'Movement of Jah People' - What can we learn from the origins of Rastafari?


The inception of religion is a fascinating field of study.  It is wondrous how the writings of an often anonymous few, can create a complex social and moral order, which generations of people will live and die by.  The specifics of the formation of religions such as Judaism or Hinduism is lost in the mists of time, it is impossible to determine whether the revelation upon Mount Sinai was a historical event or a mere metaphor.  However, Rastafari, an unconventional Christian sect established in Jamaica during the 1930s, provides a valuable insight into this arena of study as the influences that shaped the ‘Movement of Jah’s people’ are both extremely current and overt.

In the 1930s, Jamaica was flooded with a new breed of religious street preachers.  They were vehement in their condemnation of Jamaica’s ailing colonial government and prejudiced society.  They proclaimed that Christ had returned in the person of the newly crowned emperor of Abyssinia, Halie Selassie I, formerly Ras Tafari, who they claimed would end the subjugation of black people around the world.

Emperor Halie Selassie - 'God incarnate'
The early Rastas reached this conclusion by combining several religious, cultural and intellectual streams of thought. The local religious stream was the historic resistance of British hegemony over worship and its belief in Biblical messianism, leading to an expectation of a future liberator who would bring an end to the marginalisation of blacks. Another stream is the diaspora identification with independent Ethiopia as a symbol of black identity.  This stream is called Ethiopianism, which emerged among blacks in Africa and the diaspora during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Through the discovery of grand African civilisations, practioners of Ethiopianism sought to end the pseudo-concept of Africa as the ‘dark continent’ where nothing but barbarism had existed, until it was colonised and ‘civilised’ by allegedly superior Europeans.  By recalling the neglected historical achievements of Africans, it sustained the hope of a glorious future, where emancipated Africans would finally break the bonds of white domination. The focus on Ethiopia by Rastafari, and subsequently the veneration of Selassie as God incarnate is a legacy of Ethiopianism. 

However, the most powerful stream is the Garvey movement of the 1910s and 1920s, which rallied support for Ethiopianism and Pan-Africanism in black communities throughout the world.  Marcus Garvey’s emphases on black nationalism, repatriation (moving back to Africa) and self-reliance are all cornerstones of Rastafari.  His purported prophecy of the crowning of an African king as an icon for black liberation is a significant factor in why Halie Selassie is identified as the Messiah.  Garvey is accordingly revered as a prophet in Rastafari.  Another stream, interlinked with Garvey’s movement was a rise in black consciousness and activism throughout the Americas after WWI.  Rastafari is part of the same cultural wave that produced the ‘Harlem Renaissance’.  
 
Marcus Garvey
Thus, while Rastafari undoubtedly marks a new stage in Jamaican religion and struggle for self-determination, it falls within a history of resistance to the hegemonic British Empire.  Subsequently, when Selassie ascended to the throne of Abyssinia, many Jamaicans of African ancestry with a history of resistance to white dominance, and influenced by black consciousness currents of the early 20th century were disposed to find racial and religious significance in the coronation of Selassie. 

The powerful political and ethnic factors in the galvanisation of Rastafari suggest that similar influences acted on the development of religions worldwide.  For example, the Roman festival of Saturnalia, shifted the birth of Jesus to the 25th of December, despite experts suggesting he was in fact born in Spring.  Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity and its subsequent adoption by all subjects of the Empire is the reason for the geographical spread of Christendom.  The motives for this were unlikely to have been divine, despite the legends surrounding the Battle of Malvinan Bridge, but political, as the Emperor sought to unite the warring factions of his empire beneath a single God.  
Renaissance painting spiritualising the Battle of Malvinan Bridge


Bibliography

‘Rastafari: A very short introduction’Ennis Edmonds

‘The Fortunes of Africa’ – Martin Meredith





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