under the spiritual kingdom of Emperor

Haile Selassie for a more respectful and free society.

The British experience in the Caribbean began in 1655 when Robert Venables and Sir

William Penn took over the island from Spain on behalf of Oliver Cromwell (Eldem

3

22). With the introduction of the plantation system and sugar cane trade at the end of the

sixteenth century, the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica, became a significant place for

the economy of England due to its sugar-cane potential. However, as a result of the

epidemics caused by the hard and unhealthy working conditions, the Caribbean

indigenous people, especially the Arawaks, became extinct and there occurred a great

need for manual labour in order to cultivate the fields (Mintz 23). To overcome this

problem, England turned to Africa to bring people, which initiated the forced

immigration from Africa to the Caribbean (Clarke J. 56). Sheridan reports that more

than two million people were imported to Jamaica (45). Not only Africans but also

many people from all Commonwealth countries were brought to the Caribbean to work

for the white men (Richardson 75). Rogozinski suggests that these slaves were forced to

work for long hours in very poor conditions; and they were abused not only physically,

racially, and sexually but also psychologically since they were seen as “inferior races”

and were labelled as “savage,” “uncivilised” and “primitive” (142). In time, even blacks

began to see themselves through the eyes of the white man and lost their self-respect.

This gave rise to one of the main targets of Rastafarianism and reggae which is to

restore the lost dignity of blacks and to resist the oppression of blacks by whites.

Although slavery came to an end in 1833, the colonial experience of Jamaica and the

economic difficulties did not end until its independence on August, 6 1962. Delson

informs that not only in Britain but also in the Caribbean region, economic conditions

worsened after the First World War (184). The worldwide depression hit all sectors of

the region’s economy and its labour force (Randall, Mount, and Bright 67). One of the

most important effects of the depression was the drastic fall in agricultural prices,

together with other primary products. Also, the increasing population, that is, the

increasing number of consumers, the international sugar quota system, which limited

the “backbone of the economy”, limited trade of the imperial powers with the region

dragged landowners and especially workers into a difficult situation (Parry et al. 246).

West Indian workers in the country could not find jobs, and the ones who had already

had jobs received low wages for their work. Survival in these conditions was a struggle,

and for this reason, many of them thought emigration as a way of escaping from

poverty and unemployment. They left the country and went to the towns, but upon

4

seeing the serious economic, social, health and housing problems in the towns they left

the Caribbean and went to wherever work was available (Brereton 100-101).

Another way of seeking a solution to the unbearable conditions and the harsh effects of

the depression was to stay in the Caribbean and revolt against the government through

forming labour organizations. Discontent over wage levels and the living conditions

resulted in strikes and the unrest became widespread throughout the country. Randall,

Mount, and Bright state that although there had been some attempts to organize unions

in Colombia, Venezuela, Jamaica, Trinidad and British Guiana in the 1910s, the

formation of more established labour organizations came with the British government’s

regulations of labour laws in the 1930s (66-67). Between 1880 and 1920, the Caribbean

witnessed an increase in organizations, however, legal recognition for trade unions did

not come easily. Both imperial and national governments were slow to accept trade

unions as a legitimate form of organization and they put some restrictions on trade

unions (Randall, Mount, and Bright 67). Franklin W. Knight and Colin A. Palmer claim

that political experience emerged directly from the difficult growth of labour

organizations throughout the Caribbean (12). Not having the right to vote and hence a

representative in power, the lower classes used these unions for their social and

economic representation. To obtain political power, the working and employed classes

had only two ways: the general strike and the riot. They thought social and economic

justice would be possible only “if they secured control of the political machinery, and

there were only two ways to gain that control: through persuasion or by force” (Knight

and Palmer 12).

The labour disturbances of these years became a turning point in the history of the

Caribbean. Workers won the right to organize trade unions and the promise of social

reforms. Trade unionization turned to politicization activity and political institutions

such as Marcus Garvey’s the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA),

Jamaica’s People’s Political Party or Norman Manley’s People’s National Party

emerged (Randall, Mount, and Bright 68). Alexander Bustamante in Jamaica, Robert

Bredshaw in Saint Kitts, Vere Bird in Antigua, Eric Matthew Gairy in Grenada,

Grantley Adams in Barbados, Uriah Butler, Albert Gomes, and Eric Williams in

5

Trinidad were also other important political figures in the Caribbean (Knight and

Palmer 11).

According to Barrett, among these people Marcus Mosiah Garvey (August 17, 1887 –

June 10, 1940) is the most renowned (65), for Llewellyn Watson even the greatest

black leader of that century in the New World (189). Marcus Garvey (see Figure 3)

who was a descendant of the Maroons – the escaped slaves who established self-

dependant communities in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica (Kebede 363, Martin 18) –

was born in the parish of St. Ann (Barrett 65). He was a printer, a journalist, an

entrepreneur, an orator and a crusader for Black Nationalism (Moses 126) but he is

most known as the inspirer of the Rastafarian movement. He understood the

aforementioned social and economic oppressions and troubles of the black people very

well, and tried to find a solution for them through nationalistic and political practices.

He soon realized that the solution was not far but lying in Africa, and he became the

supporter of Pan-Africanism or “Back-to-Africa” movement, the belief that all black

people of the world should join in brotherhood, return to their ancestral home Africa,

and reunite there freely in pride (Spiker, “Reggae”).

According to Alemseghed Kebede, Garvey devoted much of his life, more than any

other political figure of his time, towards this issue of physical repatriation of the black

diaspora to Africa (363). For Garvey, Africa – for some Ethiopia, which was the word

used in ancient times for Africa in general and was still used interchangeably in

Garvey’s times (Martin 20) – was the cradle of all civilizations, and it was the place

where all mankind had been formed. Garvey believed that all black people in the

Western world should return to Africa, or Ethiopia, since they all descended from

Africans. Douglas R. A. Mack explains Garvey’s interest in Ethiopia by claiming that

Ethiopia has the longest and earliest continuous biblical recorded history of any nation

on this planet, and that it is the only existing country in the world since recorded history

with its continuous original name, location, people and ethos (54). He adds that being

the only black country that had never been conquered or colonized by European

empires, Ethiopia was “the pride and the shining light for all black people universally”

(55).

6

In fact, Garvey’s choosing Ethiopia, or Africa, as the homeland of black people shows

that he was influenced by a particular brand of black nationalism called Ethiopianism

(Campbell 49). His “Back-to-Africa” movement developed the spirit of Ethiopianism to

its fullest extent. Originating in South Africa in 1870, Ethiopianism was a secessionist

church movement in rebellion against missionary churches that stayed indifferent to the

practice of white colonial rule and apartheid (Campbell 47-50). Kebede states that

Ethiopianism includes the appreciation of Ethiopia’s ancient civilization as well as its

role in the Bible. The god worshipped in Ethiopianism was the God of Ethiopia, and the

aim was the redemption of Africa (360). Challenging the prevailing argument that

blacks were judged inferior in the Bible, Ethiopianism articulated a new, more positive

role for blacks in the Bible (King, Bays III, and Foster xvi). According to George Eaton

Simpson, it is because of this positive biblical symbolism that Garvey and the

Jamaicans identified with Ethiopia (286). Barrett explains that when Christian

teachings were imposed on the slaves, they discovered in the Bible, which was the only

book to which they had access, that Egypt and Ethiopia had played a crucial role in the

history of civilization (68). He also asserts that upon reading the statement “Can the

Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” in Jeremiah 13:23, slaves assumed

that the inhabitants of those cultured nations and God were black (68). “Ethiopia” in the

bible, in fact, represented the African continent as a whole and meant the land of the

sunburnt people, because “Africa” was the word then which is used by Romans only

for North Africa. However some of the Rastafarians misunderstood it as a reference to

modern Ethiopia although the country today is situated in the Horn of Africa. From

then on, Ethiopia to the blacks in America was like Jerusalem to Jews, Mecca and

Medina to Muslims. Barrett describes the importance of Ethiopia for blacks in these

words: “From biblical writings through Herodotus to the medieval fantasy with the

mythic King Prester John right down to our day, Ethiopia has had a hypnotic influence

on history, which has been retained by the imagination of Blacks in Diaspora” (68).

As Martin points out, Marcus Garvey frequently preached the prediction contained in

the 68th

Psalm and the 31st verse that “Princes shall come out of Egypt, and Ethiopia

shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God” (21). He used this to signify that Africa

7

would soon be free, and this sentence became the theme of Garveyism and has

remained the most quoted text in the Rastafarian movement. Even the national anthem

of the Garvey movement – which has been adopted by the Rastafarians – illustrated

very well the mythic dimension of this ideology and Garvey’s frequent reference to

Ethiopia:

Ethiopia, thou land of our fathers,

Thou land where the gods loved to be,

As storm cloud at night suddenly gathers

Our armies come rushing to thee.

We must in the fight be victorious

When swords are thrust outward to gleam;

For us will the vict’ry be glorious

When led by the Red, Black and Green.

Chorus

Advance, advance to victory,

Let Africa be free;

Advance to meet the foe

With the might

Of the Red, the Black and the Green. (qtd. in Martin 21)

In order to understand the philosophies of Marcus Garvey, his life should be studied in

detail since it is representative of black people’s problems during the inter-war and

post-war periods. Garvey left Jamaica to work in Costa Rica on a banana plantation

about 1910 (Martin 20). He left Costa Rica and travelled throughout Central America

(Sewell 18). He visited the Panama Canal Zone and saw the conditions under which the

Caribbeans lived and worked. He went to Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia

and Venezuela. Everywhere he visited, he saw blacks experiencing great hardships and

suffering prejudice (“Marcus”). Tony Martin asserts that upon observing the working

conditions of blacks, Garvey became determined to change the lives of his people (18).

Later, he travelled to Britain to see if he would face the same conditions. Many of his

ideas developed during his stay in Britain. There, he met a Sudanese-Egyptian

journalist, Duse Mohammed Ali. While working for Ali’s publication the African

Times and Oriental Review, Garvey began to study the history of Africa, particularly,

the exploitation of black people by colonial powers (Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism

8

48). Also influenced by Booker T. Washington’s autobiography, Up From Slavery,

Garvey identified closely with the Pan-African movement in Britain (Stein 30). Essien-

Udom asserts that he returned to Jamaica in 1914, distressed at the situation in Central

America, and convinced that uniting blacks was the only way to improve their

condition (Black Nationalism 49). Garvey realized that the European colonizers had

partitioned the African continent among themselves, unfairly spread the African

population throughout the world, and forced them to work and live under harsh

conditions. As a result, blacks were not able to organize themselves politically or

express themselves socially (Cashmore 20). For Garvey, blacks had not only been

repressed physically, but their minds had been affected by years of white subordination.

Long years of enslavement had caused blacks to believe in the “slave mentality,” so,

they accepted themselves as inferior. Ennis Barrington Edmonds supports him in

saying that Afro-Caribbean people became alienated from their “African selves” in

slavery (53) and lost their “cultural authenticity” through colonialism (131). For this

reason, Garvey helped black people to promote their self-confidence. According to the

anthropologist Berry Chevannes, Garvey “linked the dignity and equality of blacks to

their ability to claim a land they could call their own, one in which they could be their

own master” (95). Essien-Udom remarks that Garvey identified the problems of the

Jamaican blacks with the problem of colonialism in Africa. He preached that until

Africa was liberated, there was no hope for black people anywhere (Black Nationalism

48). Therefore, he wanted those of African ancestry to redeem Africa, and the

European colonial powers to leave it. This effort is very apparent in Garvey’s following

statement:

The Negroes of Africa and America [the Caribbean] are one in blood. They have

sprung from the same common stock. They can work and live together and thus

make their own racial contribution to the world. (qtd. in Cooper 189)

As can be observed in this statement, he believed that the only way to bring a change

into this situation was to encourage all Africans to join into one large group as they all

had similar needs and goals. The idea of uniting these people together to bring about a

change was essential for the movement’s success:

9

We shall organize the four hundred million Negroes of the world into a vast

organization to plant the banner of freedom on the great continent of Africa . . . If

Europe is for the Europeans, then Africa is for the black peoples of the world.

(“Cheering Negroes” New York Times, 3 August 1920)

To realize his goals, Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association

(UNIA) (see Figure 4) and its coordinating body, the African Communities League, in

1914 with the motto: “One God! One Aim! One Destiny!” (Essien-Udom, Black

Nationalism 49). His headquarters in Kingston, and later Harlem, were called Liberty

Hall (Mack 42). Kebede states that the association aimed to unite all the people of

African ancestry of the world into one great body to establish a country and

government absolutely their own; to better their industrial, commercial, social, religious

and political conditions; to build educational institutions for blacks; to strengthen

independent countries of Africa and assist people who need their help (364). Garvey

himself describes the association and the movement in these words:

The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities’ League

is a social, friendly, humanitarian, charitable, educational, institutional

constructive, and expansive society, and is founded by persons, desiring the utmost

to work for the general uplift of the Negro peoples of the world. (qtd. in Cooper

186)

The Universal Negro Improvement Association represents the hopes and

aspirations of the awakened Negro. Our desire is for a place in the world, not to

disturb the tranquillity of other men, but to lay down our burden and rest our weary

backs and feet by the banks of the Niger and sing our songs and chant our hymns to

the God of Ethiopia. (Garvey 120)

Alphonso Pinkney classifies Garvey’s stated aims and objectives of the UNIA in eight

points: The first purpose of the UNIA was to champion Negro nationhood by the

redemption of Africa. The second purpose of the UNIA was to make the Negro race

conscious of its African heritage. The third purpose of the organization was to breathe

the ideals of womanhood and manhood into every Negro. The fourth purpose was to

advocate the self-determination of all Negros, and the fifth was to make the Negro

“world conscious”. The sixth objective of the organization was to print all the news that

would be interesting and instructive to the Negro. The seventh aim was to instil a sense

of racial self-help, and the eight one was to inspire racial self-love and self-respect (45).

10

The UNIA grew to become the largest black organization of all the times with an

estimated five million active members worldwide, and over 1,100 branches in more than

40 countries (Boekhout van Solinge 12). Simboonath Singh points out that the

association became the vehicle through which Garvey was able to “articulate,

promulgate, propagate nationalist struggles” not only in the Caribbean but also in

Africa, the United States and in many other countries (22). The UNIA invoked the

concept of “Negritude” through cultural resistance. Negritude was on the basis of the

attempt of reclaiming history for people of African descent who had experienced social

and cultural dislocation as a result of colonialism and slavery (Caute 18-19). It tried to

revive the long-lost, but rich African history and culture.

Two years after the foundation of the association, Garvey went to the United States with

the intention of collecting funds for a school in Jamaica. But he stayed in America and

started a branch in Harlem to spread his ideas in the United States (Essien-Udom, Black

Nationalism 49). He then started a newspaper in New York called The Negro World

(Mack 42). Together with these attempts, “The Back-to-Africa” movement led by

Marcus Garvey created a racial consciousness and gave way to the Harlem Renaissance

in the United States, which refers to an era of written and artistic creativity among

African-Americans that occurred after World War I and lasted until the middle of the

1930s depression (Essien-Udom, Black Nationalism 49).

To build his Negro nation and carry out his program of “Africa for the Africans,” he

said that ships were necessary, and he founded The Black Star Line Shipping Company

in 1919 (Stein 5). Of course, he did not intend to take all of the blacks to Africa. He

said, “I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa, there are blacks who are

no good here and will likewise be no good there.” (“Marcus”). As Lynn Dumenil points

out, he rather thought that a strong African centre of black power would protect blacks

all over the world from imperialism (297). For this reason, the UNIA and the BSL

Company made contact and signed a lease agreement with President of the Republic of

Liberia in 1920, for the purpose of conducting trade with the African diaspora and

repatriating the people of African descent to settle on a quarter million acres of land in

Liberia (Mack 43). Members of the UNIA boarded the fleet of five ships from ports in

11

the Caribbean and the United States. They loaded on seeds, grains, tractors, water

pumps, tools, trucks, and other equipment and materials necessary to build a settlement

in Africa. However, as Mack reports, as soon as the UNIA ships departed for Liberia,

the United States Secretary of State met with President King in a secret meeting (43).

As the UNIA fleet approached the shores of Liberia, the Liberian Navy blocked its

passage, preventing them from coming ashore (Mack 43). This was a great

disappointment for Garvey and the UNIA members. What was worse, on their way back

to the Caribbean, the fleet was sabotaged and set on fire in Cuba (Mack 44). In addition

to this disappointment, he was tried and found guilty of mail fraud in 1923, and he was

sentenced to five years in prison in 1925 (Stein 1). In 1927 he was granted a pardon by

President Calvin Coolidge, and was deported to Jamaica, where he tried to revive the

UNIA’s power (Mack 44).

Up to his death in 1940, Marcus Garvey defended the rights of blacks and devoted his

life to promote black self-confidence and pride. He became a leader and an inspiration

for other generations and for new liberation movements. A shrine was dedicated to him

in National Heroes Park in Jamaica, and he was proclaimed Jamaica’s first National

Hero (“Marcus”).

According to Tony Martin, Garvey had a tremendous impact on African nationalist

struggles from the 1920s to the 1970s (18). Essien-Udom states that the important

political figures such as Kwame Nkrumah, who helped the independence of many

African and Caribbean regions, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King in the United

States were inspired by the ideas and philosophies of Marcus Garvey (“Mwalimu

Marcus Garvey” 177). Even today people are influenced directly or indirectly by

Marcus Garvey.

His ideas and philosophy have also been hugely influential in the development of

Rastafarian culture in the Caribbean, especially in Jamaica. Many of the early

Rastafarians are ex-Garveyites. The Rastafarians’ belief that repatriation is the only

means to realize emancipation was inherited specifically from Garvey’s movement

(Kebede 364). Watson asserts that “it was Garvey who had warned the black peoples of

12

the world about white racism and oppression, the very themes that animate the Rasta’s

doctrines today” (189). Watson enlists the Rasta doctrines as follows:

1. Black men, reincarnations of ancient Israelites, were forcibly brought to

Jamaica as slaves because of their transgressions, and should now be

repatriated.

2. The wicked white men are inferior to the black men.

3. Jamaica (the socio-political situation) is a hopeless hell.

4. Ethiopia is heaven.

5. Haile Selassie is the living God.

6. Selassie will soon arrange for their repatriation, at which time black men will

get their revenge of the white men. (191)

As can be seen above, like Garvey before them, the Rastafarians reject the white man’s

world, as the Babylon age of greed and dishonesty. The recognition of African roots

and the desire for repatriation has been a central theme in Rastafarianism following

Garvey.

Garvey was also seen as a prophet by the Rastafarians since he said that “Look to

Africa for the crowning of a black king, he shall be the Redeemer” (Barrett 81). Also in

his 1929 play entitled The Coronation of the King and Queen of Africa he dramatized

the crowning of an African king (Chevannes 94–5). Not long after this prophecy in

1930 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ras Tafari Makonnen (see Figure 5) was crowned as

Negus Negusti (King of Kings), Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah,

Lebena Denghel (Incense of the Virgin), Keeper of the Faith of the Dynasty of Judah,

Keeper of the Faith of the Dynasty of David, and the Elect of God with the throne-

name His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie (Mack 49) (see Figure 6). Barrett suggests

that the crowning of a young Ethiopian King with this Biblical title affected the

Jamaicans who had been possessed by the ideology and spirit of the Garvey movement

before, and they saw this coronation as a fulfilment of the Biblical prophesy that

Garvey had preached (81). The movement even took its name from the pre-coronation

name of this emperor. He was believed to be the Messiah of African redemption, the

flesh and blood form of Jah (short for Jehovah or the Rastafari name for God) and part

of the Holy Trinity (“Rastafari Movement”). Mack asserts that this divinity attributed to

him was a result of the belief that he was a direct descendant of King David, the 225th

ruler in an unbroken line of Ethiopian Kings from the time of King Solomon and the

13

Queen of Sheba (52). The Rastafarians have the traditional belief that in the 10th

century B.C. the kingdom of Ethiopia was supposedly founded by Menelik I, who was

the son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and the Queen of Sheba (Mack 34). While

Prince Menelik I was returning back from Jerusalem to Ethiopia, he brought the Royal

Golden Throne of David, the Royal crown of David, the Golden Orb of David, the

Golden Sceptre and the Ark of the Covenant with him (Monges 240). Thus coming

from the Solomon dynasty, Haile Selassie was given the Golden Orb and the Golden

Sceptre. On the basis of the Kebra Negast, the Rastafarians interpret this event as a

proof of the fact that the black people are the true children of Israel, or Jews. They

believed that Haile Selassie would lead these true Israelite peoples of African origin in

the world into their biblical homeland, Ethiopia, which is a land of emancipation and

divine justice. The bible was studied and any reference to Ethiopia took on added

significance. God was finally real and the Christian doctrine was no longer in the

monopoly of white missionaries with headquarters in Rome (“Rastafari”).

