The Future of Rastafari

From Peace and Love to ‘Fyah Bun’:

Did Rastafari Lose its Way? - Part 3

Rasta And Economic Development

The production and distribution of goods and services are two of the most important activities in every society. In every society the resources used to produce goods and services are scarce. This means that most people, in fact, every government has to make choices regarding what they do with natural resources, capital, labour and technology.

Many religious groups aspire to facilitate their own economic development, especially if their beliefs state or imply that the wider society is hostile to their existence. In Jamaica, the Seven-Day Adventists have developed their own schools (up to the university level), hospital and food processing and distribution operation. The Orthodox Jews in New York own a significant portion of the jewelry, computer, camera, and audio business, not to mention media, health care and entertainment conglomerates.

What Has Rasta Achieved?

In the 50 years since the publication of the UWI Report, 49 years since a delegation on repatriation sent to Africa and 44 years since the visit of His Imperial Majesty to Jamaica, serious questions arise as to the capability of the Rastafarian Movement/Religion. Individual achievements have occurred but what about the collective? Rasta established red, green and gold as a cultural item in Jamaica but were not the ones to market it, nor benefit from it.  The Japanese buy our coffee, package it in a red, green and gold can and name it ""Reggae Coffee" and successfully market it around the world. In Dominica, they package "His Imperial Majesty Potato Chips". Rasta developed a liberating music genre but who has made the real money from the industry? Rasta established the validity of ital food long before the health food craze but are not the ones marketing it. Twenty years ago, one could hardly find vegetarian food in Jamaica, today it is everywhere. Rasta gave the name dreadlocks to the world but it is innovative African American women in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles who are loctologists and locticians. The Jamaican hair care practitioners who spend hours producing ‘sister lock’ rarely have anything to do with Rasta consciousness. The pattern is consistent; Rasta initiates the concept, others reap the economic benefit.

Conceptual Incarceration

It is my hypothesis that all these observations can be explained by the millenarian belief of the Rasta religion, the belief in a future paradise on earth. This belief often develops in response to threats and serves to preserve cultural and individual identity. The result is usually an obsession with the past or fantasies about the future, and a significant reduction in the motivation that fosters economic development and other long term activities because you could be leaving for PARADISE at any time.

What Is The Evidence?

Any examination of the lyrical content of Rastafarian musicians reveals the same message:

·         Rasta was pleading "I've got to go back home" - Bob Andy – (1967)

·         Rasta is going “Back to Africa” – Alton Ellis – (1969)

·         Rasta was waiting for "7 miles of Black Star Liner" - Fred Locks (1975)

·         Rasta has defined paradise, "Dreamland" - Bunny Wailer (1976)

·         Rasta was telling "Africa (to) unite, your children want to come home" – Bob Marley  - (1979)

·         Rasta was ready "If tomorrow I was leaving for Zion I wouldn't wait a minute more" Black Uhuru. – (1979)

·         Rasta was asking, "Give me a one way ticket"- Luciano  - 1994)

How many “Rasta” artists are still making songs with similar lyrical content?

The Lesson From New York

For Jamaicans in metropoles, it is the island of Jamaica that they envision when Bob Andy’s big tune is played. ("I've got to go back home"). The result was that for decades they resisted citizenship, political participation or any symbols of permanence. For nine years in New York, I refused to buy a winter coat in any place but the second hand Army and Navy stores. For nine years, I resisted buying winter shoes. These items could not be used when I go home to Jamaica. From Day One I had made it clear to my parents that I was going home as soon as I completed my education. (When I got to Ithaca I had to change my position)

The present second and third generation of Jamaican immigrants having accepted the reality that most will never come home (as passengers), have begun the process of economic integration and political involvement. They have been converting their presence to economic and political power. But even though they have become US citizens, their identity is still Jamaican. Guess who they cheer for when Jamaica meet the US in track and field or in soccer?

Until Rastafarians make the same transition and accept their endowment to claim all rights and privileges as Jamaican nationals, with African as their identity, Rasta economic development will not occur. Some will visit Africa, as many have been doing since 1961. Few may even migrate to Africa. But there is no reasonable possibility that wholesale repatriation will occur BEFORE economic and political development. I challenge the Rasta leadership to address this issue. Until then the growth of Rasta philosophy will remain in the dormant state it has been in for the post-Marley era.

There is good evidence that this shift in philosophy can work. It is the Jews at HOME in New York and Hollywood who provide critical support for the Jews at HOME in Israel. So too can Africans at HOME in Jamaica develop economic and political models to assist African brothers and sisters anywhere, especially in Africa. Today, the most visible sign of Rasta economic development is the Bobo Shanti manufacture and sale of brooms. This mode of production is obsolete. Some are moving into farming and food production. Unless significant economic development occurs in Jamaica, Rasta will continue to be identified as just another group of religious fanatics. Persons obsessed with a fantasy world called Africa, but who are unable to feed, clothe, shelter, educate and heal themselves, and take their place of leadership in the world.

The Essence Of Rasta

What was described twenty years ago as the social theory that would evolve out of the Rastafarian religion has quietly become a significant social theory in the Jamaican society. Interestingly, Rastafarians have not been directly credited with this transformation. This success may however serve to make the Rastafarian religion obsolete at worst or a quaint novelty at best, now that the society has been able to successfully extract the essentially useful core of the Rastafarian movement.

The important question now is can the Rastafarian movement survive this "success"? Rastafari has permanently transformed Jamaica's image both at home and abroad. Much of the world has come to know Jamaica through the visual or musical image of Rastafari - RED, GREEN AND GOLD or REGGAE MUSIC.

