Absent Father(s), Garvey's Scattered Children & the Back to Africa Movement*

Jalani A. Niaah

Abstract

This paper provides an introductory discussion of the leadership of the Back-to-Africa Movement in the African Diaspora. Concentrating on the experiences of the Rastafari Movement in Jamaica, it demonstrates the connections between Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa Movement and the Rastafari Movement, particularly in terms of a quest for renewal, wholeness, and for the redemptive power of a re-connection with the Father as a corrective for the dysfunctional families that proliferate as a result of the experience of enslavement in the African Diaspora. Through an examination of the idea of Father in the work of the Rastafarian teacher, the foundation logic of this multilayered concept is engaged in order to determine the extent to which the Rastafari Movement has successfully tackled the problematic developed in the West concerning fatherhood and male leadership in general. The conclusion is that in light of the Movement's work and given its operational context, both the problem of male leadership and fatherhood can best be viewed through Mortimo Planno's analysis. It is argued that Mortimo Planno's reading constitutes a New Faculty of Interpretation that is committed to the project of African Redemption.

Introduction: Returning To Our'selves: Rastafari and the Project of Redemption

"Tell the people to come home. Here their race originated and here it can be lifted to its highest plane of usefulness and honor. Assure them of the cordiality with which I invite them back to the homeland particularly those qualified to help solve our big problem." (Message from His Highness Ras Tafari, 1922 Convention in Hill, 1985, p. 1006)

After this message from Ethiopia, many started to study the movements of the dynamic visionary Prince, Ras Tafari. Amy Garvey was to publish the following year, Marcus Garvey's rendition of a similar message, drawing on the biblical idea of Ethiopia stretching forth her hand and likening the continent to a bereaved mother:

"Africa like a bereaved mother, holds out her hands to America, and implores you to send back her exiled children&what a mystery, when the youthful patriarch, lost to his father, was sold into slavery& Send them home instructed and civilized, imbued with the pure principles of Christianity..." (Garvey, 1923/1986)

Whereas the idea of a return to Africa is not new, one can say that the approaches used in the twentieth century are unique in their global reach and organizational logic. The approach of the Rastafarians is particularly outstanding historically. His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie of Ethiopia provided the first evidence of a systematic embrace by the African continent for members of its Diaspora. In 1922, his Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, as Crown Prince Ras Tafari sent a message to Africans in the West instructing Marcus Garvey to tell the people to come Home to Africa where they could serve their highest purpose. Garvey actively sought to advance this position in the west in the midst of great adversity as presented by the dominant white supremacists and an underdeveloped folk intellectual class. [1] It was not until 1960 when Arthur Lewis became the first West Indian of African ancestry to hold the office of principal of the University College of the West Indies, (UCWI), that the office demonstrated any evidence of West Indian academic advancement on the issue of returning the captive children of Africa to her bosom. Arthur Lewis wrote to the Premier, Norman Manley, requesting urgent action on the part of the government to assist the Rastafari Brethren in Our struggle for human dignity and recognition. Thirty eight years later, in a keynote address to a Conference celebrating the work of key Rastafarian Elders, Rex Nettleford, the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, describes the Rastafarian movement as follows:

"Of all the people who have been fighting for Human Dignity, for Black Dignity, and justice to People of African ancestry the Rastafarian are the only ones who have made the kind of quantum leap that all civilization must make, in terms of determining its own God, its own image and this is a fantastic development and this of course is not usually understood. When we did the Report' in 1960, we were regarded as blasphemous&They have lived to eat their words, Thank God", (Nettleford, 1999).

The culture of the Movement sustained millions who choose to identify with its livity [2] as well as the words of Rastafari have literally created food for millions of people connected to the production and dissemination of Reggae music. The human dignity expounded and articulated by international governments and non-governmental organization still eludes the majority of us African people. It is the Rastafarian movement that has pioneered its reinstatement among the grassroots and at the level of popular consciousness (See Nettleford, 1972/1999 and Chevannes, 2003). For Nettleford, this contribution of the Rastafarians towards securing basic rights for Africans generally is usually misunderstood. One of the Movement's most distinguished leaders, Mortimo Planno, speaks to his basic Human Right to hold opinions by claiming that "God allows us &to say all we do of Haile Selassie I&" Planno further provides a fitting context around which to engage this new interpretation of God as a central part of the Movement's claim within his concept of a New Faculty of Interpretation':

"Them say the pope, him infallible. We Rasta man say Haile Selassie is infallible - the pope is no King, this whole warfare is to protect the King - not to make Him checkmate that is our part of the whole [thing] (Planno,1998)