After the crowning of Selassie, the Rastafarian movement gained a following and it

began officially (Mack 49). Ironically enough, Barrett argues that Selassie was never a

Rastafarian himself, and no one is really sure what he ever thought of his followers

(108). Also noteworthy is the fact that Garvey himself was not an admirer of Haile

Selassie, and he even denounced him as “a great coward” (Cashmore 22). Garvey only

talked about a God of Ethiopia, who is not an absolute being with white skin and blue

eyes:

Our God has no colour, yet it is human to see everything through one’s own

spectacles, and since white people have seen their God through white spectacles we

have only now started to see our own God through our own spectacles. . . . We

Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God. (Garvey 33-35)

The Rastafarians have retained and expanded on Garvey’s concept of God. They have

begun to see God through the spectacles of Ethiopia, and constructed a new notion of

God (Kebede 363). Wilson Jeremiah Moses defines the Rastafarian God not only as a

black God, but also a living God. He is God with flesh and blood. He is an active God

who is both among them and in them. He is not independent of his people. Most

importantly, his mission is to lead them towards their liberation (133-134). Despite the

14

fact that God is a living figure in the Rastafari movement, it is also an eternal God at

the same time. When Haile Selassie I died in 1975, his death was not accepted by some

Rastafarians who thought that God incarnate could not die. Many believe that his

spiritual presence is with them in all they do, and in every atom of the world. They say

that he has moved on to a higher place on Mount Zion where he and Empress Menen

(see Figure 7), his wife, await the Time of Judgement – the day when he will return to

liberate his followers (Littman, “Rastafarianism”).

How the Rastafarians arrived at the conclusion that God of Ethiopia and the

prophesized black king were the same person and this person was Haile Selassie is

rather unclear. But Smith, Augier and Nettleford point to the Bible’s Book of

Revelation as the clue to linking up Garvey’s prophecy of Ras Tafari (1: 5-6):

And I saw a strong Angel proclaiming with a great voice. Who is worthy to open

the book, and to loose the seal thereof? And no one in heaven, or on earth, or under

the earth, was able to open the book, or to look thereon. And I wept much because

no one was found worthy to open the book thereon: and one of the elders saith to

me, Weep not: behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,

hath overcome, to open the book and the seven seals thereof. (Revelation 5: 2-6)

Upon seeing the title of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah in the Bible, the Rastafarians

identified this figure with Haile Selassie. Moreover, during his coronation, his standing

with dignity in front of the world’s press and in front of representatives of many of the

world’s powerful nations as the only black head of state in the world made him worthy

of worship for the Rastafarians (Mack 49).

Although the Rastafarians opposed to Christianity as being the religion of the

oppressor, it is very ironic that many of the religious assumptions of the Rastafari – for

instance the notions of “Babylon” and “the living God” – are based on interpretations

of the Bible. According to the Rastafarians, the Bible “has suffered in the hands of

“oppressors,” and it needs to be read carefully again” (Forsythe, Rastafari 47).

Rereading the Bible from their own points of view, the Rastafarians ground their

religious and social practices on the Bible. For example, they believe that the use of

marijuana (cannabis) (see Figure 8 and 9), also called “ganja,” “the wisdom weed,”

“the spiritual meat” or simply “the herb,” as a sacrament and aid to meditation among

15

the Rastafarians is written in the Bible in Psalms 104:14, “He causeth the grass for the

cattle, and herb for the service of man” (Forsythe, “West Indian” 71). The following are

a few of many other Biblical texts that the Rastafarians embrace as reasons Jah gave for

the use of the herb:

“. . . thou shalt eat the herb of the field” (Genesis 3:18).

“. . . eat every herb of the land” (Exodus 10:12).

“Better is a dinner of herb where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.”

(Proverbs 15:17)

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit

tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was

so.” (Genesis 1:11) (qtd. in Barrett 129)

Boekhout van Solinge notes that the Rastafarians feel it is God, who made marijuana to

grow from the earth for people. They look upon it as a holy plant, which enables them

to deepen their faith (13). It cleans the body and mind, helps peacefulness, and bring

them closer to Jah (Barrett 129). The burning of the herb is often said to be essential

“for it will sting in the hearts of those that promote evil and wrongs” (“Rastafari

Movement”) (see Figure 10). Forsythe describes the mental state of intoxicated

Rastafarians as follows:

Rastas, through the use of Ganja, feel themselves to be divinely inspired

experiencing the same magnificence of spirit and oneness with Nature which

Moses must have experienced “high” on the mountain top in the form of the

“burning bush” (herbs), as did Jesus “high” on top of Mount Sinai. (“West Indian”

71)

In addition to this, Sheila Kitzinger asserts that the use of this herb is very extensive

among the Rastafarians not only for spiritual purposes, but also for medical treatment

for many diseases such as cold (581). For the Rastafarians, “the herb symbolically grew

out of the grave of King Solomon and, because of its wholesome effects, it has the

power to heal the nation” (Forsythe, “West Indian” 71). Contrary to the Rastafarian

belief, this plant is seen as a kind of mind-altering (psychoactive) drug, so it is accepted

as illegal in most of the world, except in some places in Europe – where it has been

decriminalized recently (“Marijuana”). Although the Jamaican government has also

outlawed the cultivation of the herb, there are many ganja fields all over the country,

and it grows freely. Kitzinger explains the reason as follows: “The producers consider

16

ganja – which is a drug of habitation rather than of addiction – far less dangerous than

hard liquor or rum” (581). A Rastafarian poet explains the philosophy as follows:

What is ganja? We know it’s a plant

Created by God to fulfill men’s want

The powers that be, say man should not use

They use it in secret, yet show its abuse.

There is no comparison between ganja and rum

The former keeps you “cool”, the latter makes you glum

Rum as we know is an agent of death

With the using of ganja you draw new breath

The taking of rum has eaten out our head

They who continue to take it will wind up dead

Remember, one is created, the other manufactured

On the evils of men we have always lectured

So cast not your verdict before making a test

True conscience in you will show you the best

For rum as we know will pronounce your doom

All hail to great ganja, the solvent of gloom. (qtd. in Barrett 132)

Despite the Rastafarian attempt to justify their use of ganja, it contributed to the

Rastafarian’s negative image and has shown the Rastafarians as an unacceptable

society in the eyes of the westerners as well as in the eyes of the non-Rasta people from

their own country (see Figure 11). The origin of this controversial herb and how it was

introduced to the Caribbean is not clear. Although Bouquet claims that African slaves

were familiar with marijuana as an intoxicant and medicine, and brought the seeds with

them to the Caribbean even earlier in the sixteenth century (36), Brian Du Toit assumes

that marijuana came to Jamaica recently with the Indians, who came to the region as

indentured servants because of the demand for labour after the emancipation from

slavery (9-18). The second argument is much more affirmed than the first one. It also

explains why in Jamaica a Hindu word is used for marijuana, namely ganja. Through

the Indians ganja was spread to the lower classes of society; in fact, the black section of

the population. From then on ganja has become a widely-used substance in the

countryside and in the poor districts of the large towns. The history of ganja as part of

religious rituals is also unclear, but Barrett notes that it was most probably formulated

“during the wilderness experience in Pinnacle (Leonard Howell’s commune near

Kingston)” (128). Leonard Percival Howell, who was a follower of Marcus Garvey,

17

was a leading figure in the early development of Rastafarian ideas. He encouraged

Jamaicans to reject the authority of Britain and to give their loyalties to the new

Emperor of Ethiopia (Campbell 71). Howell sold pictures of Haile Selassie as future

passports to Ethiopia (Smith, Augier and Nettleford 1: 7). He believed that it was

necessary to have a self controlled government led by blacks for blacks. As expected,

Jamaica’s colonial government objected to Howell’s anti-colonial rhetoric, and Howell

and his deputy Robert Hinds were immediately arrested for breaking Jamaica’s sedition

laws (Campbell 71). Barrett reports that upon release from prison, Howell moved with

his followers to the hill country near Sligoville, about twenty miles from Kingston, and

developed a community – called Pinnacle – in these slum areas of Kingston (82). Davis

and Simon draw the portrait of the commune in these words: “There were thousands of

Rastas occupying the land, which Howell had been running like a Maroon nation, an

autonomous state within a state” (73). As part of the crops they cultivated for use and

for sale, they planted ganja. For this reason Howell’s commune was seen as the starting

point for Rastafarian use of ganja (Nolan “Rastafarians and Ganja”). The cultivation of

ganja and the rumours of Rastafarian violence in the area drew police suspicions, and in

1941 the police raided Pinnacle and arrested seventy Rastafarians on charges of

violence and cultivating a dangerous drug (Mack 61). The Rastafarian leader, Howell,

was sentenced to two years in prison (Kitzinger 580).

Although Leonard Howell has been proclaimed the first Rastafarian preacher in

Jamaica, there were at least three other Rastafarian groups in existence during the

1930s (Chevannes 119-144). These groups were led by Joseph Hibbert, Archibald

Dunkley, and Robert Hinds (Barrett 81). While each group exemplified a different style

of worship and emphasized a different aspect of the Rasta doctrines, there were several

common themes uniting these factions. First of all, all four groups condemned

Jamaica’s colonial society. Secondly, all believed that repatriation to Africa was the

key to overcoming oppression. Thirdly, all of these groups advocated non-violence.

Finally, all four groups worshipped the divinity of Haile Selassie I (King, Bays III, and

Foster xviii). King claims that the four early Rastafarian groups reflected the

movement’s “history of diversification” and “lack of centralized leadership”

(“International Reggae” 50). Leonard Barrett explained the movement’s refusal for

18

central leadership as follows:

No leader has arisen to unite the separate branches of the movement and there is no

desire to do so. The Rastafarians are deathly afraid of leaders because they feel that

a leader would destroy the movement. There are still “leading brethren,” but these

are men around whom various groups are organized. Their power is mostly

organizational; they do not speak for the members as leaders, but simply serve as

an inspiration for their specific groups. (172)

Following the early groups, like the Maroon communities of early times, many

Rastafarian camps throughout Jamaica emerged out of this lack of unity and centralized

authority. Serving as the delegates of the movement, some important figures organized

gatherings in different parts of the country away from the colonial oppression of the

Jamaican government. Mack describes these communities, which were called brethren

by the Rastafarians as follows:

These camps were the places of retreat from Babylonian pressures of life, where

we acquired our spiritual meditation. We became avid scholars of the Bible,

reading, reasoning, and interpreting the passages while chanting our songs of

praises to the “Most High” [Haile Selassie]. The spirit of the camp created a

soothing balm to the aching soul. (66)

Despite the movement’s decentralized nature, there are common links among these

various groups. Smoking ganja, singing songs to Haile Selassie and reading passages

from the Bible the Rastafarians in these camps discussed every subject related to the

movement until they arrived at a consensus. This consensus was also communicated

and debated from one camp to the other until they reached a oneness of purpose (Mack

66).

The Youth Black Faith, which was formed by five brethren in the 1940s, was among

these communities of the Rastafarian movement. These young brethren respected their

elder leaders but were looking for more active reform. They wanted to eliminate

practices related to those of the Revival tradition, Jamaica’s main African-Christian

cult, and to distinguish themselves. They were most passionate in denouncing

traditional practices related to those of the earlier Revival traditions and supporting the

right to wear a beard (Eschert “Natty”). The beards were quite an issue because, at that

time, non-Rastafarians were afraid of the bearded men, because while early Rastafarian

19

leaders preached political withdrawal and non-violence, this group of young radicals,

also called “Beardsmen” (Kitzinger 582), were more militant. According to Chevannes,

while early Rastafarian leaders “encountered police harassment,” these new radicals

were on “fire with the doctrine,” and often provoked confrontations with authorities

(154, 159). “Warrior” or “Dreadful” were the names given to the Youth Black Faith

members (Eschert “Natty”), because they were the militant and passionate advocators

of the movement. Despite the Youth Black Faith’s militant tactics, the Rastafarian

movement remained a largely apolitical movement until the mid 1960s.

The Youth Black Faith also made great contributions to implementing the dreadlock

trend (see Figure 12) – uncombed and uncut hair which is allowed to knot and mat into

distinctive locks, and which is often stuffed into large woollen caps (see Figure 13)

frequently in the red, green, and gold colours of Ethiopian flag (Winders 66). Recently

it has become the most prominent symbol of the Rastafarians. Although Kitzinger and

Cashmore think it was the Nyabinghi, another militant branch, who initiated the

tradition of wearing dreadlocks (582; 25), King and his colleagues believed it to be the

Youth Black Faith (xix). The decision to wear dreadlocks caused such a fierce debate

within the Youth Black Faith that the movement split into two factions. Chevannes

reports that the “House of Dreadlocks” supported this new “dangerous” trend, while the

“House of Combsomes” maintained the necessity of combing one’s hair (158). It was

not until the late 1960s that the dreadlock tradition became universally acceptable

within the movement. The historical background and rebellious nature of dreadlocks

has made it a popular tradition in the Rastafarian culture (Clarke P. 90).

Dreadlock is not only a style of hair; it is also a political, social and religious medium

through which the Rastafarians display their rebellion against Babylon. Politically,

dreadlocks symbolize the power of Haile Selasssie, the Lion of Judah (Forsythe, “West

Indian” 70). As stated before, Selassie is believed to be a direct descendant of the

Israelite Tribe of Judah through the lineage of Kings of Israel, David and Solomon, and

he is also known as the Lion of Judah (see Figure 14) mentioned in the Book of

Revelations and as the powerful Black Messiah who would lead the black people to

freedom. Forsythe asserts that by wearing dreadlocks like the mane and hair of a lion,

20

the Rastafarian Afro-Caribbeans have identified themselves with the Lion of Judah, and

took the power and energy it includes (“West Indian” 70). The Rastafarians feel it gives

them power and deeper feeling of their origins, and they state, “To cut it would be to

cut off their strength, like Samson” (Kitzinger 582). Accordingly, dreadlocks have

become a manifestation of their black nationalist or pan-Africanist political beliefs and

view, symbols of black unity and power, and a rejection of oppression and imperialism.

For the peoples of African descent, dreadlocks are a statement of ethnic pride. Some

see them as a rejection of Eurocentric values represented by straightened hair, and

some blacks who attach strong ethnic meaning to locks disapprove of the wearing of

locks by non-blacks, viewing such practice as a form of “cultural appropriation”

(“Dreadlocks”). Moreover, dreadlocked hair worn by Rastafarian people does not only

denote disapproval of the white culture, but also it is a symbol of defiance towards

Jamaican society (Barrett 138). According to Barrett, the hair-symbol of the

Rastafarians announces that they are outside Jamaican society, and do not care to enter

it under any circumstance unless the society changes its attitude to the poor and the

Rastafarians radically (138).

Dreadlocks also symbolize deep devotion to God. Dreadlocks take time to grow, and a

Rastafarian person cannot just change his hairstyle without shaving all of his hair.

Therefore, it’s a symbol of commitment to God. Peter Clarke remarks that the

cultivation of dreadlocks is intended to symbolize “the historical stage of wandering

through the wilderness towards the Promised Land” (92). Clarke says “wilderness”,

because the Rastafarians follow the idea of living naturally by not combing their hair

and taking a natural course. They grow dreadlocks by simply “washing the hair and

allowing it to dry without combing, brushing or treating it in any way” (Campbell 96).

Barrett points out that any chemically produced good such as shampoo or soap, or

anything that makes the locking process easier or faster is regarded as “akin to

sacrilege” among the Rasta faithful (139). For the Rastafarians the razor, the scissors

and the comb are Babylonian inventions. The Rastafarians associate growing

dreadlocks with a spiritual journey that one takes in the process of locking their hair. It

is taught that patience is the key to growing dreadlocks, a journey of the mind, soul and

spirituality. Its spiritual pattern is aligned with Rastafarianism. People who do not

21

understand the process sometimes mock the dreadlock style and make comments about

the cleanliness of the locked hair. However, locks serve a purpose and hold meaning to

Rastafarianism. Like the other practices of the movement, the Rastafarian followers

ground the importance of growing dreadlocks in the Bible. In the Old Testament the

Rastafarians point out many different references to the locks. For example, “All the

days of the vow of the separation there shall no razor come upon his head until the days

are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall let

the locks of the hair of his head grow (Numbers 6:5)” (“Rastafari Movement”). Also it

is supported in Leviticus 21:15: “They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither

shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in the flesh”

(Barrett 137). Grounding it in the Bible has led to an increase in wearing dreadlocks

and the practice has taken on a religious motive. However, not all Rastafarians have

dreadlocks, and not all people with dreadlocks are Rastafarians. A dance hall artist

Cutty Ranks explains the issue in these words: “Not everybody who dreads their hair is

a true Rasta. Some of these guys talk about how they are a dread and a Rastaman, but

they are using it as a disguise. Rastafari business isn’t what you have on your head; it’s

what you have in your heart” (qtd in King, Bays III, and Foster 89). Many non-

Rastafari of black African descent have also adopted dreads as an expression of pride in

their ethnic identity, or simply as a hairstyle, and take a less purist approach to

developing and grooming them. The wearing of dreads also has spread among people

of other ethnicities whose hair is not naturally suited to the style, who sometimes go to

great lengths to catch the look. Dreadlocks have become trendy to some people in

today’s society, but their significance and the symbolism behind the tradition is often

lost.

In addition to the dreadlock tradition, the Youth Black Faith is also responsible for

creating the movement’s unique language, called “patios” (King, Bays III, and Foster

xx). Although English is the official language of Jamaica, many Jamaicans speak patois

(pronounced “pa-twa”). Patois combines Standard English and African languages.

Accordingly, Jamaican patois is hardly comprehensible to people who are accustomed

to only the Queen’s English (Simpson 288). The Rastafarians experimented with patois

and created their own distinctive language called the “Iyaric”, “I-tally”, “I-ance” or

22

“Dread Talk” (Pollard 69). Barrett also defines it as “soul language”, “ghetto language”

or “hallucinogenic language” (143). The Rastafarians believed that language shaped

human perceptions, and they altered the words to fit their philosophy (King, Bays III,

and Foster xx). They have examined the word/sound structure of Standard English and

changed the spelling and pronunciation of certain words which have negative

connotations according to the Rastafarian philosophy (Simpson 288). Simpson

exemplifies these changes very well as follows:

For example, the word sincerely includes the syllable sin, and is therefore changed

to Incerely or Icerely. The word dedicate emphasizes the dead, and is replaced with

the positive word livicate. Appreciate is changed to apprecilove because the ate has

a hate sound . . . Inanimate objects such as fruits are also reaffirmed with the I sound. Banana includes a negative sound ban and is changed to Iana, Jahana, or

freebana. Irie is the ultimate positive. “I and I will come forward soon” means “I

and I (I or we) will come back soon.” “Last” always becomes “first.” Seen means I know or I read you. Words like deadline, deadend, and deadlock are avoided in

Iyaric; the word deadline is changed to lifeline. (Simpson 288-89)

The Rastafarians believe that a word can kill or cure, and that every word has a history.

Words should never be used unthinkingly. As Forsythe states, “word becomes power

and this power is identified as God’s laws as they are revealed in the Bible” (“West

Indian” 72). In fact, as Velma Pollard asserts, Rastafarian beliefs are reflected in the

use of words and language (32). The language has been developed into an instrument

for defining reality and stating a world view. For instance, the pronoun “I” replaces the

“me” and takes on special significance. The new “I-words” symbolize “a new

perception of self as Man and as nothing less, as subject and not as object” (Faristzaddi

67). Chevannes discusses the use of the most important aspect of Rastafarian talk, the

personal pronoun, “I” as follows:

To the Rastafari this is the same as the Roman numeral I, which follows the name

“Selassie.” “I” substitutes for “me” and for “mine.” The religious meaning behind

this substitution is that the Rastafari is also part of God, and if God is a visible,

living man, it must mean that the Rastafari is another Selassie, another “I.” Because

everyone is an “I,” one does not say “we” for plurality, but says “I and I.” As the

most central word in the Rastafari speech, “I” transforms other words as well.

“Brethren” pronounced in the dialect as “bredrin, ” becomes “Idrin”; “eternal, ”

“Iternal”; “hour, ” “Iowa”; “times, ” “Iimes”; “creator, ” “Ireator”; and so forth.

(167)

23

Since a language cannot be separated from its social context, it is very apparent

that this patios language existed as a result of the historical phenomena

determining certain social necessities of the Rastafarians. Not being able to

eliminate the whole language of the oppressor which they had been exposed to for

many years, they were only able to make small changes in certain words. For this

reason, Pollard is quite right in noting that “Dread Talk is a comparatively recent

adjustment of the lexicon of Jamaica Creole to reflect the religious, political and

philosophical positions of the believers in Rastafari” (3).

