The Background to Rasta and Ethiopianism

From The Book: “What a Life:” 

By Dawit Giorgis 

The Background to Rasta and Ethiopianism 
(Details beginning page 431-449) 

“Don’t Gain The World & Lose Your Soul; Wisdom is Better Than Silver Or Gold” ( Bob Marley) 

In 1979 I headed a team of diplomats to explore first-hand the relationship between the  Rastas and Ethiopia. We travelled to the Dominican Republic, Grenada, the Bahamas, and  Trinidad and Tobago and talked to the Rasta community extensively. Their beliefs were  consistent for the most part, with some variation. People believed that Haile Selassie ( Jah)  was not dead. According to their faith he is in Jerusalem praying for the Black liberation and  will come back as the Messiah to free the Black people all over the world. He abandoned the  throne willingly and he hopes and prays that the new leaders will follow his wishes. The  history of the Rasta movement is about pride in being Black and the relationship of Black  people all over the world with divinity. To be Black was to be divine. Black people were the  direct descendants of Jesus and Haile Selassie is His reincarnation. Haile Selassie is Jah (God)  that is inherent within each human individual. God is not alien. Rastas believe that they  know God and that all Rastas have an inner divinity in themselves. As they say, “God is man  and man is God.” Rastafarianism is «concerned above all with Black consciousness, with  rediscovering the identity, personal and racial, of Black people.”  

From the Caribbean to Africa, reggae music has popularized the Rasta movement wherever  the struggle for freedom and justice reverberates in a mystic way. Its effect is magical as it  tells the stories of sorrow, joy, freedom, and justice. The lyrics are rooted in the struggle of  the African slaves in the Caribbean. They tell the stories of oppression of people in exile and  a longing to go back home to the Promised Land, which is supposed to be Ethiopia. 

Forget your troubles and dance  

Forget your sorrows and dance  

Forget your sickness and dance 

Forget your weakness and dance 

The Rastafarian Jamaican cult is the largest, most identifiable indigenous movement in the  Caribbean which has become the rallying point for the masses in search of social change. It  has spread to North America, Canada, Europe, Africa and South and Central America. Their  hairstyle known as dreadlocks, supposedly adopted from their jungle existence, has become the distinguishing mark of Rasta. Rastas worship His Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie, King of  Kings, Emperor of Ethiopia, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Elect of God whose name  was Teferi Mekonnen and his title Ras when he was a crown prince, hence the Rasta name  from Ras Teferi. For Rastas he is the Jehovah and the country he leads, Ethiopia, the Promised Land, that paradise where Black people will go in the quest for freedom from the  bondage of slavery and exploitation in North America and the Caribbean.  

The Rasta worship of Ethiopia actually begins in ancient Greece, with the historian Diodorus:  The Ethiopians call themselves the first of all men and cite proofs they consider  evident. It is generally agreed that born in a country and not having come from  elsewhere, they must be judged indigenous. … They claim that the gods have  rewarded their piety by important blessings, such as never having been dominated  by any foreign Prince. In fact thanks to the great unity that has always existed among  them, they have always kept their freedom.  

Although Egyptologists have tried to rewrite or distort this very obvious history by insisting  Egyptian civilization was the greatest civilization in history, in Black tradition the word  Ethiopia has come to designate all of Africa including Egypt. The African-Americans and  those Black people in the Caribbean identified themselves as Africans long before their  emancipation. Even in naming the churches they affirmed that they were Africans first. The  Blacks in America and the Caribbean identified themselves differently from the rest of  Americans and their colonizers. During those periods Africa was not playing a role in the  world at all. For all practical purposes Blacks did not have a country and they were up for  grabs by any who had the courage and the power to take them. So Blacks in America and  the Caribbean envisioned their homeland as the biblical Ethiopia. Psalms 68:31 is a much quoted passage: “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands  unto God.” For Rastafarians, Ethiopia will one-day stretch out its hands for the salvation of  Black people everywhere.  

This brought hope to the Black people oppressed as slaves, dehumanized, denied of  identity. For Blacks in the Caribbean and the USA, Ethiopia, the only free Black country, was  like Zion or Jerusalem to the Jews. The Black churches flourished wherever Blacks lived.  