The internal conflicts and contradictions of the movement which surfaced in the Centenary Celebrations illustrate the problems of the last twenty years. Relations have sometimes been so poor that one night when two Rastafarian groups met at a radio station to do a programme on the movement, one group decided to leave if the other was allowed to speak. Some groups are more willing to speak to white foreigners than to each other. Leading up to and during the centenary "Houses" forgot about areas of common interest and focused more on idiosyncratic differences and personal feuds between the leaders. Each leader struggled to contain the movement under his vision, while projecting religious rituals over intellectual arguments. The result is that the movement devolved closer to empty symbol status while the society continued to extract the useful substance of the social theory.

In June of 2010, the Jamaican society went through a major upheaval initiated by the government’s inept handling of the extradition request for Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke. There has been a broad based demand from Civil Society for a New Social Order. The Rastafarian contribution to this process has been significantly absent.

This process of extracting the essence of Rastafari will continue until and unless the Movement produces leadership with five essential capabilities:

1.   Spiritual insights to unite the various houses,

2.   Intellectual acumen to engage the Afro-centric thinkers,

3.   Managerial capabilities to build transnational sustainable businesses

4.   Cultural engineers to build the necessary rituals for living

5.   Brand management.

Rules For Living - Missing

One major sign of the stagnation in the evolution of the Rasta culture is the absence of Rites of Passage. A cultural universal common to the majority of stable societies are rituals that signify important life transition points.  These rituals serves to demonstrate what values and beliefs are important in a specific culture. . The minimal three areas that such rituals cover are generally classified as marriage or the union of a couple, the birth and naming of a child and death, the end of the physical life. Based on the lack of specific rituals around these markers of human existence, it would appear that these three areas have not yet become part of the culture of Rastafari. Does this mean that Rasta sees no value in these transition points? Or is it a sign of cultural laziness?

In Rasta culture, marriage is either by common-law unions, the laws of the state (Babylon) or a series of casual, undefined relationships. Some Brethrens express the above confusion as a form of polygamy, but without the informed consent of the sisters who find themselves in something other than what they had initially agreed to. Over the years, I have heard the pain of numerous Rasta sisters in turmoil when the relationship with a Rasta man becomes toxic, for whatever reason.

·         She does not want to expose him and their relationship to the scrutiny of “Babylon”, but she has no alternative.

·         There is no Council of Elders to adjudicate such issues.

·         She either suffers in silence, appeal to his friends/bredren or eventually bring the state into their relationship.

I have offered reconciliation or arbitration services when asked. I have been exploring the possibility of becoming certified as a Marriage Officer. I have been informed that the laws of Jamaica stipulate that you must first be a pastor of a recognized religious body in order to be so designated. I am still investigating alternative options that would allow me to facilitate Rastafarians and other individuals who would wish to participate in a culturally appropriate marriage ritual without the trappings and assumptions of Christianity.

It has been my observation that largely the birth and naming of children is unceremoniously neglected. Having created a ritual for the naming of all my children, I have gladly assisted anyone who requests my help in conducting a ritual for the naming of their child.

The rituals for the inevitability of death have still not yet been developed. I feel personally embarrassed each time I hear a Rastafarian end of life transition being facilitated at the church of their parents or the one that they had abandoned when they answered the calling of Rastafari. I have designed my own end of life ceremony, including my music list.

In 2004 Basil Walters shared some important observations on this issue reminding us that:

“So strict has the Nyahbinghi been on their unwritten policy of not attending funerals, that they stayed away from the funeral rites for prominent Rastafarians such as Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Dennis Brown, Jacob Miller - all internationally acclaimed entertainers - and Sam Brown, aging pioneer and elder of the Rastafari community who died in 1998.

From all over Jamaica, members of the Rastafari brethren poured into the Dovecot Memorial Chapel near Spanish Town, St Catherine, filling the sanctuary to capacity and overflowing onto the expansive grounds, for the memorial service for departed Rastafari matriarch (mother), Sister Rema Veronica Sappleton on January 21.” (Jamaica Observer - January 26, 2004)

This represented a significant break in the Rasta tradition of 'let the dead bury their dead'. The signs are evident, clarity and consensus is required on this matter.

Rasta Today

Today the evidence suggests that Jamaican society and much of the world has subsumed the social theory of Rasta. This process is being articulated and motivated by Afri-centric persons who, though inspired by Rasta, do not necessarily share the Rasta religion. They use their knowledge of history, politics, economics, branding, marketing, media and education, seasoned with the spirit of Rastafari. Twenty years ago I proposed that if a Rasta Intelligentsia did not emerge and take hold of the transformation process, "then Rastafari would move from being the most powerful ideological force in Jamaica to take its place beside, if not behind the other systems of escape, ignorance or solace that influence the ... lives of our people". I still hold this view today Rasta in Jamaica today is much less of a cultural force than it was 30 years ago.

Could this be the reason why the consistent greeting and refrain of the Rastaman in the first 30 years of ‘peace and love’ has transitioned to ‘Blessed’, and now given way to the confrontational ‘fyah bun’ of the last 10 years? It is quite possible that Rastafari has fulfilled its promise and is now a spent force, one that can only be further utilized by Afro-centric individuals who are able and willing to go beyond the dictates and limitations of religion, any religion. It is possible that the UWI conference: “Negotiating the African Presence: Rastafari Livity and Scholarship” could be a critical catalyst in this process. If this is not possible then it may be concluded the Rasta has lost its way.