Similarly, food symbolism also underscores the revolutionary stance of the

Rastafarians. Their food (small fish, vegetables, dry coconut oil, few spices, no

salt, fruit juice) is called I-tal food (Barrett 140-41) (see Figure 15). “I-tal food” is

derived from the word “vital food”. It means the essence of things, things that are

in their natural states (“Ital”). This is unique food because it is never adulterated

with chemicals and is completely natural. Nature and the environment is a central

theme in Rastafarianism. Living with respect to the land and its many components

means showing one’s respect for Jah. The laws of nature are thought to be most

prominent in Africa, and upon their return to Africa the Rastafarians believe they

will be able to live in harmony with nature. While in Jamaica, the most preferable

method of getting food is through one’s own plantation or garden, which means

food is produced organically and agricultural practices are implemented safely,

causing no damage to the land. This idea is the most environmentally sound way

of farming and producing food. The objective of this attitude is to lead a healthy

lifestyle, while avoiding the unholy foods (Katz, “Fundamentals”).

Although the food is cooked, it is served in its rawest form possible, without salts,

preservatives, or condiments. The idea behind this practice is that vegetables come

from the earth, and the earth only produces good things. Fruits are thought of in

the same way. Things made from natural roots and herbs are an acceptable part of

the diet. Devoted Rastafarians, therefore, are completely vegetarian. Those who

eat meat are forbidden to eat pig because they are the scavengers of the earth

(Simpson 290). Fish is the most consumed I-tal food; however, not crabs, lobster,

24

and shrimp, because these are the scavengers of the sea (“Rastafari”). The fish

they eat must be small, not more than twelve inches long. They drink anything

that is herbal, such as tea (Kitzinger 582). Liquor, milk, coffee, and soft drinks

are viewed as unnatural (Littman, “Rastafarianism”). Alcohol is generally

accepted as unhealthy by the Rastafarians, partly because it is seen as a tool of

Babylon to confuse people, and partly because taking something that is fermented

is felt to be much like turning the body into a cemetery (“Rastafari Movement”). It

is so important not to put the wrong thing in your body that some Rastafarians

never cook in aluminium pots as it is said to leave traces of metal in the food that

can get in your body. Cooking in a clay pot is popular among Rastafarians

(“Ital”).

The role of women is another distinctive subject in Rastafarianism. Although it is

undeniable that Rastafarianism is a patriarchal movement (Rowe 15), sisters or the

daughters of Zion, as the Rastafarians call them, are gradually gaining importance

among their brothers. As Kitzinger states, at first they were not Rastafarian in

heart and they were just following their husbands (583), but this situation is

changing since more women began embracing the Rastafarian philosophy (Rowe

18). Perhaps referring to the Queen of Sheba, a Rastafarian wife is called “Queen”

and she is treated with great respect (Smith, Augier and Nettleford 1: 22). Beside

the domestic works, she is also responsible for educating the children, because

some of the Rastafarians are against educating their children by the “Babylonian

Methods” (Mack 70). Although women are of great importance to Rastafarian

men, there are some restrictions and rules for Rastafarian women to obey.

Females cannot be a Rastafarian without a male, because only a man can make a

woman to see the truth (Rowe 15). As Maureen Rowe asserts, since males are the

spiritual head of the female as well as the family, the female must seek the man’s

guidance in all things spiritual (15). She also adds that females are unclean when

they are on menstruation period and they cannot approach a ritual gathering of

males nor should they prepare meals for any males during that time (15). As it is

stated in the Bible 1 Corinthians 11: 5-6, women must always have their hair

covered when they are praying (Smith, Augier and Nettleford 1: 22). It is also sin

25

for black women to straighten their hair or to use cosmetics. According to Peter

Childs, this misogynistic attitude and “the male emphasis aimed at least in part at

repudiating the matrifocal ethos produced by the nineteenth-century slavery’s

dislocation of the family” (446).

According to Femi Ojo-Ade, all of these aforementioned practices – smoking

ganja, wearing dreadlock, speaking Iyaric language, eating Ital food, male

oriented families – symbolize the Rastafarians’ wish “to leave behind the

destructive existence of the vast capitalist community”, and “to seek the solidarity

of the suffering majority” (355). In fact, in the core of these attempts lies Marcus

Garvey’s encouragement of black people to take pride in themselves and his

reminding the Rastafarians of their Africanness and the dignity existing in this

identity. After Garvey, they began to see that they were brainwashed while in

captivity and rejected all things black and African. In a sense, they lost their

identity and self-respect. Nevertheless; the Rastafarian doctrines developed out of

Garvey’s philosophies helped the Afro-Caribbeans to shatter the racists’ image of

them as primitive and savage. They embraced these Rastafarian concepts as a part

of the African culture which they see as having been stolen from them when they

were taken from Africa on the slave ships. They believe that when they were

forced to work under the slavery system of white colonialism, their African

cultural awareness and identity were stolen from them, and that they must do

everything within their power to reclaim this culture and identity, even unify

people of colour against imperialism all over the world under the motto “One

God! One Aim! One Destiny!”. In this respect, Rastafarianism, as Simpson

asserts, can be seen as an individual and collective movement for the acquisition

of an identity and status for blacks in once and still being colonized societies such

as the Caribbean (291). Within Rasta communities and within individual

Rastafarians this struggle aims to regain the sense of personal worth and dignity

which has been lost for years. For this reason, the identity problems of blacks as a

result of slavery and immigrations, and how and in what way Rastafarianism has

found a solution to them will be studied in the first chapter of this thesis, whereas

reflections of the Rastafarian ideology in reggae will be illustrated in famous

26

lyrics in the second chapter. The role of Rastafarianism and reggae in the process

of identity formation and in the resistance movement of the Afro-Caribbeans will

form the main focus of this thesis.

27

CHAPTER I

RASTAFARIANISM AND THE AFRO-CARIBBEAN IDENTITY

After the end of the Cold War there was an explosion in the field of identity politics

(Davis J. 3-4). As Joseph E. Davis calls attention, the concepts related to identity,

ethnicity, nationalism, minorities and multiculturalism have been quite common terms,

and they have been studied by almost every scholar in the fields of political science,

sociology, history, anthropology, psychology, philosophy and geography (2). The end

of the Cold War marked the emergence of culture and identity in world politics (Lapid

and Kratochwill 119). As Eriksen points out, since this period, politics to a great extent

meant identity politics (1). It is evident that identities were not constructed only after

the Cold War but the issue came to the foreground and further theories were produced

during this post-war era. As William Barbieri states, identity politics can be defined as

the politics that is based on identity demands. In other words identity politics is the

politics of ethnic, national and racial identities as well as other units of identity (ix).

Eriksen asserts that the main reason behind the appearance of this issue was the

collapse of the nation-state system, which had survived for almost four centuries (1).

Multinational states such as Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union disintegrated rapidly and

dramatically, and cultural groups demanded the political recognition and affirmation of

their distinct identities (Miller 62). Likewise, former British colonies like Jamaica or

Nigeria began to demand independence from the colonial powers, and there have been

several clashes of minorities for better rights. As Kenneth Hoover argues, “Identity

politics has become an ideology in its own right centred on the struggle for political

“voice” by marginalized groups in society” (7). Eriksen enlarges the scope of identity

politics and describes it in many types:

Some are separatist national movements; some represent historically oppressed

minorities which demand equal rights; some are dominant groups trying to prevent

minorities from gaining access to national sources; some are religious; some are

ethnic and some are regional. (3)

Ethnic politics on the other hand is a sub-category of identity politics, which often

28

involves conflict and violence. In its simplest form, ethnic politics can be defined as

politics based on ethnicity or ethnic group issues. These ethnic groups demand more

rights, recognition, autonomy and sometimes independence from the state (Sezal 2). As

can be seen, both identity politics and ethnic politics have emerged out of the

fragmentation of the nation states and as potential forces challenging the nation-state

system.

According to Joseph H. Davis, identity politics drew attention to some critical issues

such as difference, otherness, the status of the subject, and the solidarity of

marginalized groups which contributed to a new problematization and destabilization

of identity categories (2, 5). From then on, identity has become a multidimensional and

complex issue involving many definitions and elements, and has been widely studied

and debated in almost every discipline of social sciences. Following this trend, this

thesis will take the subject of identity formation of the Afro-Caribbeans as its basis, and

it will try to find satisfying answers to the questions below:

1) What are the factors that led the Afro-Caribbeans to experience an identity

crisis?

2) Why did and still do the Afro-Caribbeans choose Rastafarianism as a means for

identity formation?

3) How did Rastafarianism answer the physical, psychological and social needs of

the Afro Caribbeans?

4) What are the characteristics of the identity that is formed within the Rastafarian

movement?

In order to understand the process of identification and identity formation of the Afro-

Caribbeans better it is necessary to comprehend the meaning of identity. For this

reason, it is going to be useful to study the term “identity” in detail before the analysis

of the problems of the Afro-Caribbeans in this process.

As it is explained in the Oxford English Dictionary the word “identity” is derived from

the Latin word “idem” which means “the same”. According to the dictionary, identity

29

means absolute sameness, and it is also a concept of distinctiveness. Identity, in the

general sense, is composed of the characteristics that the individual shares with other

people in the same racial, religious or other groups, which make him or her aware of

what kind of a person he or she is. It was not until the twentieth century that the term

became a matter of discussion, and researchers tried to provide a clear description of

the concept. It had different meanings, and had been used in a variety of contexts.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was the first who gave a modern

definition of the term. He defines identity as a changing unit and the result of a series of

conflicts and of different identifications (1: 329-332). He also believes that both gender

and sexuality are important to one’s understanding of his identity. Our sense of who we

are is mostly linked to our awareness of our identities as men or as women (1: 329-

332).

Erik Erikson, whose work was crucial in forming discourses on identity at the

beginning of the Cold War period (Inden 70) and who is a follower of Freud, accepts

identity as:

. . . A subjective sense as well as an observable quality of personal sameness and

continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared

world image. As a quality of unself-conscious living, this can be gloriously

obvious in a young person who has found himself as he has found his

communality. In him we see emerge a unique unification of what is irreversibly

given – that is, body type and temperament, giftedness and vulnerability, infantile

models and acquired ideals – with the open choices provided in available roles,

occupational possibilities, values offered, mentors met, friendships made, and first

sexual encounters. (14)

With this explanation he states that identity brings a coherence and unity to one’s

actions and life and integrity to his character. Erikson also underlines the notion of

authenticity of one’s life as it is seen by oneself and recognized by others distinctly

(Erikson 18).

For rather recent researchers such as George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley,

identity is a sociological conception that bridges the gap between “inside” and

“outside”, between the person and the public (Hall, “Question” 276). It is the link

between how people see themselves and the ability of human beings to imagine how

30

others might see them (Mead 138-140). In other words, since identities are the product

of society in which people live and their relationship with others, identity provides a

link between individuals and the world in which they live (Woodward, Questioning 7).

According to Richard Jenkins, the word “identity” embraces a universe of creatures,

things and substances, which is wider than the limited category of humanity (3). There

are a large number of identity units and identifications within a society such as national,

ethnic, religious, gender, class, age, etc. Although there is still not an agreement among

scholars about how to categorize these identities, Henri Tajfel and John Turner suggest

that these identities can be divided into two major categories as individual (personal)

and collective (social) identities (7). Tajfel and Turner, who initiated a school of

theorizing and empirical research focusing on the role of self-definition or self-

interpretation process (Simon 318), make a distinction between the individual self and

the collective self. They are conceptualized as two different forms of self-interpretation

with each being responsible for particular types of behaviours (7). Although there exists

such different categorizations of social (collective) and personal (individual) identities,

personal identity can be accepted as a sub-category of social identity since it is not an

independent entity from the society.

“Personal identity” is generally defined as what makes one as he is. Personal identity in

this sense consists roughly of the attributes that make one unique as an individual and

different from others (Simon 320), or it is the way one sees or defines himself. The

individual psychological identity is a property that one might have for a while and then

lose. One could leave his former identity and acquire a new one during his course of

life (Fulcher and Scott 125).

Personal identity deals with questions about ourselves or persons. The most common

questions are about existence. What is necessary, and what is sufficient, for some past

or future being to be myself? What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me

when I die? (“Personal Identity”). The answers to these questions constitute one’s view

of himself or his “personal identity.”

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In the past, the term “identity” tended to have an individualistic explanation, and for the

researchers it generally meant “personal identity.” Nevertheless, as a result of the

changes in the structure of societies, the perception of identity has also changed. As

modern societies grew more complex, they acquired a more collective and social form

(Hall, “Question” 283). According to Stuart Hall, after industrialization, the increasing

interaction between different cultures; globalization; and the destruction of the Marxist

class reductionism – viewing the world too simplistically through a class lens – located

man within greater structures and formations of modern society (“Question” 284).

Human beings were perceived more as sociological subjects whose inner core was not

autonomous and self-sufficient, but was formed in relation to “significant others,” who

informed the subject of the valued meanings and symbols; in general the culture of the

world he inhabited (Hall, “Question” 275). The subject still has an inner core or

essence that is “the real me,” but this is formed and modified in a permanent

conversation between the outer world and his inner world (Hall, “Question” 276). That

is, identity is formed through the interaction between the self and society. Kathryn

Woodward explains this process of identity development as follows:

Identity presents an interface between the personal – that is, individuals taking up

identities – and the social – that is, the social situations in which people find

themselves, including social roles, everyday interactions with others and the

language which we use. (Questioning 17)

In other words, it presents the link between the personal – what is happening inside the

mind of the person, how he feels about who he is – and the social – the societies in

which he lives and the social, cultural and economic factors which shape his

experiences and offer him the possible and impossible identities (Woodward,

Questioning 18). The process through which someone learns how to be a member of a

particular society or a group is termed “socialization” and the theory which takes the

socialization process as the basis for the construction of identities is called “social

construction theory” (Fulcher and Scott 124, 131). The theory originated from the

researches of William James in the field of social psychology and his ideas about the

construction of the self. Later it was developed by Charles Horton Cooley and John

Dewey and received its classical form by George Herbert Mead (Fulcher and Scott

131). According to these sociologists, socialization is a key concept in the formation of

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identities, because it is through socialization that man can learn the characteristics of

that society and its people, his place and roles in that society, and what kind of a person

he is – compared to the other people. Socialization helps a person to have a sense of

identity. He is shaped by that society and becomes aware of his individuality in it. He

identifies with certain characteristics of that society or a distinct group, and realizes his

position in it. He acquires an image of himself and distinguishes his individual being

from the other ones. This “other” has a crucial role in the formation of identity and self.

The importance of the “other” lies in the fact that without any “other” no identity has a

meaning, thus it can not be formed. Almost all identities are formed on the basis of an

image of difference in response to that other. The “other” plays many roles; it is an

identifying subject and identified object at the same time. It is like a mirror through

which people see themselves. They have the chance to evaluate themselves according

to the image that appears on the mirror. This image is the virtual reflection of social

participation, a true “looking glass” for the subjects, as Cooley calls it (164). As

society’s members interact, they take these others into account. In this process, they

develop a sense of who they are according to how others respond to them (Holstein and

Gubrium 4). This is what Mead expresses through his distinction between the “I” and

“me.” The “I” is the response, the reaction of the individual to the attitudes of the

others, whereas the “me” is the organized set of attitudes of others which in a way helps

the formation of the self (175) – which is a person’s individualistic identity and unique

and distinct features (Fulcher and Scott 124).

According to Ibañez, the construction of the self involves the existence of others in a

double sense (8). The others are those whose opinions about him the person internalizes.

But they are also against whom the self acquires its distinctiveness and specificity. The

subject internalizes the expectations or attitudes of the others and also he defines

himself in terms of how others see him. Thus, the individual selves rise out of the social

and “identity is something that the individual presents to the others and that the others

present to him” (Ibañez 8). Similarly Mead states that:

The individual experiences himself as an object, not directly, but only indirectly,

from the particular standpoints of other members of the same social group. . . .

[The individual] becomes an object to himself just as other individuals are objects

to him. . . . It is impossible to conceive of a self arising outside of social

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experience. (138-140)

As it is clearly seen, as much as similarity, difference is crucial in the construction of

identity. Identities are defined by and formed through the marking of difference

(Woodward, “Concepts of Identity” 29). A person shapes his identity in relation to his

differences from the others. In a wider sense, the anthropologist Mary Douglas argues

that the marking of difference is the basis of culture because things – and people – are

given meaning in culture by being assigned to different positions within a classification

system (Hall, “Work of Representation” 236). Similarly, Social Identity Theory gives

emphasis to the processes of classification or categorization, and differentiation. In

order to comprehend the world better, individuals partition the world into units

(Abrams and Hogg 2) because classificatory schemes and categories reduce complexity

(Lie 234). Categorization divides the environment into categories or groups of persons,

objects, events which are or seem to be similar according to certain characteristics.

While taking their similarities into account, it also emphasizes their differences from

the other subjects according to the same characteristics (Tajfel, “Experiments” 272).

These categories supply choices for individuals in the identification process and they

internalize one of these categories or groups which has more emotional or pragmatic

significance and more similarities for him. Thus, one’s social (collective) identity is

clarified through social comparison, but the comparison is between in-groups and out-

groups (Abrams and Hogg 3; Elliot 2). For Tajfel, the idea of belonging to different

groups leads to discrimination in favour of the group one belongs to (“Experiments”

272). The individual has a desire to evaluate himself and his group in a positive way.

He perceives his group different and better than the out-group (Abrams and Hogg 3;

Deschamps and Devos 5; Anastasio et al. 237). This idea of distinctiveness leads to

stereotyping and social exclusion creating “insiders” and “outsiders” or “us” and

“them” (Woodward, “Concepts of Identity” 33). Racial and other types of

discrimination are the results of this categorization and stereotyping. Social

categorization minimizes the in-group differences but exaggerates the differences

between the group and other groups (Deschamps and Devos 5; Ibañez 17). As Jenkins

puts it:

. . . One of the things we have in common is our difference from others. In the face

of their difference, our similarity often comes into focus. Defining “us” involves

34

defining a range of “thems” also. When we say something about others, we are

often saying something about ourselves. . . . Similarity and difference reflect each

other across a shared boundary. At the boundary we discover what we are and

what we are not. (80-81)

Subaltern or minority group identities, national identities, racial and ethnic identities

are shaped by this difference and otherness which sometimes shows the inferiority

attributed to them by other groups (Davis J. 4). The motivation to view one’s in-group

as superior to the out-group may influence the type of information that is encoded and

stored about the out-group (Anastasio et al. 238). Moreover, the group which has more

resources, power, status and prestige becomes superior to the other groups and it tries

to maintain the rules and the status quo (Abrams and Hogg 4). In the colonial and post-

colonial history of the Caribbeans, the white people who held the power in their hands

set the rules and put the black people into inferior positions. Although they were the

late-comers of the island and the Caribbean people were the natives, they were turned

into slaves and were forced to work for long hours in very poor conditions leading to

their extinction. Moreover, in a similar manner, whites abused the people whom they

brought from Africa to the Caribbean. The first blacks arrived in the Caribbean as

slaves in 1502. From then on, the black man’s dilemma in the Western world began

(Watson 196). First they were uprooted from their natural habitat and transported to the

Caribbean through a long and harsh journey which was called the Middle Passage.

What was worse was the life conditions and hard work that were awaiting the blacks in

their new dwelling place. They were not free any more, being reduced to an object

position sold and bought by whites. Being a property of a master and having no value

in his eyes, they received the worst nutrition and shelter facilities during and after the

slavery period. Frederick Douglass who was a former slave, describes a situation in

which slave children are nourished:

Our food was coarse corn meal boiled. This was called mush. It was put into

a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children

were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come

devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with piece of shingle, some

with naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate the fastest got most; he

that was the strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied.

(72)

The way the slaves are treated in this excerpt is completely the same as the animals. For

35

the white masters there was no difference between an animal and a slave. Even the

legal system judged them as less valuable than their masters. In the courts, the

testimony of a black witness was never equal to that of a white witness (Yay 57).

Douglass narrates that in some places “killing a slave, or any coloured person, is not

treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community” (68). He continues by adding

that “. . . it was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half

cent to kill a “nigger” and a half cent to bury one” (69). In addition to these physical

obstacles, African people realized that they were “the other” in this new country

although they vastly exceeded the white owners in number (Scarano 63). As Dennis

Forsythe rightly states, “in the process of exploiting blacks, whites have historically

held up African people as the” antithesis” in terms of which they defined themselves”

(“West Indian” 64). He also adds that Africa, in terms of this “constructed symbolic

imagery,” was the “dark” continent inhabited by “ape-men,” and incapable of creating

arts, sciences and other traces of civilisation (“West Indian” 64). George Frederickson

concurs that “Africa [for whites] was and always had been the scene of unmitigated

savagery, cannibalism, devil worship, and licentiousness” (49). Identified with nature,

Africans symbolized “the primitive” in contrast with “the civilized world”. Also bodily

differences between blacks and whites were apparent and they provided

“incontrovertible evidence” for their racial otherness (Hall, “Spectacle of Other” 244).

