THE
RASTA PAGE
This is the story of two men
who started with big ideas and finished, one dead in obscurity and
the other dead in his own palace.
The first main player was
Marcus Moziah Garvey who was born in Jamaica in 1887 and believed in
little more than having a good time. He left school at 14, became
known as Marcus, got a job as a printer, organised a strike, left his
job as a printer (understandably), travelled through Central and
South America, went to England then returned to Jamaica where he
founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and The
African Communities League (ACL). And he was only 27. Unfortunately
for young Marcus no one seemed to care about UNIA and ACL so he
packed his bags again and headed north to the land of the free.
He settled in New York City,
reinvented the UNIA, started his own printing press and produced a
newspaper especially for the Negro population called, somewhat
unimaginatively, 'The Negro World'. He founded 'The Black Star Line'
and 'The Negro Factories Corporation', opened a chain of restaurants,
laundries, grocery stores and a hotel. These were the good times, and
he was only 32. These altruistic business schemes were designed to
give back some pride and self respect to the exploited black
community and by 1920 Marcus claimed that two million of America's
finest (black people) had joined the UNIA club.
Garvey's cause became widely
known as The Back to Africa Movement and had its greatest day in 1920
when Marcus Garvey, or 'Black Moses' as he preferred to be called,
presided at an international rally where he led a parade of 50,000
misanthropic black folks through the streets of Harlem with black
power anthems ringing in their ears and prophesies of a black power
revival throbbing in their hearts. And Marcus was still only 33.
Then came the bad times. In
1922 Marcus was indicted for fraud, served two years of a five year
sentence before being deported back to Jamaica as an undesirable
alien and found himself right back where he started. He tried to
resurrect the UNIA (again) but no one seemed to care (again) so he
packed his bags and moved to London (again) where no one cared at all.
Back in Kingston, Jamaica a
commune had been started by one of Garvey's most outspoken supporters
Leonard Howell. Len's idea of whipping up support was to advocate
black supremacy and actively encourage white persecution. He had only
just managed to publish his six (black supremacy, anti-white)
principles when he was arrested and thrown in jail for two years.
Marcus Garvey died in 1940
but no one (in London anyway) really noticed. Len Howell got out of
jail, restarted his commune but in 1941 fell foul (again) of the
police and the alleged two million followers now had no one to
follow, no where go and very little to believe in. Until, that is,
they heard of Tafari Makonnen.
Tafari Makonnen, the second
main player, was born on the 23rd of July in 1892 near Harer in
Ethiopia. His father was chief advisor to the Emperor Menelik II of
Ethiopia and young Tafari was quick to learn that a home education,
when home is the Emperors palace, can be a distinct advantage to a
young lad with ambition. When Lij (a sort of pre-prince title) Tafari
became Ras (a real prince) Tafari and started to impress the Emperor
with his modern ideas he was soon allowed to take charge of a couple
of outlying provinces, reduce the power of local leaders, increase
the power of central government and even lay the foundations for a
new government department of bureaucracy to be known as the civil
service. The grateful Emperor showed his gratitude by allowing Ras
Tafari to marry his great granddaughter. And Prince T was only 19.
When Menelik II went the way
of all Emperors in 1913 his place was taken by his grandson Lij Yasu
who only lasted three years before the Christian majority, under the
control of the now mature Prince Tafari, swept aside his youthful
Islamic tendencies. Zauditu, Menelik's daughter, was next to try her
hand at running the empire and prudently appointed the dependable
Tafari as her regent and heir apparent. Tafari happily settled into
the role of a foreign ambassador and travelled to London, Paris and
Rome and in 1923 he successfully negotiated entry for Ethiopia in the
League of Nations.
In 1928 he boldly assumed the
title of King and when Zauditu died two years later, Ras Tafari
happily took on the title and position of His Imperial Majesty
Emperor Haile Selassie I, Lion of Judah, and Emperor of Ethiopia. It
was a good day for Tafari, and he was only 38.
Ras Tafari was the first
Ethiopian ruler to travel outside his own country, he was good
looking, charismatic, resourceful and black. He was the sort of man
that got noticed. He was a man to inspire patriotism. A man with a
cause. A man to lead. He was in fact the embodiment of Black Africa,
had a good sounding name and was just the man that two million black
Jamaican / American were looking for. Unfortunately, another man with
a cause was also looking at Haile Selassie, not to follow, but to destroy.
Benito Mussolini had founded
the Fascist Party in Italy, made himself absolute dictator and by
1935 was on the lookout for a nice easy country to invade to prove
that he was as important as he thought he was. He looked no further
than Ethiopia. Haile Selassie bravely led the resistance for a few
months but as numbers overwhelmed the home side, self preservation
seemed preferable to heroic death and England offered a safe place to
plan a come back campaign. It was only a few years before The Lion of
Judah came bounding back to Ethiopia with some heavy British
firepower and by 1941 the Italians were on their way home again and
the rightful Emperor was back in his palace.
The black folks back in
Jamaica, America and now Australia and New Zealand saw the revengeful
Lion as the champion of all the (black) races and the saviour of
their (black) honour and it was a short step in the human / God
evolutionary chain for the newly inspired followers to elevate Ras
Tafari to the position of Messiah and for the followers to take the
name Rastafarian. Naturally, the newly inspired expected nothing less
than a full repatriation, with honours, back to the African heaven
that they knew they richly deserved. Heaven, to the Rastafarians
actually is Ethiopia and hell, like the after-life, conveniently does
not exist.
Back in Ethiopia and aware of
his obligations, Selassie had to start the Empire building process
all over again. He quickly re-established himself leader and when, in
1963, he played a major role in establishing 'The Organisation of
African Unity', his dreams, and those of the Rastafarians seemed to
be coming true. But again, the good times were about to turn bad for
the All African Hero. In the mid-60's the spectre of war with
Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan became reality and civil service
corruption caused rampant inflation and severe unemployment. Famine
followed drought, strikes and demonstrations were common and on the
12th of September 1974 Haile Selassie I, The Lion of Judah, Messiah,
Incarnation of God (or Jah to the Rastafarians) was ignominiously
replaced by a provisional military government and sent back to his
palace. He was 82. A year later the verdict of 'death by natural
causes' was announced without medical or legal confirmation or any
independent witness. To many people of course, strangulation, poison
or a bullet in the head were seen as a perfectly 'natural cause' of death.
Today the Rastafarian
Movement combines various aspects of African religion with various
parts of the Christian Old Testament. Ras Tafari is still considered
the messiah, there is still hope of redemption for the lost tribes of
Israel and Africa is still the Promised Land for the descendants of
the victims of the slave trade. However the sunshine and life style
of the Caribbean has made the desire to launch militant strikes
against the evil white oppressor less attractive with each season
that passes, especially as each season that passes brings a new crop
of Cannabis Sativa (also known as ganja, marijuana, hashish, pot,
weed and grass) which is the acknowledged holy sacrament of all
things Rastafarian.
Most Rastafarians follow a
vegetarian diet, believe that food should be consumed as near to its
natural state as possible and that medicines should be made of herbs
or natural elements. Anyone with a dispute should find a peaceful
solution and the genuine desire for equality, harmony and justice
should be the goals of all good Rastafarians. There is no formal
church-base and no central organisation but there are meetings for
prayer and discussions and of course the sharing of the all-important
holy sacrament