Pan-Africanism is another part of the story. Reverend Edward W. Blyden, a free Black born  on the island of St. Thomas in the Caribbean, was sent as missionary to Liberia in 1850 by  the American Colonization Society. There he created the PanAfrica concept—the solidarity  of the Black race all over the world, whether in Africa or the diaspora—and structured it in a  series of books. He put Black history in proper historical perspective and attempted to  restore the image of Africa as the cradle of humanity and civilization. Blyden was  instrumental in creating Black consciousness. His teachings challenged the myth that Blacks  are inferior and the role of Christianity in echoing this myth. This new concept galvanized  the Black community, bringing a new sense of pride, with churches all over the world  playing the lead role. As a direct challenge to the version of Christianity taught by  Europeans, the Ethiopian church movement was born.  

References to Ethiopia and Black people in the Bible gave strength to this dynamic  movement and energized Blacks seeking freedom from slavery and identification with  Ethiopia. The verse: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” ( Jeremiah 13:23) became a confirmation that being Black was something to be proud of. It was also  generally accepted that Simon of Cyrene who helped Christ to bear his cross was an African  and the Ethiopian eunuch of the Acts of the Apostles was a man of great authority (Acts  8:27).  

This spirit of “Ethiopianism” blossomed through the lectures and writings of Marcus Garvey.  Known as the prophet of African redemption, Garvey was born in 1887 in Jamaica and was  unlike any other Black man of his times. He understood very clearly the worldwide  oppression of Black people and that there was a need to struggle for their liberation. He  took up the challenge and very quickly his charismatic personality created a messianic  movement for Blacks in Jamaica, the US, and Africa. In 1914 he organized the Universal  Negro Improvement Association in Kingston Jamaica, a movement that was meant to  change the self-image of Blacks all over the world. He described it in these words:  

The Universal Negro Improvement Association represents the woes and  aspirations of the awakened Negro. Our desire is for a place in the world not  to disturb the tranquility 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 had problems from both the Black and White middle class in Jamaica so he moved to  the US and operated from there. Though his own country rejected him at the time he later  became a national hero in Jamaica.  

Speaking on the image of God Marcus Garvey says:  

We as Negroes have found a new ideal. Whilst our God has no color, yet it is human  to see everything through one’s own spectacles, and since the white people have  seen their God through white spectacles, we have only now started out (late though  it be) to see our God through our own spectacles. … We negroes believe in the God  of Ethiopia, the everlasting God—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy  Ghost, the one God of all ages. That is the God in whom we believe, but we shall  worship Him through the spectacles of Ethiopia.  

From this statement and his various speeches many churches started teaching about God as  Black. The first were the Church of the Black Madonna in Detroit, the Black Muslims of  America, and the Rastafarians. Marcus Garvey was well read and talked constantly about  Africa, always with Ethiopia as has reference point.  

In one of his strongest speeches he said:  

But when we come to consider the history of man, was not the Negro a power, was  he not great once! Yes, honest students of history can recall the day when Egypt.  Ethiopia and Timbuctoo towered in their civilizations, towered above Europe,  towered above Asia. When Europe was inhabited by a race of cannibals, a race of  savages, naked men, heathens and pagans, Africa was peopled with a race of  cultured black men, who were masters in art, science and literature; men who were  cultured and refined; men who, it was said, were like the gods.

Garvey never visited Africa. His knowledge of it was based on the Bible and colonial  literature. Nevertheless, Ethiopianism spread across the continent like wildfire and its  followers worshiped the God of Ethiopia Who would liberate them all. A “universal Ethiopia  anthem” was written and included in the Declaration of the Rights of the Negro People  adopted in New York in 1920. The lyrics say it all 

Ethiopia, Thou Land of Our Fore Fathers,  

Thou land where the gods loved to be, 

As the 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 victory be glorious  

When led by the Red, Black, and Green.(Green, Yello and Rd) 

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.  

II.  

Ethiopia, the tyrant’s failing,  

Who smote thee upon thy knees,  

And thy children are lustily calling  

From over the distant seas. 

Jehovah, the great one has heard us,  

Has noted our sighs and our tears,  

With His spirit of Love he has stirred us  

To be One Through the Coming Years.  

The coronation of Haile Selassie as King of Kings, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah in  November 1930 is not taken as a secular occasion. For the followers of Marcus Garvey it was  the fulfillment of Garvey’s statement on the eve of his departure to the USA : “Look to Africa  for the crowning of a Black King. He shall be the redeemer.” For many it was also the 

fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of “the coming of the prince” on which the movement is  grounded. 