George W. Stocking illustrates the white colonial approach to blacks and gives the

general characteristics of these “savages” as follows:

Dark-skinned and small of stature, unattractive, unclothed and unclean,

promiscuous and brutal with their women, they worshipped the spirits animating

animals or even sticks and stones – their smaller brains enclosing and enclosed

within the mental world. (234-235)

Slave masters also justified their colonial deeds and the inferiority of blacks through a

biblical story in which Ham, the youngest son of Noah, and his son Canaan are cursed

(Hall, “Spectacle of Other” 239). As it is told in Genesis 9: 20-27, one day Noah drank

wine and slept while he was naked. Ham saw him but did not cover him, whereas his

brothers Sem and Japheth covered their father with a cloth. When Noah woke up, he

praised Sem and blessed Japteth, but he cursed Canaan, Ham’s son – “Cursed be

Canaan, servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” Since all human beings were

36

descended from Adam through Noah and the continents were peopled by the

descendants of Japheth (Europe), Sem (Asia), and Ham (Africa), the white people

interpreted this curse as the “mark” of black skin and regarded it as an explanation of

the inferiority of blacks and as a justification of slavery (Pieterse 44). Accepting the

theory that God had cursed black people, racists used this curse as a Biblical

justification for racism until the nineteenth century (Yay 49). Taking Barthes’s

definition into consideration, these stories which are a way of stereotyping and

exclusion can be defined as “myth.” Barthes asserts that myth is shaped by the history

of that particular society and also by the ideologies of the hegemony in that society

(109-159). He also states that “. . . myth has the task of giving an historical intention a

natural justification, and making contingency appear eternal. . . . Myth is the most

appropriate instrument for the ideological inversion. . .” (142). Not only do human

beings construct their myths and truths, but Edward Said points out that “the so-called

objective truth of the white man’s superiority built and maintained by the classical

European colonial empires also rested on a violent subjugation of African and Asian

peoples” (67). For reasons of capitalist economic exploitation, whites who are

dominant and powerful in the area defined these African people as “savage,”

“barbaric,” “uncivilized,” “cursed,” and created the myth of black inferiority by

naturalizing the difference. Africans were “excommunicated from the human race” and

repressed by the ideology of racism (Forsythe, “West Indian” 78). The validity of this

myth for centuries shows that it is all a matter of power. It depends on who is telling the

story or who is “painting the picture.” Michel Foucault establishes a relationship

between power, knowledge and truth. Foucault explains his notion of truth as follows:

The important thing here, I believe, is that truth isn’t outside power, or lacking in

power. . . . Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple

forms of constraint. And it includes regular effects of power. Each society has its

regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which

it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable

one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is

sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of

truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.

(Power/Knowledge 131)

37

A perspective of truth had been drawn and directed by the white power-holders for

such a long time that even blacks began to believe in this truth of the white man. In

Emancipation and the Freed in American Sculpture: A Study in Interpretation,

Freeman Henry Morris Murray depicts the psychology of slaves in these words: “The

fact is the conditions of being exploited, held down, even enslaved in one form or

another, are so common and so old, that people, the victims included, come to regard

these conditions as natural, if not right; at any rate, as necessary and unavoidable” (qtd.

in Powell 16). Hall explains the logic behind this “naturalization” process as a

representational strategy designed to fix difference, and secure it forever (“Spectacle of

Other” 245). Since the white hegemony did not want to lose its superior position over

blacks, it tried to fix the difference between them and make blacks believe in their

natural otherness and inferiority.

In addition to these racist attitudes of dictating the white truth and values, “us” and

“them” categorization, and the negative portrait of blacks, African people were

“cocained,” in Forsythe’s words, with the teachings of the Bible and Christianity

(“West Indian” 77). During the slavery period, they found themselves locked up in a

religion which was completely alien to their culture. Long before the Africans, in the

early days of slavery, Europeans tried to find justification for their enslavement actions

and religion was a good disguise for their capitalistic purposes. Rivera-Pagán notes that

Christopher Columbus himself was the first who suggested that the indigenous people

in the Caribbean should be made slaves (320). Columbus insisted on the qualities that

would make them suitable to serve Europeans. According to him, they were weak,

vulnerable, primitive and good to take orders and to be made to work (Mintz 23). Also

their not following the Christian teachings and the cannibalistic practices of some of the

indigenous people were good reasons for their enslavement. They should be “hunted

like beasts and tamed by force” (Rivera-Pagán 328). Thus, he tried to convince the

Crown and the Pope talking about not only the religious benefits, but also the financial

profits of slavery. He suggested that Spain could earn much by selling these natives to

other countries and/or by using them as labourers for hard work (Rivera-Pagán 325).

Although the Queen of Spain was unwilling to accept the inferiority of these

indigenous people, because it violated the Catholic theological doctrine of the equality

38

of all human beings, and she did not want to use these people in such slave positions,

she made herself believe in the religious reasons of this action (“History”). With the

approval of the Queen, the Spanish and later all of the other colonizers began the

process of Christianizing the natives, teaching them “good, upright habits” and

encouraging them to learn the discipline of work. As Knight and Palmer point out “the

indigenous societies of the Americas experienced a complete metamorphosis” with this

discovery (1). Their historical development was interrupted, their physical

environment, eating and living habits were altered and their social and cultural

institutions were destroyed. The most important thing is that their right to have freedom

was taken over by Europeans.

Africans were not different from these native people in experiencing the harsh effects

of slavery and the religious injection of the white hegemony. Forsythe remarks that all

efforts were made by the rulers and their Christian allies to impart their teachings of

religion, and the more successful this brainwashing process became, the more the

African traditions and customs receded into the background (“West Indian” 78). The

Church, the colonial and even some post-colonial governments thought the preservation

of African traditions to be “intrinsically subversive, posing a symbolic threat to law and

order. These outlawed traditions were not only considered anti-social and un-christian,

they were rather pagan” (Hebdige, Subculture 31). For this reason they suggested these

traditions to be suppressed or replaced by the white man’s values, culture and religion

urgently. While this new Judeo-Christian religion helped the Afro-Caribbeans to

survive and struggle against colonial oppression, it also caused them to lose their

African heritage and identity. Essien-Udom describes the situation as follows:

The white man takes one Negro and kills the aspirations of a million others. The

white man has successfully made the Negro into an individualist for himself, and

denied a nation of his own to the Negro. The Negro’s worst enemy is his religion.

The acceptance of Christianity is his worst poisonous enemy. There are 700

denominations among Negroes and yet the Negroes have not founded a single

denomination of their own. They get together to serve white gods. The Negro will

never unite until the religious struggle is won. (Black Nationalism 67)

As it is pointed out, slave owners created myths both about themselves and their slaves.

They described their slaves in terms of negative stereotypes to justify their treatment

39

them as property. These stereotypes and myths were strengthened and found a way of

manipulation by the white man’s religion. These colonial powers assumed themselves

to be the masters and tutors of the black people who were inferior and cursed, thus who

deserved slavery. They also believed that these people could not survive and endure

without the guidance of their white masters. Moreover, they controlled the language,

traditions and religion, in short the culture and identity of blacks in order to suppress

any kind of opposing threat that could challenge and weaken their power and authority.

Any show of disturbance and resistance from the opposite side would be punished by

the masters. In short, everything in this hierarchical system was based on power, and it

was the power and “truth” of the white.

As it has been stated before, identities are the products of the society and the social,

cultural and economic factors shape a person’s experiences and offer him the possible

and impossible identities. Also a person internalizes the expectations or attitudes of the

others and he also defines himself in terms of how others see him. In this respect,

finding themselves in the middle of the abovementioned new social context which

offered them different characteristics from that of Africa, and seeing the white superior

image on the mirror the Afro-Caribbeans began to experience a kind of identity crisis

asking the questions: Who am I? Or What am I? In his homeland he was the African,

the free, the ruler and the creator of his own truth; however, in the Caribbean he was

the Afro-Caribbean, the slave, the inferior, the oppressed and the ruled, in short “the

other.” There arouse a kind of conflict between these multiple identities because of the

tensions between them and different requirements of the social contexts (Woodward,

Questioning 7). The Afro-Caribbean had interacted with different people in his former

homeland, and he had presented a self in response to the expectations of the audience

(Fulcher and Scott 134). However, the Caribbean was a new setting where he interacted

with more powerful images than himself and where the new audience, his master,

expected different characteristics from him. Llewellyn Watson calls this as “confused

social identity” (193) since the plurality of the self and identity, and the conflict

between them caused some psychological disturbances among the Afro-Caribbeans.

Not only during the slavery period but also after the emancipation the Afro-Caribbeans

40

or blacks in general have been defined as the Orient or the Other which is given

negative meaning and inferior impressions by the white who are categorized as the

Occident (Said 2). Although slavery was abolished, the psychological oppression of

blacks still continued. Of course, it cannot be expected that slavery and the slave trade

“which were dominant features of the domestic and international history of the

Caribbean basin for more than two centuries” (Randall, Mount, and Bright 23) to be

ended and forgotten immediately. Their effects still existed in the following years.

Randall, Mount, and Bright describe this situation as follows:

Given the extent to which slavery was woven into the historical fabric of the

Caribbean area, it was predictable that the institution would cast a very long

shadow into the post-emancipation years. . . . The history of slavery and the slave

trade illustrates effectively the ways in which national and international history

intertwine, indeed are so often inseparable. (23-24)

The newly liberated blacks rapidly left the plantations and moved onto small land

parcels outside the plantations. Roberta Marx Delson points out that the newly freed

men left the lands not because of their memories of brutality of slavery, but because of

the harsh planter attitudes and behaviours still continuing after the emancipation (105).

Living conditions on the islands began to deteriorate, and imposed landlessness and

crumbled economies increased the unrest among the former slaves (Richardson 72-73).

Also with a growing population, and a decrease in export trade, poverty became

widespread. According to Karen Fog Olwig, it is, therefore, not surprising that “some

labourers began fleeing when they realized that there was no other way to escape the

plantation systems” (88). This gave rise to the first wave of immigration. Many former

slaves migrated to Britain from the various Caribbean islands, and this pattern

continued until the 1930s when the Depression brought a pause to this movement

(“Voices”).

Both in the Caribbean and in Britain, the black masses were forced to remain on the

periphery of the white society and to live and die within the subculture of the black

ghettos by segregation, discrimination, poverty and ignorance, and this made them to

dissociate themselves from the white society (Watson 196-97). This social and cultural

alienation, doubled with social estrangement from the dominant society led to

41

confusion, frustration, and disillusion among the Afro-Caribbeans. As Essien-Udom

asserts, they felt a need of attachment to some power centre, but this need was not

satisfied in the existing society (Black Nationalism 69). They were longing to “know

themselves” and searched for something to belong to, for a dignity they knew they had

possessed before, for self-respect and identity, for a means to material, moral and

emotional regeneration and for social renewal (Watson 198), but the white dominated

society became indifferent to their search. Yet, Hall asserts that “Blacks could gain

entry to the mainstream – but only at the cost of adapting to the white image of them

and assimilating white norms of style, looks and behaviour” (“Spectacle of Other”

270).

According to Abrams and Hogg a social change in these boundaries between groups is

only possible if cognitive alternatives are created among the subordinate group (5).

“When social creativity strategies [such as Rastafarianism, reggae or dub-poetry] and

cognitive alternatives to the status quo are adopted, the subordinate group may enter

directly into social (and real) competition with the dominant group, challenging its

superiority or rights. . .” (Abrams and Hogg 5). For this reason, the Afro-Caribbeans

could achieve a distinct and dignified identity only if they formed a collective unity and

adopt the cognitive alternatives to the status quo. Until the emergence of black national

and social movements such as Ethiopianism, Pan-Africanism, Garveyism and

Rastafarianism, blacks sometimes appealed to some ways in order to resist the

treatment of the white masters, to escape from the physical and psychological

oppression of the white hegemony and to reassert their African identity. Rogozinski

reports that slaves sometimes stole the belongings and livestock of their masters as a

response to slavery itself as well as to chronic food shortages amongst slave

populations. But they did not believe that they violated any rule of morality by taking

anything that belonged to their masters. They also worked as slowly as they could and

tried to appear stupid and dull in order to do as little work as possible (142).

According to some slaves the only way to escape from the unbearable conditions and to

attain independence was the maroonage system which included the run-away slaves

who established remote villages and farms deep in the forests. Slaves that managed to

42

escape, called Cimarrones by the Spanish, were generally known as “Maroons” (Clarke

J. 58). Maroons were a significant phenomenon in the Caribbean region in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While working, slaves ran into the forests and

formed a colony there, away from the slave masters. Ernest Cashmore emphasizes that

it was in fact the first collective attempt of the slaves to rebel against their masters in

order to break down the slavery chain and to attain their independence and identity

back (13).

Running away was always an option for a slave, although it was significantly more

dangerous than working slowly or breaking tools and equipment. Maroon societies

existed throughout the Caribbean and South America, and were a thorn in the side of the

slave holders. Barrett informs that these communities survived by cultivation and

hunting, or by plundering local plantations and communities (31). One of the most

famous of these communities was the Maroons of Jamaica. The Maroons were so

powerful in Jamaica in the mid-eighteenth century that British authorities imported

Mosquito Indians from Central America to destroy these colonies (Randall, Mount, and

Bright 16). They presented so much resistance that some plantations had to be

abandoned entirely. The geography also affected the success of Maroon societies, and

some Caribbean islands were too small and too populated to afford the necessary shelter

for runaways (“African Migration”). The Maroons all shared a common African culture

since they formed cohesive groups. As Joseph Davis points out, in spite of the efforts of

slave owners to destroy any sort of identity in a newly acquired slave, such as giving the

slave a new name or number or consciously mixing the groups of slaves, African culture

provided a resistant and adaptable entity which was beyond the reach of slave owners

(xiv).

Cultural integrity was also preserved among some other slaves in South America and

the Caribbean. Although the slaves of the United States were a far less cohesive group,

African culture was adaptable and vital on Southern plantations. They sang songs

insulting their white masters (Yay 62-63). African music, Saturday night dances in the

woods, stories and religion provided a much-needed escape from the realities of slave

life and reinforced bonds within the slave community. They helped to maintain the

43

slaves’ belief in themselves (“Slavery”). The slaves made an unliveable life liveable by

relying on their own traditions, values and practices, which they brought with them

from Africa.

After the Maroons, a slave and a Native Baptist leader Samuel Sharpe, a Jamaican

mulatto elitist and a landowner George William Gordon and the Black Baptist preacher

Paul Bogle inspired the most extensive rebellions on the island of Jamaica (Barrett 38-

63, Cashmore 14-17). Cashmore points out that these men directed their attention

towards grievances of slaves and they saw collective thought and action as a possibility

to overcome these grievances and the “evil” in the white man (15). These were the

most important attempts of gaining freedom which also emphasized the equality of

blacks with whites (Barrett 38).

Just like his ancestors, Marcus Garvey devoted himself to a radical social structural

change to be organized and engineered by black peoples, but for him, this change was

obtainable only through creating a racial, national and cultural consciousness. Bayes

asserts that Garvey’s strategy involved “a symbolic consciousness-raising campaign”

along with an economic self-development program for the race (29). This campaign

arose mainly out of Garvey’s realizing the fact that “legal emancipation from slavery

did not bring about the psychological liberation of the Afro-Caribbean. Despite

generations of “free existence” he continued to suffer from self-contempt” (Hiro 17).

For Garvey, as much as the white hegemony, blacks were also responsible for their

inferior position. It was the blacks themselves who had failed to recognize their own

potential. Garvey resembles this state of consciousness to Washington Irving’s fictional

story protagonist Rip Van Winkle’s long sleep; but according to Garvey the awakening

of blacks must be immediately: “Like Rip Van Winkle we are rising from our slumber

of the ages and shortly we shall bless mankind with the wonder and greatness of life as

revealed to us through God from the sleep of countless centuries” (Garvey 350).

Cashmore calls blacks’ inferior and subordinate images of themselves as “the evil” in

their minds, and he points out that the evil confronting black peoples was not only

outside them in the shape of the white-dominated colonial system, but inside them (38).

44

For this reason, Garvey states that blacks would have to change their self-conceptions

and a “New Negro,” who knew his capabilities and potential, would have to emerge out

of this new perspective. This would be “a new world of black men, not peons, serfs,

dogs and slaves, but a nation of sturdy men making their impression on civilization and

causing a new light to dawn upon the human race” (Garvey 126). Cashmore notes that

those accepting Garvey’s doctrine would have taken fresh cognisance of themselves,

their places in the world and their ultimate ambitions (38). Garvey provided a

consciousness for the “New Negro,” which was a product of “a second emancipation –

an emancipation of the minds and thoughts of four hundred million Negroes of the

world” (Daily Gleaner, 2 August 1929).

Garvey did not preach racial hatred against the white race, but rather the necessity for

racial independence and racial pride for blacks. He emphasized the glory of black

history and black pride as well as the view that “Black is beautiful” (Bayes 29). Instead

of being ashamed, Garvey called for blacks to be proud of their history, their hair, their

features, and their skin colour since he believed that blacks were the creators of the

civilization, even of the white man. His ideas are clear in the excerpt that follows:

The world today is indebted to us for the benefits of civilization. They stole our arts

and sciences from Africa. Then why should we be ashamed of ourselves? Their

modern improvements are but duplicates of a grander civilization that we reflected

thousands of years ago, without the advantage of what is buried and still hidden, to

be resurrected and reintroduced by the intelligence of our generation and our

prosperity. Why should we be discouraged because somebody laughs at us today?

Who to tell what tomorrow will bring forth? Did they not laugh at Moses, Christ

and Mohammed? Was there not a Carthage, Greece and Rome? We see and have

changes every day, so pray, work, be steadfast and be not dismayed. (Garvey,

“African Fundamentalism”)

Following Garvey, the Rastafarians have tried to alter the consciousness of black

people through creating a new image of themselves as “intellectually the equal of

whites,” rather than as the inferior race which a long history of slavery had impressed

upon them (Poulter 336). According to Stuart Hall, the movement “represents a

particular stage in the development of the consciousness of the oppressed Jamaican”

and “is laying the spiritual and cultural foundations from which the Afro-Caribbeans

launch a struggle for freedom” (“Africa” 407). The Afro-Caribbean black people

45

realized that hitherto they were being exploited, humiliated and lulled by the western

constructed myths and images, which caused them to lose their African identity and to

be assimilated in the white society. However, they became conscious of Afro-

Caribbean or African culture in general and their African roots were rich and valuable

enough to provide them a context to construct their lost dignity and identity. For this

reason, the Rastafarians tried to reconstruct their traditional African identity through

positive ethno-racial self-conceptions of self and community in Rastafari theology

(Singh 19). The injection of black racial and ethnic pride, self-respect and self-esteem

was developed as a way of counteracting and challenging negative hegemonic

depictions and images of blackness to construct a distinct new positive identity for the

Afro-Caribbeans. Simboonath Singh describes the objectives of challenging and

reversing the white concepts by the Rastafarian and Garvey movements as follows:

Just as Europeans used “race,” history and culture as part of their larger colonial

project to delegitimize the colonized and her/his basic humanity – recall the legacy

of white supremacy and all the myths and distortions it disseminated to demonize

the non-European Other – in a similar though surprising way, there were elements

of racial and cultural chauvinism in the Garvey movement. This historically

specific reversal strategy was clearly used as a counter-hegemonic device to

repudiate whiteness while at the same time capitalizing on notions of racial purity

and black cultural superiority. (Singh 23)

Garvey started this subversion process because he understood that the exploitation of

blacks was based on the assumption of the inferiority of peoples of African descent.

Accordingly, he aimed to deconstruct the myth of black inferiority and participated in

national and racial practices that would better the condition of black workers (Kebede

364). Watson asserts that in Jamaica there was the white myth of evaluating lightness in

one’s skin as a promise of higher status (191). Social status became equated with

lightness and it connoted privilege and wealth. This was the colour-class stratification

of the society that was inherited from the colonial past in which the blacks were never

of much significance. This class structure showed that the black lower class, like the

Rastafarians, was completely alienated from the society. Watson describes the situation

by saying “To be black was to be lower class, and to be lower class was to be outside

the pale of meaningful existence” (191). It is this reality that the Rastafarians have

grasped totally, and their rejection of this status quo forms the basis of their doctrine.

46

Hence, Campbell defines the Rastafarian movement as a form of social and political

protest and opposition of poor black people to the racial injustice of a colonial society,

which graded individuals according to the lightness of the colour of their skin (89-90).

The movement represented a form of black nationalist resistance to the prevailing

social order (Campbell 19, 121, and 128). Rastafarianism openly rejects the European

values, imposed images and social roles. The Rastafarians also reject Jamaican society

which they claim rejects them because of their low socio-economic status (Watson

189). The major response of the Afro-Caribbeans to their rejection is by rejection.