The papacy, perceived as the seat and centre of Western Christian power is here highlighted. Conventional wisdom in the Movement is that the papacy is historically in contestation with Ethiopia, the centre of African Orthodox Christianity. Jamaican folk often say that "belief kill and belief cure", (that is belief' like faith' has the ability to injure/kill or to heal or cure). At the heart of Planno's reasoning is a need therefore to deconstruct this belief system now ingrained as part of a Caribbean worldview. This worldview recognizes that people are socialized and governed so as to believe in Our Father, Our Lord Our God and Our King. The irony is as Chevannes points out, that the activism around the preaching of God and His revelations could be viewed as madness, because one is also socialized to believe that one cannot touch or feel God (Chevannes, 2002). Planno immediately enters into the belief system of the people and some of the accepted ideas by which they conduct their lives. He enters the realm of the mind with this argument, his project being to overthrow the slavish ideas that are deeply embedded in society but especially damaging among the poorly educated and oppressed Black majority. The presentation of them versus we Rasta man also is instructive as it helps to personalize the concept of the nature of our struggle as Africans in this warfare, which for him is perpetuated through the papacy headquartered in the Vatican. This belief system locates its ideas in its ability to see and discern for itself, and through this ability dismissing them and their belief in the infallible pope, while asserting we Rasta man' evidence of the promised Messiah in Emperor Haile Selassie I, the King of Kings. Planno provides a picturesque visual schema with which to understand the reality of the system under which Babylon holds its captives by using the game of chess. He illustrates the nature of the reality, the characters, the Powers, and Principalities, role play, and the experiences. Lastly he identifies our part in this game, that being "to protect the King¬ to make Him get checkmate". Planno's thesis is that there is a system in place, an inevitable them against we, and that in this system, Haile Selassie is we Rasta man choice over the pope.

Rastafari has emerged as one of the most identifiable and highly visible movements of Jamaica and is seen as a mouthpiece of the African Liberation struggle. Horace Campbell (1987) identifies Rastafari as one of the most significant movers and shapers of Pan African ideas, even more so than Pan Africanism as an intellectual movement. Despite its marginal status, Rastafari has managed to sustain an evolving current of Pan African philosophy and praxis for much of the last century. In recent times, a wealth of literature has developed seeking to track and record this World African Resistance phenomenon. Many persons, including Ethiopians, find it difficult to understand the logic' of the Rastafari Movement, especially as it defines our' roles' and place' in African society today. A key difficulty for outsiders is Rastafari philosophy developed around Ethiopia and its legendary Priest King, manifested in the person of Emperor Haile Selassie 1st.

If the Bible be transposed on existing reality then it is apparent that the Rastafarian life' since heralding the King of Kings, has become a living testament of that which is prophesied of the coming of the Almighty Savior God. To support this claim Elders such as Brother Planno, Bongo Watto, Everald Brown, Brother Shaggy, persons who use their lives to demonstrate the prophetic nature of Rastafari, become a necessary and compelling source for understanding some of the logic - perhaps even the inner logic - of the Movement's Back-to-Africa aspirations. Their ideas, visions, and aspirations represented through this Movement, have developed into a global framework/ vehicle for emancipation, the philosophies evolved by ordinary folk' to refashion the reality encountered in the world. This discourse is woven from the individual and collective testimonies of the Rastafari experience, through the facility of the Elders.

Exploration of various related concepts

"How good and how pleasant it would be, before God and man, yeah, to see the unification of all Africans yeah.

As it's been said already, let it be done, Yeah

We are the children of the Rasta man&

we are the children of the higher man"

Africa Unite, Bob Marley

The Patriarchs or the founding Elders of the Movement interpretation from Garvey's messages concerning Ethiopia began the liberation discourse by adopting the Amharic words Ras Tafari as new words for God. The following is an exploration of some terms as they relate to core ideas evolved by the Movement.

Ras Tafari: The Amharic words Ras Tafari, or "head creator" - "Head", defined as the position or place of leadership, authority or honor, a person to whom others are subordinate as in leader or chief; "Creator", construed as - the Almighty Father that brings all into being, the maker of the Universe, God rendered as JAH. These two ideas embodied in the concept of RasTafari have come to be widely embraced globally as a foundation of the modern critique of colonialism and neo-colonialism. The interpretation of the meaning and significance of the name Ras Tafari' is an important foundation if not one of the core insights of the Rastafarian faith, which holds the philosophy that word-sound is Power. Emerging from the Character bearing this name RasTafari, a Movement has developed bearing His name. Rastafari identify this as fulfillment of the Revelation which speaks of God's name being in their foreheads (Rev. 22:4). To further explicate the nature of The Rastafari movement, once more, we look to Planno's who talks of Rastafari as "an organism". "A Movement not a stayment'&." [3] He identifies the Rastafarian as the Earth Most Strangest Man, based on the observations that he has come to see professed and engaged by those who identify themselves and are identified as Rastafarians. He further expounds:

"We are a visionary movement who believe in the religious aspect of His Majesty Haile Selassie being the returned Messiah. (the movement derives its name from Ras Tafari - Haile Selassie's name as a prince) &we got this belief from the direction of Marcus Garvey pointing the vision to us." (Planno, 1979)

