Rastafarians Most Laypersons Are Familiar

Rastafarians

Most laypersons are familiar with the Rastafarian movement of Jamaica through the words, music, and image of the popular reggae singer Bob Marley. Lesser know, but still popular heroes of Rastafarianism include such notable figures as Marcus Garvey, Leonard Howell, (often described as the founder of the movement) and Sam Brown, the first openly Rasta politician to be elected to office in Jamaica. However, although the religion is widely known, its origins, beliefs, and tenants are less famous. Many persons still reduce Rastafarianism to a mix of marijuana, music, and crafts, rather than acknowledge its unique status in the history of Caribbean religion. Thus, although he is not a Rastafarian himself, the scholar Leonard E. Barrett performs a considerable service by making Rastafarianism more comprehensible to curious readers outside of the religion.

What were the origins of the Rastafarian movement in Jamaica?

While Barrett pays tribute to the singer Bob Marley's influence in spreading the message of this religion, he notes that it is important to remember that Rastafarianism has its origins into the anti-colonialist movement of Jamaica. Rastafarianism began as a way to offer a non-Western, non-Christian worldview to the people of Jamaica, in contrast to what most Jamaican children were taught in their schools during the first half of the 20th century. It also has its roots as well to the rise of the popular Pan-African ideology that proclaimed the common unity of all Africans oppressed by the forces of European colonialism. Demographically, Rastafarianism sprang from the Black Jamaican lower classes, who were often suffering tremendous poverty and oppression, because they were not part of the elite, pro-British members of the aristocratic and middle classes that had dominated the Jamaican leadership, civil service, and educational systems.

What factors in Jamaican history help to explain the Rastafarian movement?

Jamaica is a large island nation, and retained in its language and culture many original African words and customs in the popular 'street' culture. However, the formal education of most Jamaicans was heavily Anglicized and Jamaican students were taught no national history, only British history. The education system was explicitly Christian as well. This created a kind of divide between Christian and native culture that gave birth to a non-Christian and nationalist form of popular religion. Jamaica's adoption of the British class system amongst its ruling elites created a vibrant, although poor culture who wished to create an religious ideology that could return to Jamaica's original belief systems before the British takeover. The presence of this vibrant lower class gave rise to a unique cultural voice to some Jamaicans who existed outside of the British-dominated institutions of politics, learning, and economic life. Even after Jamaica's independence, British culture was still manifest in many areas of Jamaican life, and the Rasta movement offered a way of connecting with a pre-colonial period of Jamaican beliefs.

What are the important beliefs, practices and ideas that make the Rastafarians different from other Caribbean religions?

Unlike other Caribbean religions, Rastafarianism is an explicitly nationalist creed. It deals with the recent problems created by colonialism and slavery, as a result of White domination in the 20th and now the 21st century. Rastafarianism is located in the 'here and now' in terms of its millennial ideology. Ethiopia and the idea of Ethiopianism underline the messianic "cult" of the Rastafarians who view Haile Selassie, former Emperor of Ethiopia, as a kind of Black Messiah. (Barrett 2) In this worldview, Ethiopia functions as a kind of Israel, as it was one of the few African nations not to be subject to extended periods of colonial control. The Rastafarian cult's ideology is thus a kind of idealized return to origins, but not of the far past, like many native, older Caribbean religions, but the recent past history of the island. It also attempts to connect all Black persons in one common quest to escape the colonial past, rather than focuses on its island of origin's roots, even its oppression alone.

Rastafarianism is called a cult by Barrett not in a pejorative sense, because of its small and inclusive nature, despite its expansive vision of international Black unity. It is endemic to Jamaica, and its members are largely Jamaican but it attempts to speak for all Blacks, rather than remain a particularized sect to Jamaica. The Rastafarianism core belief system is fundamentally universal -- it envisions an end of time, where all Blacks, separated from their home nations because of real or colonial slavery, will be returned to their countries of origins, when the Emperor of Ethiopia judges it to be the correct time for such a seismic shift in the cosmos. (Barrett 68)