According to Kebede, this rejection leads to the deconstruction of cultural and political

codes and formation of new frames of reality (366). He continues by stating that “the

process of reality construction – in which movement participants meaningfully interpret

situations, attempt to win the hearts of others, and defend their vision of what is and

what ought to be when they meet resistance – plays crucial role” (Kebede 366). To help

its followers to cope with their situation, the movement forced to create realities

(myths, constructed truths) which made the believers have a sense of betterment

(Watson 198) and reversed the evaluation of popular stereotypes (Hall, “Spectacle of

Other” 271). Kebede remarks that during this reproduction process the movement

participants are not simply the “carriers of extant ideas;” rather, they are “signifying

agents” who are engaged in the social construction of meanings (354-355). The most

important one of these signifying agents is Marcus Garvey, because Cashmore thinks

he is the one who “cut a path through extant traditions of thinking in Jamaica and

presented building blocks on which to construct a totally fresh and exhilarating

conception of reality” (3). Garvey’s importance was in providing new “conceptual

maps,” which is a metaphor employed by Ian C. Jarvie. He explains the term as

follows:

People living in a society have to find their way around it, both to accomplish what

they want and to avoid what they do not want. We might say that to do this they

construct in their minds a conceptual map of society and its features, of their own

location among them, of their possible paths which will lead them to their goals

and of the hazards along each path. (161)

Hall also argues that there must be shared conceptual maps in people’s minds to be able

to interpret the words, sounds, images and symbols – the world in general – in roughly

47

similar ways, and that only by this way, meanings can be affectively exchanged

between people (“Work of Representation” 18-19). These conceptual maps are shaped

by the culture and history of that society and obtained from the family, the school, or

third-rate influential sources such as the media and internet.

While showing new targets for black people, the original ways of reaching them and the

changed roles for the “New Negro” in this process, Garvey offered his followers a

conceptual map of society; in other words, a new way of making sense of the world

(Cashmore 25). Using his political opportunities such as the UNIA as a means to preach

his ideas, he deconstructed the social codes that he considered to be meaningless for the

black race and constructed a new version of reality which fit into the conceptual maps

and the ideals of his movement. In order to make his new version of reality acquirable

for black masses he created myths based on the nationalistic, racial, ethnic and religious

feelings of these people. For instance, Garvey’s argument about the peculiar and unique

position of the Negro race is brought out in his discussion of the image of God (Bayes

30). Kebede is right in noting that the concept of God as articulated by Garvey has been

both retained and reconstructed to accommodate new themes of the movement (367).

Garvey and the Rastafarians put their own “imprint” on redefining God, and this

redefinition is demonstrated in their concept of “the living and black God.” They

expelled the image of “white God” since he did not answer the prayers of black people

and did not help them to overcome the colonial oppression and hardships. However,

their black God was a living figure who had the potential to lead them towards their

liberation. Thus, “deliverance from defined socio-economic deprivation will come not

from a transcendental Christ, but from Ras Tafari [Haile Selassie]” (Watson 188).

According to Watson, “the cultural terrorism against which the Rastafarians rebel gives

rise to this need for a new deity, and identification with a black god then becomes an

important first step to political freedom” (192). Also, the living God plays an important

role in the materialization of an idealized black community (Kebede 362). Thus, this

myth of the black living God bears strong overtones of black nationalism and racial

self-respect for the Afro-Caribbeans. In fact, the Rastafarians show great respect for the

Bible, but by creating a black God they attempt to distance themselves from the

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“biased, Eurocentric interpretations of Scripture” that contribute to the oppression of

black people (Lewis 146). They read the Bible with the knowledge that Africa and

Africans had been a part of that recorded experience and wisdom. Some of the

Rastafarians even believed that it was originally sent to blacks, but the white man

distorted and confused its message while translating it (Smith, Augier and Nettleford 1:

19).

The notion of Ethiopia/Africa as heaven on earth is also another myth created by the

Rastafarians to reject western values and reassert their African identity. Both Garveyism

and Rastafarianism are Afrocentric and both defend the beauty and dignity of Africa

and the people of African ancestry. While Garvey emphasized Africa's social and

political redemption, Rastafarians include in that agenda a spiritual dimension, which

“they often clothe in Judeo-Christian thought and African concepts” (Lewis 146).

Garvey presented Ethiopia/Africa as the appropriate place for an idealized black

community, which caused the Rastafarians to identify themselves with Ethiopia.

Garvey’s was a nationalist desire to restore the black people living outside Africa, and

to create an idealized community in Ethiopia, which was perceived as their proper

homeland (Poulter 336). According to Garvey, Africa provided the place for the

construction of a new culture in which blacks could find the necessary characteristics

for the self-actualization. For this reason, not only the African diaspora, but also Africa

itself must be liberated, and all black people of the world should join in brotherhood,

and return to their ancestral home Africa. From Garvey’s perspective repatriation was

the only way through which race conflict could be avoided and racial liberation could be

achieved for blacks (Kebede 363), because he thought “Africa is for Africans”, “Europe

is for Europeans.” The cooperation between the African diaspora and Africa would be

helpful for the advancement of both the black race and whole mankind. “This symbolic

turn to Africa,” Neil MacDonald states, “is what makes Rastafari an assertion of black

and African identity” (61).

The Rastafarians just added some spirituality into Garvey’s practical aim of repatriation,

and Ethiopia’s longstanding independence and ancient civilization made it a plausible

heaven for them (Kebede 361). They see the Christian notion of heaven as a trap and a

49

utopian conception of society in which a just social order is possible only outside this

physical world. On the contrary, being a millenarian movement, Rastafarianism presents

heaven in this existing world, in fact in Ethiopia. Watson explains the Rastafarians’ idea

about the concept of heaven as follows:

The brethren [the Rastafarians] . . . forcefully assert that heaven is an invention of

the white man and a scheme used by him to deceive black people by promising all

life’s glories in a world beyond the grave. . . . Meanwhile, of course, the white man

has made his heaven right here on earth, but the poor black people must wait until

they get to heaven. Since there is no proof of the existence of this heaven, to the

brethren, Ethiopia is heaven, and that is where all right-minded black men should

seek to “mark out their burial spot.” (192-99)

As can be seen above, Ethiopia denotes a symbolic resistance to the white values and

religion. While deconstructing the white myth of heaven in the other world, Garvey and

the Rastafarians form the black myth of Ethiopia, which hastens Afro-Caribbeans’

identification with Africa. Although the Rastafarians now perceive the notion of a return

to Africa as a mental exercise (of cultural identification), as opposed to the physical

repatriation (Poulter 338), according to Dennis Forsythe: “Rastafari represents the

resurgence of African revivalism and spiritualism and hence qualifies as an authentic

mass African renaissance movement” (“West Indian” 62-63).

As well as the physical and spiritual repatriation, Garvey and the Rastafarians were

committed to an ideology of nationalism that supported political and economic

independence for blacks. That is, they both demonstrated a strong anti-colonial stance

and showed interest in national independence. Rupert Lewis informs that “the 1930s

ushered in a period of transition between colonialism and the rise of Jamaican

nationalism – due to the struggles of both the Rastafarians and the Garveyites” (148).

That the Negro have a nation and a country of his own was imperative. For a distinct

national identity, black self-reliance, self-respect, and particularly black organization

were essential. Garvey inspired his audiences to seek racial unity, and he tried to

organize Negroes of the world into a massive organization that would not only free the

blacks in the Caribbean but also free the Negro people of the continent of Africa (Bayes

29). In a speech on November 6, 1921, Garvey called for Negroes to arm through

organization: “I am saying to the Negro people of the world, get armed with

50

organization; get armed by coming together 400,000,000 strong. This is your weapon”

(Garvey 111). The struggle for recognition and status so far had been primarily on the

individual level, but Garvey thought that it had to be fought out also at the collective

level. According to Garvey, blacks had an advantage in organizing because blacks,

unlike whites, had a common cause of oppression and suffering. Bound together by ties

of history, culture and kinship, they had the chance to conceptualize themselves as

being different from other social and ethnic groups through vast organizations.

It is quite clear that Garvey and the Rastafarians have used historical myths, fictions

and other related inventions to construct “sameness” and commonality among blacks

by putting the white race in the position of the Other. Dick Hebdige says that the

Rastaman “could undertake a highly critical analysis of the society to which he owed a

nominal allegiance” (“Reggae” 152); he further adds that “the Biblical terms, the fire,

the locks and Haile Selassie et al. served to resurrect politics, providing the mythical

wrappings in which the bones of the economic structure could be clothed so that

exploitation could be revealed” (“Reggae” 152). According to Singh, out of this critical

analysis arises an identity shift, from a colonial-based Euro-dominant Afro-Caribbean

identity to a more localized African-centred identity (20). The Rastafari movement was

particularly influential in raising anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist

consciousness among the black masses in the Caribbean by using African and Africa

based symbols and meanings as strategies. The manipulation of such ethno-cultural

strategies enabled the oppressed black people to reconstruct and renovate their

devalued African identities, which, in turn, incited racial pride, self-reliance and ethnic

self-assertion. The idea of revitalization of identity, culture and community constituted

the base of the Rastafarian movement. Cut off from their ancestral homeland and its

indigenous arts, music, religion, diet and social structure, the Rastafarians of Jamaica –

like their slave ancestors and the children of Israel – yearned for cultural and spiritual

revitalization. This search for revitalization of the “traditional” African culture and the

adoption of an “authentic” African identity represents the core message and mission for

Jamaican Rastafarians (Savishinsky, “Rastafari in Promised Land” 42).

The Rastafarians are keen to project this African identity in speech, dress and in any

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pattern of behaviour or life-style, because they want to show how they radically differ

from the Anglo-Europeanized pattern.

Stuart Hall uses the general term “sign” for words, sounds or images which carry

meanings and says “These signs stand for or represent the concepts and conceptual

relations between them which we carry around in our heads and together they make up

the meaning-systems of our culture” (Hall, “Work of Representation” 18). People first

translate their thoughts into words, sounds, images and symbols and later use them as

conveyors to express meanings and circulate ideas to the others (Hall, “Work of

Representation” 18). Symbols, signs and values are of utmost importance in

constructing a society, a culture or a group, because they serve as a social tie binding

people together. In other words, “people must share the same cultural codes to interpret

the world in similar ways” (Hall “Work of Representation” 4). By these symbols,

common beliefs and values, members of that society feel the existence of the society

and their belonging to it, and this gives them a sense of social solidarity (Väyrynen

133).

Values represent generalized and desired concepts such as freedom, democracy and

equality (Andrain 55). Since values are abstract, they are given concrete expression by

symbols such as hair, flags, national anthems, national heroes and ceremonies. Through

these symbols values come to have concrete significance (Andrain 56). In order to

motivate people to be a part of societies or groups the values to be followed must be

given concrete expression.

Symbols also serve as a means of communication. They indicate the existence of a

particular group or society, and they are used to convey the meanings to other people.

Stuart Hall believes that the participants must, in a broad sense, “speak the same

language” (“Work of Representation” 4). He furthers this point by stating that:

Our partners must speak enough of the same language to be able to translate what

“you” say into what “I” understand, and vice versa. They must also be able to read

visual images in roughly similar ways. They must be familiar with broadly the

same ways of producing sounds to make what they would both recognize as music.

They must all interpret body language and facial expressions in broadly similar

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ways. (Hall, “Work of Representation” 4)

Rastafarians use such symbols to express certain values and issues. Reggae music

festivals celebrate the social liberation from the colonial powers. The religion and

music together, attempt to raise the political consciousness of the audience and create

alternatives to Christianity supporting the freedom of religious expression (“Reggae”).

The Lion which is one of the most prominent symbols among Rastafarians, represents

Haile Selassie I, the Conquering Lion of Judah, who is the alternative religious leader

to Jesus Christ. In Jamaica, it can be viewed on houses, flags, in their tabernacles, and

just about any other place where Rastafarians have connections. It even appears in their

artwork, in their songs, and in their poetry. The lion represents not only the King of

Kings, but the maleness of the movement (“Rastafari”). It is also symbolic of a return

to Africa – a return to black originality and black creativity – since Africa is the natural

habitat of lions. The Rastafarians imitate the spirit of the lion in the way that they wear

their dreadlocks and in the way that they walk. To the general public, the symbol of the

lion represents the resurgence of ancient African traditions, ideals and definition of self

as well as strength, knowledge, and aggression. The lion becomes the emblem of the

spiritual force which expresses itself as a consciousness of the “I” or of the African self

(Forsythe, “West Indian” 73). Taking the power of the lion, a black person goes on a

journey of self-realization and self-discovery where he realizes his own potential.

The dreadlocks on a Rastafarian’s head symbolize the Rasta roots, contrasting the

straight, blonde lock of the white man. Dreads do not only portray the African heritage,

but the way Rastafarians’ hair grows also represents the symbol of the Lion of Judah

since a lion has fur which consists of long hair. Furthermore, dreadlocks depict the

potent image of the African freedom fighter, an image through which they could

express their opposition to racism and colonial oppression (Savishinsky, “African

Dimensions” 132). Rasta colours (red, green, and gold) are also important symbols for

people who belong to this society and culture. The colour red symbolizes the blood that

martyrs have shed in the history of Rastafarians. The yellow represents the wealth of

the homeland. Green represents the beauty and vegetation of Ethiopia, the Promised

Land. Sometimes black is used to represent the colour of Africans, from whom 98% of

53

the Jamaicans are descended. (Littman, “Rastafarianism”). Ganja, which is used to

restore the energy in the body, is another important anti-colonial and revolutionary

symbol for the Rastafarians. Ganja revitalizes the energy and exalts the consciousness

of the oppressed people into such a degree that he destroys the colonial blocks around

him and he begins to know himself better. Forsythe describes this state of

consciousness as follows:

From this elevated state of High (I) consciousness, he is able to come to a better

over-standing of himself in relationship to the categories of things around him; he

becomes better able to break away from historical fixations. As he moves in his

consciousness or mental imaginings, through reflection and meditation, he

becomes a better judge, for as he gets to know himself he moves much deeper into

himself – into the “I” – and into his energy source, he discovers his voice and his

heart and thus becomes more able to speak in his own interest with a legitimacy

which only the “I” can have. I have seen enough to be convinced that in such a

journey back to one’s I-roots, one can retrieve such lost aspects of one’s natural

system like voice, rhythm, and creativity. Herbs, as used by Rastas, help to re-

kindle African Original Vibrations by helping to break down the mental and

physical stumbling-blocks in our physical unconsciousness. (“West Indian” 80)

Through such a high consciousness, all of these symbols or systems of representation

tend to create a common identity for the Afro-Caribbeans and try to encourage social

solidarity between the members of this society creating the sense of belonging and

promoting some social values such as freedom and independence. This belief system

uses symbols to define and justify the identity of the group, its political system, its

norms and values and “the crucial question of individual sacrifice and obedience, which

every society demands” (Smith W. 522).

As a conclusion, these are all practices representing the Afro-Caribbean culture and

Rastafarian ideas. Through these practices meaning is produced and the Afro-

Caribbean African-based identity is expressed. As Watson asserts, before

Rastafarianism there was a lack of meaning in the lives of the Afro-Caribbeans in the

socio-cultural context of their societies (197). They were estranged from the society

which they seek to enter and which rejects them. Savishinsky realizes that adherence to

Rastafarianism provided an alternative source of meaning and identity to “a life

frequently punctuated by hopelessness, alienation and despair in what is often

perceived as a hostile, corrupt and hypocritical Eurocentric environment” (“Rastafari in

54

Promised Land” 19). On a similar line with him, Forsythe states, “ . . . The significance

of Rastafari, it is here maintained, lies in the alternative and opposing African

definition it gives of the dominant Jamaican culture to which it is a reaction, and of an

alternative vision of Life and how Life should be lived” (“Rastafari” 202-203).

Rastafarianism is a social movement whose basic characteristic is that of “a collective

enterprise, or effort, designed to correct, supplement, overthrow, or in some fashion

influence the social order” (Watson 189). Thus, Rastafarianism is a collective

movement which offers their members a rebirth and a chance to shed or renovate their

old despised and devalued identities. It constitutes powerful sources of inner strength,

enabling believers to reaffirm their African identity. It shows the Afro-Caribbeans the

necessity to change their living conditions for the better, to demand equal rights and to

improve their racial, national and class status. With its saviour black God Haile

Selassie, its powerful symbols of dreadlock, ganja, and Ethiopian colours, with its

theme of resistance, and with its ideal country in Africa, Rastafarianism unifies the

Afro-Caribbean people and helps them to have a proud, self-dependant, self-helping

identity whose authority is in the hands of only blacks. However, Rastafarianism is not

alone in this mission. Reggae music and its most popular singer Bob Marley

contributed a lot to the spread and the internationalization process of Rastafarianism,

which will be analysed in detail in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER II

INTERNATIONALIZATION OF RASTAFARIANISM THROUGH

REGGAE

Music is a form of mass communication and according to James Lull “recorded or

publicly performed music speaks directly to society as a cultural form” (364). It is a way

of producing and circulating meaning, functioning like a language and a way of

conveying the thoughts in a belief system. As Hall puts it, “It uses musical notes to

communicate feelings and ideas” (“Work of Representation” 5). Lull also asserts that

music communicates on three levels: “physical” (dancing), “emotional” (feeling the

music) and a “cognitive level” (processing information) (368). Music not only

communicates meaning on these levels but “encourages movement” and active

participation and socialization through dancing and singing of the lyrics (Lull 368). It

has both a unifying and a tranquilizing effect transcending the boundaries of class, race,

or nationality. Thus, the well-known pop singer Madonna is right in singing, “Music

makes the people come together / Music mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel” (“Music”).

Every kind of people of every race, economic class and ethnic background can

participate in the practice of singing and listening to music.

According to Simon Jones, music is also one of the most potent cultural forces for the

creation of new senses of identity, and new kinds of affiliation (vii). James A. Winders

concurs that music maintains a strong identity with the forces of social and political

change (61). Identification with the singer, his experiences and the messages in the

songs, serves as a vehicle for listeners to create new distinct (sometimes even

subculture) identities and sometimes it serves to criticize the society and its norms for

betterment. Iain Chambers points out that especially for blacks, music has provided one

of the strongest means of “survival – a secret language of solidarity, a way of

articulating oppression, a means of cultural resistance, a cry of hope” (161). Barrett also

asserts, “Music is the “soul” of blacks. Through music they express their joys, pains and

sufferings. It is mostly through the medium of music that they project a spell or

incantation on the objects of oppression” (193). During the slavery period, blacks

participated in music in many ways, from singing and chanting to using hand-made

56

instruments (Novick, “Effects of Slavery”). It was this oral tradition which helped them

to preserve their African heritage and also to remember their old happy free days.

“Aphorisms, practical knowledge, communal values and folk history were faithfully

preserved and transmitted in rhymes, proverbs, anecdotes and metaphors, most of which

were African in origin,” states Jones (7). Also, only through singing they could estrange

themselves from the harsh realities of colonial life. Furthermore, music came to be one

of the most effective ways of articulating a collective response to racial domination. As

Barrett points out,

The strongly oral character of traditional West African cultures increased the

likelihood of their successful transfer and retention in the New World, the

imminent and invisible nature of forms such as language and music making them

particularly able to survive under conditions of enslavement. (193)

According to Jones, the ability of music to preserve a sense of racial identity was

especially important in slave cultures, where music became a site in which self-dignity

could be restored, as much as a relief from oppression (9). Under the conditions of

enslavement, music became a space of freedom and relief for the slaves.

When Monk Lewis visited his land in Jamaica, he was astounded by the music of the

slaves:

Their music consisted of nothing but Gambys (Eboe drums), shaky-shekies, and

kitty-katties; the latter is nothing but a flat piece of board with two sticks, the

former is a bladder with a parcel of pebbles in it. But the principal part of the music

to which they dance is vocal; one girl generally singing two lines by herself, and

being answered by the chorus . . . the singing began about six o’clock, and lasted

without a moment’s pause till two in the morning; and such a noise never did hear

till then. (qtd. in Walvin 137-138)

As this quote illustrates, music and dance dominated the social lives of the slaves. The

songs that slaves sang during their work often reflected the hardships of their lives:

If me [I] want to go in a Ebo

57

Me [I] can’t go there!

Since dem [they] tief [steal] me from a Guinea,

Me [I] can’t go there! (Walvin 140)

This song shows slaves’ feelings to the experience of dislocation, and how limited and

controlled their lives were. According to Karina Williamson, this song evokes “the

reality of dispossession and confinement” (12). Africans were made to leave their

homeland – Guinea or Africa in general – and did not have the chance to go back there.

In this new land, they could do nothing without the permission of their masters. Even

they could not perform their religious rituals freely, but the only free thing they could do

was to sing until the white masters prohibited it. The slave owners were so threatened

by the slaves’ music that they declared it to be illegal to allow slaves to assemble and

play music (Walvin 141). They realized that rebellions had often been held during

dances and nightly meetings of slaves from different plantations. They felt threatened

by the slaves’ music because it served as a form of communication among them, which

they could not understand (Jones 6).