In 1937 the Ethiopian World Federation was established (EWF) to lobby and solicit aid and  good will for the Ethiopian struggle against Italian colonialism. It was organized by Haile  Selassie and its aim was expressed in the preamble to their constitution:  

We the Black People of the World, in order to effect Unity, Solidarity, Liberty,  Freedom and self-determination, to secure Justice and maintain the Integrity of  Ethiopia, which is our divine heritage, do hereby establish and ordain this  constitution for The Ethiopian World Federation, Incorporated. 

As thanks for their help in fighting Italy, Haile Selassie granted the Ethiopian World  Federation 500 acres of land in Shashameni, for Ethiopians in the diaspora who wanted to  return. The Jamaican Rastafarians got there first, however—about 22 families in total. When  the Dergue came to power, it took the land back and only a few Rastas remain today. 

The most significant incident of this period was when a leading official from HIM was sent  to Jamaica to energize the Rasta movement. A large crowd came to hear him speak and  hopes began to build that some day soon there might be a fleet of ships to take them to  Ethiopia. 

Their beliefs set the Rastas up for disappointment in 1959 when a certain Reverend Henry,  a well respected pastor called the Moses of the Blacks, promised to lead the Black people to  the Promised Land. At one point he distributed a postcard bearing the following statements:  

Pioneering Israel’s scattered children of African origin back home to Africa. This year  1959 deadline date—Oct 5th, this new Government is Gods Righteous Kingdom of  Everlasting Peace on Earth. “Creation’s Second Birth.” Holder of this certificate is  requested to visit the Headquarters at 18 Rosaline Avenue …August 1st. 1959, for  our emancipation Jubilee, commencing 9 am sharp. Please reserve this certificate for  removal. No passport will be necessary for those returning to Africa …‘  

On October 5 hundreds of Rasta collected their bags and travelled to the address in droves  to sail to Ethiopia. They had no passports or any documentation, only their belongings.  People were left stranded at the docks and were later told that it was a misunderstanding.  After some time the government arrested Reverend Henry. 

In 1966 Haile Selassie himself came to Jamaica and that day, April 21, is still celebrated by  the Rastas. An enormous crowd of 100,000 came to the airport to see him. The Emperor  met with some of the religious leaders and as a result, Rastafarianism gained a certain  respectability that helped its spread. 

There are several well-known aspects of Rastafarianism. Marijuana is smoked as an  important part of their religion. The herb popularly known as “ganja” is justified by several  Bible verses: 

“He causes the grass for the cattle, and herb for the service of man” (Psalms 104:14)  “ . . . 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) 

The “holy herb’ has a spiritual significance. A believer would be transformed to a  supernatural reality through its use. A leading Rastafarian explains it:  

Man basically is God but this insight can come to man only with the use of the herb.  When you use the herb, you experience yourself as God. With the use of the herb  you can exist in this dismal state of reality that now exists in Jamaica. You cannot  change man, but you can change yourself by the use of the herb. When you are God  you deal or relate to people like a god. In this way you let your light shine, and when  each of us lets his light shine we are relating a God-like culture and this is the cosmic  unity that we try to achieve in the Ras Tafarian community.  

The second feature is the hair. The dreadlocks on a Rasta’s head symbolize the Rasta’s roots,  supported in the Bible: Leviticus 21:5, “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.”  The way the hair grows comes to represent the mane of the Lion of Judah, a symbolic  connection with Haile Selassie. Dreadlocks have also come to symbolize rebellion against  the system and the “proper” way to wear hair.  

Last but not least, it is essential to emphasize that Rastafarianism has spread across the  world from the early 1970s onward owing to the influence of reggae music and Bob Marley.  Its growth can be attributed to a lesser extent to Jamaican migration, but Marley with his  reggae sound has been the main ambassador, carrying the message of the Rastas to every  continent. Bob Marley was born in the same parish where Marcus Garvey was born. He  toured the world and was adored by many, including White people. It is not well known that  the music is an imitation of the Rastafarian religious drumming known as Nyabinghi music.  Bob Marley was a reggae singer before he became a Rasta. But when he converted, his  reggae hits were the vehicle that sent Rastafarianism around the world. Marley died in 1981  but by then his message reverberated across Africa, Europe and America. His songs were  “songs of sorrows, pleading for redemption.“ Some of his songs were praises to Jah Haile  Selassie, the God of the Black People. 

Here’s are the quotes that Bob Marley included into the lyrics of his song and made  familiar to millions of people: 

“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is  finally and permanently discredited and abandoned…Until there are no longer  first class and second class citizens of any nation…Until the color of a man’s  skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes…Until the basic human  rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race…Until that day, the  dream of lasting peace…will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but  never attained. 

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*REFERENCES to be found in the book

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