Since music is a cultural product of the society, it cannot be separated from the history

and the experiences of the black people. Chambers notes that the historical experience

and structural position of blacks, their subordination to the cultural hegemony of whites,

is used to explain the characteristic forms of black music (157). Different colonial

experiences on the islands of the Caribbean gave way to the development of different

music styles. One of the earliest music forms in Jamaica was called “mento,” whereas it

was “calypso” in Trinidad and Tobago. Mento is often confused with calypso. Although

the two share many similarities, they are separate and distinct musical forms. In part, the

differences stem from the different colonial histories of the two West Indian Islands,

because Jamaican music lacks the Spanish influences found in other Caribbean musical

styles (“Mento”). Winders states that mento uses African drumming techniques, and the

influence of European music is also strong as a result of long years of European

oppression (67). It is not surprising that slaves incorporated some elements of these

traditions into their own folk music after so many years of European indoctrination.

Apart form the musicality, the lyrics of mento songs often deal with aspects of everyday

life in a light-hearted and humorous way. Many comment on poverty, poor housing and

58

other social issues. Sexual references and allusions are also common themes (Jones 16).

Like mento in Jamaica, calypso evolved into a way of spreading news around Trinidad.

Politicians, journalists, and public figures often debated the content of each song, and

many islanders considered these songs the most reliable news source. Calypsonians

destroyed the boundaries of free speech, because their lyrics spread news of any topic

relevant to island life, including speaking out against political corruption (“Calypso”).

However, the Rastafarians regard calypso as the music of the “rum culture;” music of

the tourists who never see places like Trenchtown (Winders 67).

Mento remained the dominant form of Jamaican folk music until the 1930s and 1940s

(Jones 16). However, this period saw the beginning of a number of fundamental shifts

and changes as a result of the immigrations from the rural to the urban, and from the

Caribbean to the US and Britain (Brereton 100-101). Jones points out that this peasantry

brought with them their cultural and musical elements including kumina, myalism,

revival and burru (16). In the meantime, newly-born Rastafarianism began adding music

to the psalms of the Old Testament, which they used as their lamentation against

colonialism in their fight for national identity and social change in Africa and the

Caribbean (Murrell, “Tuning” 527-528). As for the musical forms, they began to adopt

melodies from Jamaican revival groups like Zion and Pocomania, and drumming and

other instrumental techniques from other Afro-Jamaican folk traditions such as kumina

and burru (Jones 17). Jones argues that these musical forms were seized by the

Rastafarians as something of “pure African forms, untainted by Western influences

(17). Since the Rastafarians longed to turn back to Africa, everything related to Africa

was special for them.

While Jamaican musical forms were absorbing African and Caribbean rhythms, there

was a growing fondness for contemporary Afro-American forms like swing, jazz and

especially rhythm and blues (R&B) (Winders 67). Brad Fredericks asserts that this

sudden influence of African American culture primarily resulted from both the

availability of cheap radios and the importation of American R&B records (“American

Rhythm and Blues”). As Robert Witmer informs, local Jamaica radio broadcasting

59

began on 17th

November, 1939 but the programming was mostly BBC relays, and the

estimated listening audience was under one hundred thousand (8). The formation of

Radio Jamaica and Rediffusion (RJR) in 1950 marked a change in programming to

British and American pop and jazz tunes, which was only slightly more interesting to

Jamaicans than the BBC Radio relays that were transmitted earlier (Fredericks,

“American Rhythm and Blues”). However, it was the sound system, asserts Jones,

which was most particularly responsible for the popularisation of R&B among the

urban, black working class (18). Witmer defines the sound system as a sociomusical

institution which began in the 1950s in the form of large radiogrammes playing

recorded music at house parties (15). Jones claims, “these parties provided a source of

revenue for ghetto dwellers in a manner similar to the black American “rent party,”

“dance party” or “record hop” (18). These parties where the basic music heard was

R&B were a collective event for especially Afro-Caribbean black youth, which helped

them to share their problems with their similar age and race group, and to feel relaxed

through music.

According to Edward Dupris, mento musicians were quick to adopt the R&B styling

because of its “smooth rolling rhythms” (132). Towards the end of the 1950s, local

musicians began to fuse native mento rhythms with the popular imported style to create

music termed “ska.” Dupris states that both a difficulty in importing R&B records and

declining Jamaican interest in “the stagnate pool of R&B records” on the island led to

this change (132). For Jones, ska was in no sense a departure from Jamaica’s indigenous

Creole culture, but rather, a conscious reworking and Africanisation of R&B, and also a

vibrant, popular cultural force and a key vehicle of political expression for the black

working class (20-21). Witmer also writes, “The Jamaican musician of the 1960s found

himself in a climate of social change committed to the goals of modernization and

Westernization, but also to an inward-turning celebration of indigenous culture and

“blackness” . . . in musical traditional roots” (19).

Ska was more rhythmic and the beat was faster than R&B; however, in the mid 1960s

the beat began to slow down as a result of the disillusionment due to the growing

unemployment, ghettoisation and the social inequality in Jamaica after the

60

independence (Winders 68). Whitmer points out that the changing social and economic

climate of Jamaican society in this period was mirrored in the corresponding shifts in

style, form and lyrical content of Jamaican popular music (18). The new slower musical

style which was a reflection of these social, political and economic changes was labelled

as “rocksteady” and associated by Jamaicans with the Rude Boys – gangs of Kingston

youths who clashed with the police on several occasions (Winders 68). These Rude

Boys or called “Rudies” in short generally came from middle-class families but were

excluded by the society (Barrett 194). Many of them joined the Rastafarian movement,

and it was out of this group that rocksteady and later reggae emerged. Dick Hebdige

gives information about the Rude Boys as follows:

The American soul-element was reflected most clearly in the self-assured

demeanour; the sharp flashy clothes, the “jive-ass” walk which the street boys

affected. The politics of ghetto pimpery found their way into the street-talk of

shanty-town Jamaica, and every Rude Boy, fresh from some poor rural outback,

soon began to wheel and deal with the best of them in the ubiquitous bars of Ghost

Town and Back O’ Wall. The rude boy lived for the luminous moment, playing

dominoes as though his life depended on the outcome – a big-city hustler with

nothing to do, and, all the time rocksteady, ska and reggae gave him the means

with which to move effortlessly – without even thinking. Cool, that distant and

indefinable quality became almost abstract, almost metaphysical, intimating a

stylish kind of stoicism – survival and something more. (“Reggae” 144-145)

According to Jones, the emergence of rocksteady marked the beginnings of a period of

heightened political awareness within Jamaican music (23), because gaining

independence of Jamaica had not brought happiness, but a growing inequality in the

distribution of the wealth on the island (Beckford and Witter 74). The gap between the

lower classes and the ruling elite gradually widened. There was a dramatic rise in the

class-struggle and social unrest to such a great extent that violence and turmoil was all

over the island. According to Erna Brodber, in addition to the economic and social

inequalities this gap grew out of the different cultural attachments of the middle class or

the elite and the lower class (54-58). Traditionally, the Afro-Jamaican middle class

emphasized its European family connections and its grasp of European culture; whereas

the lower class celebrated their African past and their African identity (Brodber 55).

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Beckford and Witter note an important factor in this polarisation and say that “this race-

and class-consciousness was beginning to acquire a great spiritual depth under the

impact of Rastafarianism, which had expanded beyond its working-class origins into a

mass social movement and a symbol of protest for thousands of Jamaicans (75-76).

Jones notes that by the early 1970s Rastafarianism had become the dominant influence

in Jamaican popular music, providing a source of inspiration for both Rastafarian and

non-Rastafarian musicians (23). By the 1970s, under the impact of the Rastafarian

teaching a new form of music called “reggae” emerged.

In fact, before the Rastafarian identification, reggae had already begun to develop from

a fusion of the earlier musical styles such as mento, calypso, ska, rocksteady, soul,

gospel, rock and American R&B with African drumming techniques such as burru and

kumina (Tafari 4). One of the most important links in this chain connecting African

music to reggae was an early Rastafarian named Count Ossie (Oswald Williams)

(Barrett 193). Nail J. Savishinsky comments on this issue as follows:

Steeped in both the Burru and Kumina drumming traditions, Ossie eventually

teamed up with other like-minded Jamaican musicians and set about creating a new

style of African-derived music that catered to the needs of Kingston’s growing

Rasta population. During the 1950s and early 1960s, he also influenced some of the

Island’s leading non-Rasta pop musicians, a number of whom went on to form the

definitive ska band of the decade, the Skatalites. (“African Dimensions” 128)

Not only Count Ossie but also the sound systems men, many of whom would become

record producers later, contributed a lot to the development of reggae music (Winders

69). Stephen Davis and Peter Simon explain the emergence of reggae by the help of

these men as follows:

Reggae was first created by a few disc jockeys and by the “sound systems men,

who outfitted vans and trucks with stereo systems, and, having obtained copies –

sometimes illegally – of the latest American and Jamaican records, drove their

vehicles, equipped with the latest in sounds to provide the music at neighbourhood

dances in Kingston. The Reggae sound was, in a way, born at such dances. The

sound systems men began to notice that people most enjoyed dancing to records

62

when they exaggerated the bass level of the “system.” Because of this preference,

when these men became record producers themselves, they mixed the sound on

each record to accentuate the bass and rhythm tracks. Eventually, the beat slowed

some more, and, in 1968, singer Toots Hibbert, leader of the reggae vocal trio

Toots and the Maytals, recorded a single called “Do the Reggay” (he says he was

thinking of “regular;” to celebrate every day people), and the present label for

Jamaican rock came into being. (13-17)

Although Davis and Simon claim that the name “reggae” comes from the word

“regular”, there are some different explanations for reggae. According to McKnight and

Tobler, Hibbert derived the name from the Ragga, a Bantu-speaking Tanzanian tribe

and simply added the letter “y” into this name (43). Alternatively, there have been those

who emphasize the similarity with other words such as Raga (the Indian form) or Reco

(Rico Rodriguez), an early ska musician (Hebdige, “Reggae” 141). Furthermore, Ernest

Cashmore believes the word to be etymologically related to the Jamaican expressions

“raga-ragga,” “reggity” and “reggid” (100) which, according to Frederic Cassidy,

denote “The ugliness that comes from being ill-clothed, ragged, untidy, dirty with its

associated ideas of poverty and illness” (169).

Technically speaking, reggae consists of “hypnotic rhythms”, slower and much more

effective than rocksteady (Winders 69). The bass guitar and drums are the basic

instruments, whereas guitars and keyboards are usually limited to rhythm and, together

with the occasional use of horns, are used to flavour the basic rhythmic structure

(Winders 69). According to Jones, in a reggae arrangement the bass in particular takes

on a rhythmic, almost drum-like function that “speaks” and “pauses for effect” (24).

The “saying” and “pausing” function of the bass is called “riddims,” and it has a

conversational quality (King and Jensen 28). Lyle Ehrlich asserts:

The bass “says” a phrase, then pauses for a breath like a person speaking. The

pause “frames the phrase, and gives the mind of the listener time to absorb it. After

a string of notes, the listener becomes accustomed to the presence of the bass in his

ears and the body. (53)

The bass rhythm is believed to communicate with the heart by sending message to it in

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the rhythm, and the tempo of reggae (72-90 beats per minute) is similar to the pulse of

the human heart; thus reggae music is proclaimed throughout the world as “music of the

heart” (King and Jensen 28). Likewise, the drum which generally uses African burru

and kumina techniques conveys messages, and it is a powerful signifier of blackness

and racial solidarity, because it stands as a vivid reminder to the Europeans that the

Afro-Caribbeans have not fully lost their African cultural heritage yet. As Barrett

argues, “The downbeat of the drummer symbolizes the death of the oppressive society

but it is answered by the akette drummers with a lighter upbeat, a resurrection of the

society through the power of Ras Tafari” (193). Also, each handmade drum is believed

to display the personality of the player, and each player expresses his personality

through performance. Drummers are highly respected, and master drummers are almost

identified with gods during the performance (Alston 53).

As a result of this powerful arrangement, reggae music encourages the listener to dance.

King and Jensen claims that the physical power of reggae’s bass is a key source of

happiness in the dance (29). They continue:

Whether it be in the streets of Kingston, or in a dance hall in Great Britain, reggae

brings people together to share the intimate ritual of dance. Through this physical

activity, the dancer often becomes intoxicated in the celebration of sound and

movement, disregarding predicaments and contradictions of the outside world.

Dance is a vehicle for catharsis from the external world. (32)

As can be seen from this quotation, reggae with its motivating and tranquilizing sounds

acts as a unifying factor and contributes to create a collective identity among the Afro-

Caribbeans. The listener is attracted to the pleasing, relaxing sounds of the music while

he is forgetting his sad past memories; and the hardships and injustice he is now

experiencing in his own day. Hence, Bob Marley and the Wailers are right in singing in

the song entitled “Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)” as follows:

You're gonna dance to Jah music, dance;

We're gonna dance to Jah music, dance, oh-ooh!

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Forget your troubles and dance!

Forget your sorrows and dance!

Forget your sickness and dance!

Forget your weakness and dance! (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

Reggae music has many universal qualities. It is a part of oral culture; therefore reggae

is powerful in areas with high illiteracy. The music acts as catharsis which helps free

people from the problems of the external world. Reggae conveys information and

Rastafarian ideas, and offers the illiterate Afro-Caribbeans an opportunity to participate

publicly in voicing opinions which would normally be censored by the government

(Davis S. 34).

More important than the music, reggae is influential and revolutionary lyricalwise.

Reggae music is more than just a beat or rhythm; lyrics are extremely powerful and

meaningful. They are filled with sorrow, pride and hope. Toots Hibbert, who is the lead

singer of the Maytals and the creator of the word reggae, says:

Reggae means comin’ from d’ people . . . Everyday thing, like from the ghetto.

Majority beat. Regular beat that people use like food down there. We put music to

it, make a dance out of it. I would say that reggae means coming from d’ roots,

ghetto music. Means poverty, suffering and in the end maybe union with God if

you do it right (qtd. in Dove 11)

“While Jamaican music throughout the 1960s contained many subtle political and social

commentaries, reggae emerged as an overt ideology,” says Fredericks (“American

Rhythm and Blues”). The importance of the music lies mainly in the message which

leaves the medium less significant (Dupris 200). As King and Jensen assert, reggae

music speaks on several levels through the lyrics: “social rage on the cognitive level,

fun and excitement on the physical level, and spiritual contemplation on the emotional

level” (32). Since the “mass conversion” of reggae musicians to the Rastafari movement

in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Jamaican music has reached the peak with its political

discourses, symbols and insights (Jones 27). According to Dick Hebdige, under the

movement’s influence, the protest element that had become such a characteristic feature

65

of Jamaican music became more articulate and thoughtful (Subculture 37). Also

Brodber remarks that with the introduction of Rastafarianism to reggae music “it was as

if a river of sentiment that had been running underground for decades had suddenly

surfaced” (54). Cashmore also underlines that reggae represented “the most articulate

and invective” form of protest music to ever emerge out of the Caribbean (101). As a

vehicle for sharing personal experiences, reggae can be classified as protest music. King

and Jensen note that as a reaction to injustice, protest music is a vehicle for musical

artists to “identify an antagonist, the source that is to be blamed for suffering, and offer

solutions to escape from problems in the existing social order” (20). In order to achieve

its goals, protest music uses a political message concealed under the notes of music.

Knupp states that protest songs often sacrifice instrumentality for expressiveness, that

is, the songs “attempt to evoke consciousness while circumventing intellectual activity”

(386). Stewart, Smith, and Denton proclaim that most protest songs “described the

present, identified one or more devils, listed demands or solutions, and urged listeners

or participants to act” (230).

In the light of this information, it is apparent that reggae is protest music and an

important means of transmitting vital messages of Rastafarianism. Through its

conscious lyrics it is a powerful and liberating voice of the poor and the oppressed, and

a resistance and condemnation of the evil Babylon system. By means of the political

vision of Rasta, the reggae lyrics attempt to destroy the Eurocentric value systems, by

asserting Afrocentric values and creating a sense of collective racial identity. The Afro-

Caribbeans do not want to behave according to the European cultural norms anymore,

but they want to adopt the African cultural traditions as can be seen in the song entitled

“Get Up Stand Up”:

We’re sick and tired of your conmen game

Dying and go to heaven in Lord Jesus name

We know and we’ve come to

Overstand [Understand] that the creator is a Living One

You could have fooled some people sometime

But you can’t fool all the people all the time

And now that the children have seen light

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They’re gonna stand up for their rights. (Marley and the Wailers, “All Reggae Lyrics”)

As Bob Marley and the Wailers point out in the first two lines of this song, the

Rastafarians believe that for many centuries, blacks were lulled by Christianity theology

and its Jesus Christ figure. The Bible was thought to be the cultural text of colonization.

In the early days of colonialism in the Caribbeans, under the pretext of teaching the true

way to the illiterate pagan natives, the missionaries exploited the natives and destroyed

their native identity. They were exposed to the teachings of this white religion and as a

result, they started to believe the idea that Jesus was the saviour, and when they died

they would go to heaven which was the Promised Land in another world where all the

people were equal and living in harmony. Seeing that this belief in whites’ Jesus Christ

and the Christian heaven did not help the black race in this world, and realizing that it

could not bring solution to the oppression of blacks, they created their own version of

God or their own version of the saviour which was the living figure of Haile Selassie, as

Marley and the Wailers say in the third line. In the other lines, the light symbolizes both

their true God Haile Selassie and the Rastafarians’ awakening. Marley and the Wailers

underline the African black realization and consciousness of being no more inferior to

the white race, and of the need to fight for equal rights, equal treatment and cultural

restoration. They did not want to imitate the European cultural ways of dressing, eating,

singing anymore; instead they wanted to restore their African identity and culture which

had provided them to be treated as human beings. It is the association of reggae music

with the Rastafarian movement which has awakened this anti-Europeanist, pro-African

consciousness in many black Jamaicans. Brodber describes this consciousness which

reggae evoked as follows:

We were glad to hear this new sound. It relaxed us. We took off our make-up, we

washed our hair and left it natural; we took off our jackets and our ties and made

ourselves comfortable in shirt jackets. And we understood at a personal level that

for us black Jamaicans there were two orientations: a mulatto-orientation and an

Afro-orientation, the latter having been submerged in our consciousness. The

persistent reggae beat – and the lyrics it carried – was partly responsible for

awakening this consciousness. (54)

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The Rastafarians were chiefly responsible for introducing the African and neo-African

elements into reggae music. Linking reggae and the culture of Rastafari to Africa,

Mervyn Alleyne argues that reggae, because of its strong connections to Rastafarianism

and its socially and politically conscious lyrics, is representative of the “traditional

African fusion of the secular and religious and the symbiotic interaction of religion

(including music and dance) and politics” (118). Reggae deals with both religious and

secular elements, including politics, and combines the two in its lyrics like the

traditional African songs. Barrett also contends that reggae can be seen as a social

commentary which is a part of the African oral cultural tradition transported to the

Caribbean by slaves (vii). These African elements tend to underscore the fact that some

of the Caribbean musical styles have strong links to an African past. As Neil

Savishinsky puts it, “reggae, along with other forms of African-American and

Caribbean music, may in fact, represent a kind of “re-Africanisation” process. . .”

(“African Dimensions” 127). Being on the same line with him, H. Kwabena Nketia also

asserts: “The music of the Rastafarian people maintains traditional elements and

therefore is examined from an African viewpoint regardless of its existence in the

Americas” (40). Exemplified in its burru and kumina drumming techniques and social

commentary tradition, reggae music carries many African elements, which puts

emphasis on the African identity of the Afro-Caribbeans. Don Robotham describes the

reggae culture as follows:

It is defiantly and unmistakably black and, not by accident, speaks the language

and speaks to the feelings of the excluded. In its powerful base line in which the

melody is played on the rhythm, the marginalized –those who refuse to passively

accept their allotted place in the global or national labour market and in the global

ordering of ethnicities, cultures and nations – create a rhythmic space for

themselves. They assert an “outlaw” culture and show the contempt in which they

hold the pieties, the powers, and principalities of official market society. (319)

Reggae music focuses on social inequalities, the oppression of black people, and the bad

effects of colonialism and capitalism, as well as having a religious character and

reminding them of their African roots. “Reggae songs speak of violence, blood, fire,

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police, oppression but also of love and Jah Rastafari, the Black God who would redeem

the Black People and take them back to the Promised Land, Africa,” says Abner Cohen

(75). The famous reggae group Aswad’s song 54-46 (Was My Number) is a good

example of this assertion:

Oh, work could not control me now

Oh, no bars could not hold me now

They hold I down and they lock-a you way

They try to keep I for a year and a day

But through the powers of the Most High God

Got to turn me lose, I say. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

In this song Aswad talks about the injustice at work and in jail. The group thinks that

the oppressors use work as a shackle because blacks generally work in low positions

under the rule of an oppressive apparatus whether it is white or black. At work, they are

suppressed and they receive the worst treatment. The situation is not different in jail.

Blacks think imprisonment as whites’ effort to silence them. As they assert in the third

line above, imprisonment keeps them away from their family, their brethren and their

cultural roots. White men know that this would give way to the dissolution of the strong

ties between blacks. In spite of this effort of whites to assimilate them, there is a kind of

revival for blacks thanks to the “Most High God,” who is, as it is mentioned before, the

black God. The only source for them to demand help is their God, Haile Selassie. Only

he can take them out of these bad conditions. Out of this strong belief in the black God

who would take them to Africa, the black resistance gets momentum.

As Winders asserts, reggae songs call attention to the aforementioned features of

Jamaican life that “the government, anxious to attract tourist dollars, would like to

hide”. By reminding its audience of the conflicts within society, reggae plays a

“Voltairean role: mocking the government for its short-sightedness and its stubborn

clinging to colonial traditions” (Winders 71). One of the recent reggae singers

Turbulence in his song “Thousand Times” expresses the real face of the government:

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The government play us for a fool

An’ still we play it cool

They all turn thier backs on us,

They all are grudgeful

We’re not afraid, though they got it made

We follow the teachings of Jah and be saved. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

Here in these lyrics there is complaint against the government since it is the black who

receive an ill-conduct from the government. They are deprived of all the public facilities

both economically and culturally. Towards the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s

there was violence, police beatings and uprisings in the streets of Jamaica (Cashmore

101). Police brutality was common, and generally directed towards the opposing groups,

the unprivileged and the Rastafarians (Gallardo 203). As Brodber notes, especially the

youth were alienated and depressed, because they were in a constant battle with “the

Establishment” in the form of the police (60). Cashmore draws the picture of the

country as follows: “States of emergency, gun courts, compounds and long prison

sentences, together with perpetual police oppression had become integrated features of

everyday life. Jamaica had learnt to live with ‘the pressure’” (101). Gallardo finds the

two opposing political parties, the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaican

Labour Party (JLP), responsible for the turmoil that had taken over the island (203).

During the election in 1976, realizing the effect of reggae on the lower classes both

Manley and Seaga used reggae for their policies (Gallardo 203). Appealing directly to

the Rastafarians, Manley adopted the biblical name “Joshua” and a magical walking

stick which symbolizes Moses’ Rod of Correction and which was supposed to be given

by Haile Selassie during Manley’s visit to Ethiopia (King, “International Reggae” 41).

King asserts that Manley also hired reggae musicians to play music at political rallies

(“International Reggae” 41). According to Gallardo, during this election in which

Michael Manley, the leader of the PNP, won against his rival Edward Seaga, the leader

of the JLP, the violence in Jamaica intensified, and the government had to call a state of

emergency after the election (203). Out of this, it can be concluded that neither Manley

nor Seaga cared about the Rastafarian movement. As it is stated in the song above, the

politicians played them like a fool persuading them that they were on the same line with

the Rastafarians; however it turned out to be only for votes. Also, nothing changed for

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the better after the election, on the contrary everything got worse. But despite these

harsh living conditions, as Turbulence says out loud in the last two lines, they are not

afraid because they have a complete faith that one day they will be saved by the black

God (Jah).

As can be seen above, Reggae serves as a social commentary on the past experiences of

slavery and also the present inequalities and difficulties in Jamaica, because the

Rastafarians are still excluded from economic and cultural opportunities (Alston 5).

Marley’s song “Slave Driver” is a good example of this:

Every time I hear the crack of a whip

My blood runs cold

I remember on the slave ship

How they brutalized our very soul

Today they say that we are free

Only to be chained in poverty. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

In this song, Marley remembers the painful past memories of slavery such as slaves’

being whipped and the cruel treatment on slave ships during the Middle Passage. He

also complains about the present day situation of blacks which is not very much

different from the days of slavery. Independence does not bring freedom on its own. In

order to be really free, a person should exercise freedom in all the units of his life. As

Gallardo points out, apart from slavery, poverty and illiteracy also keep a man “captive

as effectively as chains” (202). Thus, as Marley emphasizes in the last two lines, after

Jamaica’s gaining independence, the oppression that had come first from slavery

continued in the form of poverty, inadequate housing, lack of proper education and job.

Music is an important part of the Jamaican way of life, and reggae music has become a

means of expressing the discontent of the blacks in Jamaican society. As a social

commentary, reggae is a powerful means of attacking what is wrong in Jamaica, as well

as the rest of the world. Police beatings, jail life, love, gang warfare, poverty,

oppression, ganja, and Rastafarian beliefs are all dealt with in reggae music. “The music

of Rastafarians is not only an artistic creation in the Jamaican society, but an expression

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of deep seated social rage,” notes Barrett (197). Bunny Wailer, who was an original

member of the reggae group The Wailers along with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh,

describes the life conditions and the social rage in his song “Here In Jamaica:”

Come along every goodie

Come and hear what I have to say

Come and listen and I will tell you

What is the talk of the town today

and every corner that you may walk

You see a group of people balk

They’re not skylarkin’ they’re talkin’

‘bout what’s happening here in Jamaica

Can’t get no work off hustling

and man, when you take a stock

Can’t cook no rice and dumpling

and will soon end up in a shack

Can’t pay no rent, ‘cause you don’t have a cent

No government account, it’s already spent

So you end up borrowing, begging or stealing, here in Jamaica. (“All Reggae

Lyrics”)

In the first stanza, Wailer calls all good black people to hear what he is going to say. He

says he “has to” say this because the musician is accepted as the spokesman of the

unvoiced poor black people and it is his duty to tell people their suffering. It is very

apparent that there is turmoil in the country and everywhere people are talking about

what is happening in Jamaica. In the second stanza he begins to explain the reasons and

the consequences of this turmoil. He notes that people cannot get a proper job in

Jamaica, but what they can find is only hustling. Also he talks about the poverty in the

country which black people suffer so severely that they are hardly fed on. Even if they

find something to eat it is not rice or dumpling. Without a job and nourishing food, the

blacks in Jamaica, especially the Rastafarians, will be forced to live and die in a shack

as they cannot pay their rent. They cannot demand help from the government as well,

because as King asserts, “Jamaica’s economy was in shambles” (“International Reggae”

43), which leaves them without a choice other than borrowing, begging and stealing.

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Wailer goes on talking about the harsh realities and the dark side of Jamaican life in the

next stanza:

Some a dem [some of them] long, long treat bad

and they don’t care a thing about that

desperation is getting so bad

you either bite the bullet or get flat

and if a-you should die before his day

Who are responsible don’t want to pay

I am not jokin’ I'm talkin’ ‘bout what’s happening here

in Jamaica. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

Above, in the first two lines, he criticizes the oppressive white people who have

exploited blacks for centuries. Since they do not attach value to the humanity of blacks,

whites do not mind how they are treating these people. Wailer also mentions the

violence in the country as a result of the hopelessness. People are so desperate because

of the oppression and the poverty in Jamaica that they either commit suicide or they are

beaten by the powerful ones. What is waiting for them after death is not peace, and even

not a funeral ceremony since no one, including the government, wants to take the

responsibility of their funeral. Their corpses are as worthless as their living bodies. In

the last line, Wailer warns the listener that it is not a joke but the bare reality that he is

talking about.

In spite of the social rage in reggae songs, there is also hope for the future. Reggae

musicians emphasize that the end of this evil world, Babylon, and social change is near

and probable only through Rastafarianism and reggae.

Babylon will tumble, babylon will crumble, babylon

will fall. Babylon will tumble I can hear it rumble

falling on them all.

I thought you had made a mistake, but you

stuffed your pockets with the money we made; and I

was just trying to help my friends in JA.

So, for everyone's sake, slither away like the greedy snake

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that you are. Gwan [Go on] slither real far, cah wi nah guh [because we are not

going to]

deal with you anymore. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

Dylan Murray, in his song “Babylon Will Fall” believes that the end of Babylon,

whites’ oppressive system, is unavoidable because their wealth is built on blacks’ effort.

During the slavery system blacks cultivated their field, worked on the plantations, did

the housework and other stuff. Nevertheless, they could only earn to make ends meet,

whereas the slave owners made a fortune out of slaves’ work. According to Murray, this

was a mistake and this would bring the fall of Babylon, because easy come easy go.

Murray also likens Babylon to a greedy snake which slithers away after giving harm.

African slaves, Murray asserts, came to Jamaica only with the aim of helping their

fellows, however the white hegemony insidiously took advantage of these people, and

turned them into slaves. When the slavery system was of no use anymore and when

there was nothing left to exploit, they left the area and let them to gain their

independence. Murray in the last line exclaims that the oppressors can go now wherever

they want to because blacks will not work for or be the puppets of whites anymore.

The musician becomes the messenger according to the reggae star Max Romeo who

says, “People will pay a dollar for my message and reject the politician they can hear

free of charge” (qtd. in Winders 71), and as Rastafarians see it, “the soldier and the

musician are tools for change” (Davis and Simon 97). Thus, together with his group the

Wailers, Bob Marley (Robert Nesta Marley) (see Figure 16) became the spokesman and

the messenger of the Rastafarians. He is the most popular reggae singer throughout the

world. He is even known as “the Ambassador of the Oppressed” (Alston 125). Barrett

describes Bob Marley, whose charismatic personality was responsible for the growth of

Rastafarian movement (213), as follows:

. . . 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

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many continents. (213)

Gallardo also concurs:

Marley was more than just a musician. He was and remains a symbol of peace and

freedom – a glimmer of hope in the midst of all the political strife and social

inequality in Jamaica. . . . Marley knew there was more to music than just

entertainment. He understood that his music was powerful enough to heighten

awareness and mobilize people into action. (201)

As can be seen from the comments of Barrett and Gallardo, Bob Marley became the

voice of the oppressed, poor, and socially excluded Afro-Caribbeans. After Garvey, he

was the new mythical folk hero, the figure of “Natty Dread:”

Dread, Natty Dread now,

Dreadlock Congo Bongo I.

Natty Dreadlock in a Babylon:

A dreadlock Congo Bongo I.

Eh! Children get your culture

And don't stay there and gesture, a-ah,

Or the battle will be hotter

And you won't get no supper. (Marley and the Wailers, “All Reggae Lyrics”)

Natty (derived from “nutty,” meaning weird and unstable) refers to the black Jamaican,

poor but hopeful, suffering but determined, and refusing to give up the fight for

improvement (Cashmore 102). According to Brodber this “Natty Dread” is “the sense of

self as a black man, a Rastafarian, a man with a home in Africa, a man with a particular

life style and as one charged to guide others” (62). Marley was both Natty and dread

(dreadful). Similar to Garvey, he was determined to create a consciousness among the

Afro-Caribbeans, and in doing so he was not afraid of the government or other

oppressive apparatuses. As he points out in the last four lines, he thinks that the Afro-

Caribbean people must hold on their African identity and culture, and must find ways to

assert them. He also encourages, even forces, the Afro-Caribbeans to come into action

and demand better rights from the government. If they keep silent, violence in the

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country will get worse, because the government will do nothing to improve the

condition of blacks or the Rastafarians, and they will get poorer.

Cashmore asserts that Natty Dread [Bob Marley] expressed the condition of the black

man in the 1970s and it offered a vision for the dispossessed blacks because there was

no real improvement since independence (102). He became the symbol of the new wave

of Jamaican popular music, and with his long locks, his ganja, smiling face, and

rebellious but hopeful songs he became the ideal Rastaman with whom the Afro-

Caribbeans could easily identify. Hence, Barrett is right in noting that Marley stamped

his personality on reggae until the sound became identified with the Rastafarian

movement (viii). Reggae music is the major factor in the expansion of Rastafarianism.

The use of powerful metaphors in Marley’s and later other reggae singers’ songs

assisted in expressing and popularizing Rastafarian ideas. The religious and social

metaphors provided strategies for action and offered a solution for people’s problems by

advancing the concept of repatriation.

One of the dominant metaphors in Marley's songs is the clash between God and Devil.

In his songs, the Rastafarian God is the late emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. In the

music Selassie was commonly referred to as Jah (short for Jehovah) or His Imperial

Majesty. Jah is associated with the words: “goodness,” “uplifting,” “lead,” “glory,”

“guide,” “protect,” “love,” “power,” “authority,” “righteousness,” “living,” “life,” and

“faith” (King and Jensen 22). According to King and Jensen, Jah serves three functions:

Jah is the embodiment of goodness and love; Jah acts as a protector and guide; and Jah

asks his followers to remain patient and faithful for the reward of eternal life in Mount

Zion, the Rastafari heaven (22).

Jah is described as the eternal life force of love and goodness. In “Small Axe,” Marley

proclaims: “But the goodness of Jah, Jah / I’doreth for I-ver” (“All Reggae Lyrics”).

Also in “Give Thanks and Praises,” Marley exclaims:

Rastafari is his name, Jah

Rastafari is his name, Jah

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If Jah didn’t love I

If I didn’t love I

If Jah didn’t love I

If I didn’t love I

Would I be around today?

Would I be around to say. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

In their song “Jah Loves” the Jamaican roots reggae group the Abyssinians (see Figure

17) express the love of Jah very well:

jah loves u [you] man

ever know jah needs u [you], woman

and to know the things u [you] did

to him,

it makes u [you] want to die.

for greatest love,

all u [you] ever learned

is to love,

and be loved in return.

jah loves in return

why hate your brotha [brother] man

do the things to please jah woman,

do the right and not the wrong,

and be strong,

for u [you] surely gonna die...

for greatest love,

all u [you] ever learned

is to love,

and be loved in return.

jah loves in return (jah loves u [you] man) (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

Jah also has the power and authority to guide and protect his followers. In “Blackman

Redemption,” Marley employs biblical imagery: "Coming from the root of King David /

Through the line of Solomon / His Imperial Majesty is the Power of Authority” (King

and Jensen 22). Luciano’s “Jah Will Help You” reminds the Afro-Caribbeans that faith

is required for protection: “Jah will help u carry on / Ull [you’ll] be safe just keep the

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faith in jah jah / Ull [you’ll] be safe just keep the faith my brotha [brother]” (“All

Reggae Lyrics”). Capleton, also known as King Shango, The Fireman, (see Figure 18)

in his song “Jah Protect Us” shows his people that Jah is the protector from the enemy:

Rastafari never let us down

Rastafari never let us down

King Selassie I never let us down

Yes, he wear the triple crown

Friends

When danger's on the line - be right

Jah protect us from the enemy

And he make me know a friend in need

Jah protect us from the enemy

Even when them abandon we. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

Jah tells his followers to be patient in waiting for the coming glory of Zion. In “I Know

a Place,” Marley sings: “Ain’t it good to know now / Jah will be waiting there” (“All

Reggae Lyrics”). “Jah See Jah Know” advises the Afro-Caribbeans to trust in Jah as he

has promised them to take them to Zion:

Remember all those promises

Jah has made to us in this life

Forget not what He's done for us

He’s the only One we can really trust. (Misty In Roots, “All Reggae Lyrics”)

As the rival and the enemy of Rastafarian God, the Rastafarian devil is the world of

Babylon. Babylon is “the corrupt establishment, the system, [the shitstem in Iyaric

language] the church, the state . . . the police" (Davis and Simon, Reggae International

69). Dirk Gibson defines Babylon people as “downpressors [oppressors]” who are

greedy, prejudiced or jealous (28). In a general sense, Babylon is the oppressor of the

Rastafarians. The adjectives and the words used to describe the evilness of Babylon are:

“burn,” “down,” “soft,” “sucking the children,” “wicked,” “fall,” “prison,” “brutality,”

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“slave driver,” “bull-bucker,” “vampire,” “vulture,” “backbiters,” “wolf-pack,”

“system,” “vanity” and “destruction” (King and Jensen 23). Babylon is proclaimed as an

evil, destructive force in the world. Babylon is either depicted as an unnamed force, as

an animal, or as a human oppressor. In “Babylon System,” Marley represents Babylon

as a vampire who is “sucking the children day by day / sucking the blood of the

sufferers” (“All Reggae Lyrics”). In “Rastaman Live Up,” Marley sings:

Keep your culture

Don’t be afraid of the vulture

Grow your dreadlock

Don’t be afraid of the wolf pack. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

In any case, Babylon is the cause of the destruction and the suffering of the Afro-

Caribbean people in the past and in the present. Nevertheless, the voice Marley and others

represented say that the time for change has come, and it will be soon that the walls of

Babylon fall: “Reggae music make we chant down Babylon / With music make we chant

down Babylon” (“Chant Down Babylon”) (“All Reggae Lyrics”). The songs, like

Marley’s “Guiltiness,” issue warnings to the oppressors that the end of their unfair rule

is about to come: “Woe to the downpressor / They'll eat the bread of sorrow” (“All

Reggae Lyrics”).

Another prominent metaphor is war which is associated with “riots,” “demonstrations,”

“killing,” “struggle,” “revolution,” “battle,” “courage,” “raging,” “looting,” “burnin”

“ambush,” “fallen fighters,” “freedom fighters,” and “shot down” (King and Jensen 26).

This war that Marley and other reggae singers appreciate is not an armed struggle, but it

is a political war for equal human rights. In many songs, Marley advocates fighting for

equality and fighting against poverty, hunger and illiteracy in the shanty towns. One of

the most famous reggae songs is entitled “Get up, Stand Up,” in which Bob Marley and

Peter Tosh (see Figure 19) set their audiences into motion singing:

Get up stand up

Stand up for your rights

Get up stand up

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Don’t give up the fight. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

This represents a call by the singers for black people to seek their salvation in this

world, rather than the next, employing Rastafarian concepts and ideals in preference to

Christian beliefs about heaven (Poulter 339). Although Marley and the others are

criticized for encouraging violence in the Caribbean, this is not what they demand.

Racial, social, political equality is their desire, and they fight just for it not with their

weapons but with their songs. Referring to Haile Selassie’s words, Marley’s song “War”

describes their ideas about this struggle:

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior

And another

Inferior

Is finally

And permanently

Discredited

And abandoned -

Everywhere is war -

Me say war.

That until there no longer

First class and second class citizens of any nation

Until the colour of a man's skin

Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes -

Me say war.

That until the basic human rights

Are equally guaranteed to all,

Without regard to race -

Dis a war.

That until that day

The dream of lasting peace,

World citizenship

Rule of international morality

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Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,

But never attained -

Now everywhere is war - war.

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes

that hold our brothers in Angola,

In Mozambique,

South Africa

Sub-human bondage

Have been toppled,

Utterly destroyed -

Well, everywhere is war -

Me say war.

War in the east,

War in the west,

War up north,

War down south -

War - war -

Rumours of war.

And until that day,

The African continent

Will not know peace,

We Africans will fight - we find it necessary -

And we know we shall win

As we are confident

In the victory. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

In this song, Marley calls every black to war, but this is not a destructive physical war,

rather it is a political war for better social, political and economic rights. This war will

go on until there is no discrimination racially, nationally and physically. Although this

song seems as a war song, in fact Marley talks about peace and equality which are not

persistent in today’s world. In the fourth stanza, he supports the idea of world

citizenship which is a feature of globalization and which is an unattained dream now. In

order to bring this dream into life, he is aware of the fact that a long lasting peace and

total equality all over the world are required. Marley did not want redemption only in

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Jamaica, but in all the corners of the world, especially Africa. He even wrote a song

called “Zimbabwe,” in which he discusses the struggle for human rights in Africa, and

exclaims:

Every man got a right

To decide his own destiny

And in his judgment

There is no partiality

So arm in arm, with arms

We will fight this little struggle. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

It is, of course, predictable that reggae songs do not employ only negative metaphors

such as oppression, Babylon and war; because in the nature of reggae there is hope for

freedom, repatriation, love and unity. Whereas the words used related to freedom

contain “bird,” “Mount Zion,” “fly away,” “equal opportunities,” “exodus,”

“redemption,” “lively up yourself” and “music;” the words carrying the meaning of

unity are “one love,” “one people,” “feel alright,” “flock together,” “birds of a feather,”

and “come together” (King and Jensen 25, 27). These words suggest that freedom can

be obtained through repatriation or through the power of music.

Marley describes freedom as the ability to remove oneself from the presence of

Babylon. Freedom is often represented by the metaphor of a bird. In “Rasta Man Chant”

Marley proclaims:

I say fly away home to Zion (fly away home);

I say fly away home to Zion (fly away home).

One bright morning when my work is over,

Man will fly away home.

One bright morning when my work is over,

Man will fly away home.

One bright morning when my work is over,

Man will fly away home.

Say one bright morning when my work is over,

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Man will fly away home. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

In “Exodus,” Marley makes a direct statement about the exodus to Africa:

Open your eyes and look within

Are you happy with the life you’re living

We know where we are going

We know where we are from

We’re leaving Babylon

We’re going to our Father’s land

Exodus! (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

There is dissatisfaction with the current conditions in Jamaica and the suggestion of

repatriation as a solution is evident in reggae songs. Africa is always glorified and it is

the motherland as in Peter Tosh’s song “Mama Africa”:

Mama Africa

How are you doing Mama

Mama Africa

Long time me no see you [I have not seen you] Mama

They took me away from you Mama

Long before I was born

They took me away from you Mama

Long before I came on in. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

Music is the way of spiritual repatriation, whereas the power of Jah and Rastafarianism

are the means to obtain the physical repatriation. Music has the power to soothe the pain

of the Afro-Caribbeans. The opening lines to “Trenchtown Rock” are: “One good thing

about the music / When it hits / Ya [You] feel no pain” (Marley, “All Reggae Lyrics”).

Also “Trench Town” tells the power of music:

We free the people

With music, sweet music

Can we free the people with music

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Can we free our people

With music, with music. (Marley, “All Reggae Lyrics”)

Therefore, reggae music is described as having the power to free the oppressed people

from the pain of their captivity.

Marley and the other reggae singers also realize that repatriation and redemption is only

possible through unifying the Afro-Caribbeans. In “One Love,” Marley sings: “One

love, one heart / Let’s get together and feel all right” (“All Reggae Lyrics”). In

“Survival” he also states: “We’ve got to survive / But to live as one equal in the eye of

the Almighty” (“All Reggae Lyrics”). In “One Foundation,” the Wailers’ guitarist, Peter

Tosh, acknowledges that unity will occur only if racism and discrimination are

eradicated:

Got to put aside them segregation

Got to put aside them organization

We got to put aside them denomination

Or there will be no love at all

There will be no love at all. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

In fact this unity is not only required among the Afro-Caribeans, but also among all of

the suffering people. Unity implies that humans must eliminate the barricades of racism

and discrimination and unite as one people through the power of love.

The music of Bob Marley and other conscious lyrics of emancipation from mental

slavery has become a powerful transnational force. According to Robotham:

For the first time, a cultural expression from the Third World – reggae music –

rooted itself firmly in confronting the injustices of the modern world, shed its folk

form, developed a thoroughly modern instrumentation, and impacted strongly on

the popular culture of the core countries. Blackness had come into its own. (314)

Reggae’s message has crossed the international borders and dealt with themes that

concern all aspects of humanity. As Barrett points out, “It serves as a social safety valve

84

through which oppressed peoples express their discontent” (vii). Reggae evokes a

message of universal suffrage, and in doing so spreads a theme of consciousness to the

poor, illiterate, and oppressed in order to overcome their inferior positions. This theme

of unity is matched with the idea that social change will not be long in coming, and that

the change will be for the better of all. Reggae also states that it is possible to enjoy life

even in the presence of tragedy, since there is always a hope for improvement (Spiker,

“Reggae”). According to Winders, as Jamaica walks a “thin wire” between its colonial

heritage and what lies ahead, reggae provides a critical look, if not a revolutionary

impetus for change (71).

Early reggae artists, such as Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, and Burning Spear

(see Figure 20), brought the message of Rastafarianism into the musical world, and

opened the eyes of Jamaicans to the goals of the Rastafarians. They showed, through

their music, the sufferings of the people of Jamaica, and believed the end of this

suffering would be near. Especially Bob Marley gave the poor a voice in the oppressive

evil Babylon world. Marley opened the door for other reggae artists to further advance

the ideas of the Rastafarians. With a new approach to music, artists such as Sizzla, Tony

Rebel, and Capleton have emerged as the next generation of reggae artists. Their style

has been named “dancehall” (Spiker, “Reggae”). They have consistently broadcasted

their beliefs in Rastafarianism, and the final fall of Babylon. The theme of resistance has

become more important, as more artists are realizing that it is necessary for the people

of Jamaica to work together to achieve their freedom. Capleton very well utters the

themes of unity and resistance in his song “Steep Mountain” as follows:

Unity and strength, we have to combine

This is a collective mission

Everyone have to join

Any means necessary

A method we have to find

To stop all the war, poverty and crime. (“All Reggae Lyrics”)

It is through these musicians that people have become acquainted with the beliefs and

customs of the Rastafarians (Winders 62). As Robotham states, reggae has spread the

85

Rastafarian culture from Kingston to Brooklyn, to Miami, to Toronto, to Brixton, and to

Africa (319). The movement expanded considerably during the 1970s in the wake of the

popularity of reggae music and tours made by its leading figure, Bob Marley, so that its

influence spread far beyond the Caribbean. Poulter estimates that it only had some

5,000 adherents before, but the movement peaked during Marley’s period as a superstar

(334).

More importantly, however, is the fact that reggae music, in addition to being a

powerful medium of communicating the message and spirit of Rastafarianism, has also

provided the Rastafarians with a distinct identity (Singh 28-29). It is regarded as “one of

the most essential elements of religious expression and shared group identity”

(Savishinsky, “Transnational Popular Culture” 363). Introducing the African elements

and reminding them of their African past, reggae has a unifying role among the Afro-

Caribbeans. Being protest music, it also promotes a collective racial identity against

oppressive Babylon. To be sure, the Rastafarians have asserted a more positive identity

for themselves via reggae, because reggae music has succeeded in neutralizing the

negative impact of the movement’s perceived association with crime and violence, and

the widely held misconception of its being a drug-infested cult (Chevannes 273). The

fact that reggae has been adopted by the Afro-Caribbeans, as well as its international

popularity and global appeal helps this neutralizing effect (Singh 29). According to

Sarah Novick, the reason reggae music appeals to so many different people is that it

satisfies many needs that people have (“Effects of Slavery”).

86

CONCLUSION

Rastafarianism rose out of the slavery experiences, the colonial oppression and the

exclusion of blacks from the social arena in the Caribbean. Beginning in the sixteenth

century and continuing through most of the nineteenth century, slavery had serious

effects on the Caribbean region. As Cashmore notes, “Because of their lack of

resources, blacks had always been open targets for the militarily superior whites and

could not withstand the impositions of western religions which served the exigencies of

domination” (“More than a Version” 314). First of all, they were forced to leave their

homeland, Africa, and to come to the Caribbean as slaves to the white man, and to live

in harsh conditions. Later, their culture was stolen from them gradually, because they

were not allowed to practice their cultural traditions, even they were not able to sing

openly. After long years of enslavement, blacks began to accept their inferior position

and their otherness because they had no alternatives available. Whites had ensured that

the black man was completely broken from his African heritage. Thus, blacks

internalized the inferior image of themselves offered by whites. In addition, they were

exposed to whites’ prejudice and exclusion in social life, education, religion, and

politics. Marcus Garvey, who was one of the intellectuals of the country and who could

not keep silent to the suffering of these people, began to create an alternative reality as

opposed to the whites’ version. After the Maroons and a few rebellious figures in the

history of Jamaica, he was the first person who realized the identity crisis in the Afro-

Caribbeans and who provided them a solution. First, with his powerful speeches using

the power of elocution, with his pen, and with his political organization UNIA, he

evoked a black consciousness of African heritage. He shattered the established western

reality which put blacks into lower positions and encouraged the Afro-Caribbean blacks

to revive their true self and to know their abilities and dignity by discovering their

history. He consistently preached a positive and proud self-evaluation of blacks. Later,

he offered a doctrine of collective self-help and racial independence through Back-to-

Africa movement. Moreover, he envisaged an idealized utopian country in Africa, and

looked for ways for repatriation to Africa. For this reason, he even founded a steamship

company, Black Star Line, however, he could not realize his aims. Although he did not

intend to lead a religious movement, but promoted rather a nationalistic and racial one,

87

he inspired the Rastafarian religious movement with only a single statement: “Look to

Africa for the crowning of a black king, he shall be the Redeemer.” Around this so-

called prophecy, the Rastafarians built an alternative reality which rejected the previous

Eurocentric perceptions. Cashmore describes this Rastafarian reality as follows: “They

familiarized themselves with new sets of beliefs, transformed self-conceptions, and

fresh, exhilarating ambitions. In short, they created for themselves a new conception of

reality so radically divorced from that of the previous one” (“More than a Version”

307). In order to create this reality, Rastafarianism used a system of myths, the most

important one of which is the divinity of Haile Selassie. Leonard Howell, the first

Rastafarian, perceiving Garvey’s statement as a Biblical prophecy of the coronation of

Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, defined him as the black God of the

Rastafarians who would redeem them from the oppression of whites and who would

take them to their heaven on earth – Zion, Ethiopia or Africa. This myth or the version

of reality became so solid that the Rastafarians took his divinity for granted. They even

dismissed the death of Haile Selassie as “Imperial propaganda” and “the lies of

Babylon” which tried to divide and rule the black man by covering up his true heritage.

Rastafarianism has not only developed the idea of black God to assist the identity

construction process of the Afro-Caribbeans. Reconstructing the Biblical stories of

Jews, the Rastafarians formed another myth which is the belief that they were the

reincarnated tribe of Israelites, and that they would soon be returned to Africa, their true

homeland, by the help of their God, Haile Selassie. The theme of repatriation is an

important agent to attract the Afro-Caribbeans into Rastafarianism, because it opened a

new horizon to the desperate Afro-Caribbeans who thought Jamaica as hell or the land

of exile. They felt that they were not a part of this alien society, because they were not

allowed to integrate any part of it. They were trapped in this new country receiving the

worst economic and social facilities and the worst treatment from the government. It

was first their slave masters, later the upper class and the government who exploited

these poor people. As opposed to the negative portrait in Jamaica, Rastafarianism has

painted an idealized and sanctified image of Africa which has given hope to these

oppressed people and showed them that there is a solution to their suffering in Africa.

88

The manipulation of cultural symbols such as the unique hairstyle dreadlock, the

controversial herb ganja, the altered Jamaican creole language, the I-tal food, the

colours of red, green and gold, helped Rastafarianism to preserve the alternative version

of reality and to spread Rastafarian doctrines among its adherents. Although they are

about to become a cultural fad in today’s world, especially in the western world, as we

see everywhere people wearing dreadlocks and Rastafarian berets but not knowing their

religious meaning, these symbols still stand as a force to create a collective identity

among the Rastafarians.

Another important unifying factor in Rastafarianism and assisting the formation of the

collective identity is the concept of brethren. Although there is a lack of central

authority and formal organization, the Rastafarians comfort themselves in the belief that

they are all united in another, and they belong to the Rastafarian brethren. The

Rastafarians feel themselves to be linked by the existence of God in man, expressed in

the Rastafarian language as “I and I,” which puts the speaker and the listener on the

same level. It is also used as a reminder of “the transformation of a non-person into a

person, thus assuring “a sense of place, a sense of purpose” to those who have been

captives in Babylon” (Nettleford vii). This need to assert the personality of an Afro-

Caribbean is a consequence of the dehumanizing attitudes of whites towards blacks

during the colonial and post-colonial period. Haile Selassie is thought to reside in every

man, and realizing this and accepting his divinity takes a man into a journey of

enlightenment and places him in a privileged position since he becomes one of the

members of the brethren from then on. Realizing the true self and beginning to search

his African roots is a precondition of membership and this prompted a strong sense of

“in-group solidarity” or “we-ness” (Cashmore, “More than a Version” 317). After the

identification of the Afro-Caribbeans with Rastafarianism and their having been

accepted to the brethren, they feel themselves living in an exclusive world of their own

and sharing each other’s being. The world of Rastafarianism and its doctrines are

posited as an objective reality and the individual member, by becoming a part of this

reality, starts to internalize the roles, attitudes, assumptions, and perspectives of the

movement. In other words, he begins to look at the world through Rastafarian eyes and

see himself as a real Rastaman. He acquires a positive self-identity first by receiving

89

others’ changing attitudes towards him, then via the enlightenment through the

acceptance of Haile Selassie as God, and after his being accepted to the brethren,

through his own recognition of his African roots and the true self. He also realizes that

there is still hope for a better life in his homeland Africa and “everything is gonna be all

right” in this Promised Land, as Bob Marley says.

The other significant way of communicating the Rastafarian version of reality and

creating the idea of unity or oneness is the musical style reggae. Reggae music is what

took Rastafari to the world and made it known by most people. Since its emergence in

the late 1960s, reggae music has flourished in its native Jamaica and has found fans

worldwide. It preached the divinity of Haile Selassie, the theme of repatriation to their

motherland Africa, and the notion of redemption both in Jamaica and in Africa. In

addition to these Rastafarian doctrines, the music has carried various messages from

social and political commentary to the protest to the oppression of poor black people in

the country. It was reggae music that gave a displaced population a way to tell the

distress about their lives and a way to overcome the daily misery, or at least to forget

them and relax with the smooth reggae tunes.

Today reggae survives in a number of independent genres; also it influences popular

music styles such as rock and punk. However, it was during Bob Marley’s period that

reggae reached the peak and was popularized all over the world. His growing fame, not

only among his worldwide music fans but also among human-rights campaigners,

political activists and even freedom fighters in Africa, established Marley as the most

admired Jamaican all over the world, and in his homeland he was seen as one of the

island’s true moral leaders. Though he increasingly devoted his life to the effort of

speaking to the black diaspora that black population throughout the world had been

scattered or colonized as a result of the slave trade and imperialism, his message has

become universal as he not only expressed hatred for white people but also hatred for all

people’s undeserved power to subjugate other people. Marley understood that the

struggle for equality is a must for total independence. He also maintained that if

humankind failed to stand together, it would fail to stand at all. On the same line with

his ancestor Marcus Garvey, Marley provoked the Afro-Caribbean people to unite and

90

fight for equal rights and restore their African identity which gives a proud sense of self.

His eldest son Ziggy Marley, who is one of the thirteen children of Bob Marley, also

follows his father and searches for a solution to the problems of the Afro-Caribbeans,

but in a more spiritual and individual level. Ziggy Marley says his struggle is

“spiritual,” unlike the “physical” striving embodied in the protest songs of his father,

which gave hope to the oppressed (Righi, “Ziggy Gets”). He advocates “love” notion of

his father and emphasizes not physical repatriation to Africa, but spiritual redemption in

Jamaica, in the United States or wherever the black people live. According to him, love

is the answer to everything. Unlike his father, he believes it is not possible to change

millions of people on the physical level. In an interview with Monty (Moe) Wiradilaga

on 16 June 2007, he asserts as follows:

The solution is not in politics or even social things. The solution is within the

individual. . . To find love, that is the solution to the world’s problems. It is not

democracy, it is not communism, nor capitalism . . . It is not religion, it is not

charity, it is for human beings to find love within themselves. This is the solution

for everything. Everything else is secondary. If you have democracy without love,

it ain’t gonna work. If you have communism wit . . . Nuttin’ gonna work without

love! Nuttin! So let’s find love first, and then we’ll find everything else! (“Special

Interview”)

Ziggy Marley assigns love such a high status that he thinks being a Rastafarian means

quite simply to love. He does not promote love devoted to Jah but love towards

everything. Although he accepts being a Rastafarian, for him love is even higher than

everything, it is the truth, it is God, and it is his religion. He also tries to raise a

consciousness; however, his consciousness is a gradual realization of the true concept of

spirituality or the true concept of God (Wiradilaga, “Special Interview”). He explains

his notion of religion as follows:

You know, because from when I was a young child coming up, we were about

God, you know, we went through Christianity. We were still lookin’ for the truth.

How do I identify myself in terms of that aspect, in terms of this religious aspect,

spiritual aspect . . . What is it really? What do I call it? Am I a Christian? Am I a

Rasta? What am I? And what is the direction that I should be goin’? So after a

while, it just gradually come to me that love is really . . . Love is the answer. Love

is the answer to everything that I was questioning. (Wiradilaga, “Special

Interview”)

Ziggy Marley is also different form his father in that, his songs appeal much to the

91

popular culture rather than the Rastafarian community. He does not avoid some of the

Babylonian products and he even sees no harm in performing the theme song to the

American children’s television series Arthur, in voicing Bernie, one of Sykes’ jellyfish

henchmen in the film Shark Tale and appearing on an episode of American sit-com

Family Matters (“Ziggy”). Perhaps it is because Ziggy and Bob Marley’s other children

live in a different time from their father, and this reality is reflected in their work.

In fact, few Rastafarians today live by strict rules. It seems like most are just trying to

live in the world working hard to pay the bills and to make ends meet. Today,

Rastafarianism preaches more about issues of poverty, illiteracy, and inequality - issues

that affect the modern day man. The theme of repatriation to Africa is less emphasized.

Another change and problem for modern Rastafarians is that there are many young

blacks and whites who have adopted the symbols of Rastafarianism (including the

wearing of dreadlocks) without also adopting their ethical and religious meanings. Some

of them wear dreadlocks just for fashion, because they look cool. Others do it because

it’s easier than styling their hair every morning. Moreover, they never have to cut it.

Dreadlocks have become a fad in Jamaica, the United States, and even in Turkey.

Although some dreadlock-wearing people claim to be adhering in part to the lifestyle

and beliefs of Rastafarianism they do not know much about the culture, and that their

adherence to it goes no further than smoking “ganja” and listening to reggae. Ian Kris

Mendez, who is the former EIC of the College Voice (the official student publication of

La Carlota City College), says “It’s nonsense. Some of those wannabe Rastas wear

shirts with Bob Marley images but they never knew who really Bob Marley was” (qtd.

in John, “Rasta Today”). As a result, the Rastafarian faith is diluted and today, the

prejudice that Rastafarians are drug addicts and unfit for work is gradually increasing

because of these pseudo Rastafarians. They smoke everywhere not to mediate and talk

to Jah like the Rastafarians, but they use ganja to feel high, to get into an altered state

and to forget their problems.

Despite being a cultural fashion today, Rastafarianism and its music style reggae have

become important actors in the identity formation of the Afro-Caribbeans creating an

alternative version of reality as opposed to the long-dictated white version, and

92

reminding these people of their African heritage. Their success is mainly a result of

their keeping the African culture alive through colourful and powerful symbols such as

ganja, dreadlocks and lion, and of leading these desperate people to get into move to

repatriate to their hopeful idealized country in Africa. These elements altogether

provided a consciousness among the Afro-Caribbeans of their distinct, proud African

identity.

93

FIGURES

Figure 1: The Location of the Caribbean in the World

Figure 2: The Caribbean Islands

94

Figure 3: Marcus Garvey

Figure 4: The Flag of the UNIA

95

Figure 5: Haile Selassie

96

Figure 6: Haile Selassie at Coronation

Figure 7: Haile Selassie’s Wife – Empress Menen

97

Figure 8: Cannabis

Figure 9: Ganja

Figure 10: Bob Marley Smoking Ganja

98

Figure 11: Dreadful Rastafarian Images

Figure 12: A Dreadlocked Rastafarian

99

Figure 13: Bob Marley Wearing a Rastafarian Woollen Cap

Figure 14: Lion of Judah

100

Figure 15: I-tal food

Figure 16: Bob Marley

101

Figure 17: The Abyssinians

Figure 18: Capleton

102

Figure 19: Peter Tosh

Figure 20: Burning Spear

103

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Appendix 1

APPENDIX

ÖZGEÇMİŞ

Kişisel Bilgiler

Adı Soyadı : Seçil SARIÇAY YAKUT

Doğum Yeri ve Tarihi : İzmir / 1981

Eğitim Durumu

Lisans Öğrenimi : Hacettepe Üniversitesi / İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı Bölümü

(1999-2003)

Yüksek Lisans Öğrenimi : Hacettepe Üniversitesi / İngiliz Kültür Araştırmaları (2003-

2007)

Bildiği Yabancı Diller : İngilizce, Almanca, Fransızca

Bilimsel Faaliyetleri :

İş Deneyimi

Stajlar : 1) Turizm Bakanlığı- Tanıtma Genel Müdürlüğü - Uluslararası

Kuruluşlar ve Avrupa Topluluğu Şubesinde çevirmenlik

(27/01/2003 - 17/02/2003)

2) ODTU Geliştirme Vakfı Lisesi’nde öğretmenlik (02/02/2002

-15/06/2002)

Projeler :

Çalıştığı Kurumlar : 1) Şehitlik İlköğretim Okulu - Ankara (27/06/2006 – Devam

ediyor)

2) Şereflikoçhisar Ticaret ve Anadolu Ticaret Meslek Lisesi -

Ankara (15/09/2005 – 27/06/2006)

3) Şereflikoçhisar Lisesi – Ankara (17/09/2004 – 15/09/2005)

4)Niğde Cumhuriyet Lisesi – Niğde (09/09/2003 – 16/09/2004)

5) Beytepe Anaokulu – Ankara (01/11/2002 – 31/07/2003)

6) Yorum Dershanesi – Ankara (12/10/2002 – 16/11/2002)

İletişim

E-Posta Adresi : bechosen@gmail.com

bechosen19@yahoo.com

Tarih : 12.09.2007