Peter Tosh defines Rastafari through some choice words: progress, love and light (Tosh, 1997). Crucial to the Movement and those identified within it is a philosophy, a system of reasoning and understanding which Chevannes identifies as a gateway into critical thinking within the folk paradigm (Chevannes, 2001b.). The Rastafari Movement is therefore - for the purposes of this work - viewed as an African liberation' force emerging in Jamaica around 1928-32, concentrated around the leadership of the King of Kings, Emperor Haile Selassie I. Those "ones" who hold this consciousness also hold claim to an understanding of themselves as Ethiopian/Africans and construct their lives around the constant striving to return to their African homeland. This is often, especially in older literature referred to as the Back to Africa Movement. [4]

The principle of Repatriation within the cosmology of Rastafari is an aspect of the necessary repair of a breach. It covers a spectrum of ideas related to Back-to-Africa. It has taken on added significance and meaning especially since the granting of land, Shashamanie in Ethiopia, the proverbial Promised Land, by Emperor Haile Selassie as a reward to those who supported Ethiopia during the Italo-Ethiopian war (1935-41). Repatriation however goes back to the earliest experience of African transplantation from the African Continent - it is a part of the Caribbean Folk marronage philosophy. This philosophy has been connected to an oral memory, African-rooted, developed and espoused by peoples who hold a strong attachment to the land. Often the meaning of repatriation is interpreted to embody two elements, the spiritual and the physical. What is not enough emphasized is that both constitute components which have to operate in tandem and that the developments of repatriation within Rastafari represent a strong actualization of that progressive work through faith in the physical movement. Within the word Repatriation is the nuanced idea of a Return to the Way of the father. This is perhaps the most familial and hence poignant reading of the concept. Such a reading affords us a deep probing of the question: What is this way of the father?

The message sent by Haile Selassie to the Universal Negro Improvement Association's 1922 Convention in New York, aptly describes the essential principle surrounding the idea of Repatriation. Haile Selassie in that gesture immediately becomes a fraternal anchor for Africans abroad. This invitation to the scattered Africans' was a huge opportunity for engagement for populations that had been severed from their source for centuries. In the emerging social debate on decolonization,' repatriation was seen by some as a repudiation of the nascent Jamaican statehood. The prevailing attitude in the island can perhaps be best explained through Lindsay's "Myth" (1981), where it is suggested that the mother country' had constructed her institutions' as civilizing symbols so well that the colony's only ambition was to inherit the mantle and mandate of the alien mother. Neither Norman Manley nor Alexander Bustamante, the two mulattoes who would lead and politicize the popular movements after the demise of Garvey, placed the issue of Repatriation on the national agenda officially, and hitherto, the government of Jamaica is yet to officially do so. The state visit of Haile Selassie I to Jamaica in 1966 is therefore a powerful demonstration of the Movement's visionary integrity and logic as it served to confirm the Emperor's embrace of the brethren. Indeed the Rastafarian brethren contend that the "polluticians' [politicians] are selling us out" for their own self-serving interest despite the obvious logic of the Movement's approach. Tekla Mekfet, a Rastafarian Teacher, also expounds on the concept of Repatriation in an insightful way. Mekfet emphasizes the meaning of Repatriation as a Return to the ways of Father', pointing out that it is a consistent image and aspiration in the history, which is also evidenced in the Bible, and interpretable in a phenomenon such as suicide among slaves during the colonial era. Between Lindsay and Mekfet there is a great void, a breach which is in need of repair [5]. White mother myths perpetuate this breach, preventing the development of the understanding of the concept of returning to the ways of the Black father. The unintended image is the implied orphan child, the colony / scattered African who can only be anchored externally, through its white European mother's myths or the hidden, real, but missing link of its black Ethiopian father.

The concept of teacher' is a reading of father offered as simple explanation for the key role played by the Rastafarian ideologues such as the early patriarchs' of the Movement (Howell, Hinds, Hibbert and Dunkley). There is evidence in the designation of Teacher' throughout the Movement's history. One such as Joseph Hibbert for example is still referred to by those who knew him as Teacher Hibbert' and this teacher' was invoked by the founding patriarch of the Rastafari movement Leonard Howell who described himself as Gangunguru Maragh', or teacher of famed wisdom/ teacher of what is good (Hill, 2001), and rendered by the folk who followed him as the Gong' - as in "to have awakening resonation" [6]. Bob Marley, who emerged some forty years after the Movement's formation, was to take on the title Tuff Gong' in continuation of this tradition of what one could call oral resonance', and he too could be viewed as a teacher' - perhaps one of the twentieth century's most outstanding ones - teaching the illiterate millions the liberation message. Marley's practice drew on a system of thinking and interpretation which was provided for him and others largely from the Rastafari movement with Mortimo Planno and a few other key elder teachers constituting his closest circle.

What was the lesson taught by the Elders? Planno, who has been connected to the University since its inception in 1948, describes himself as a Karmanic thinker, and then proceeded to explain, by example, that he sat in council with Bob Marley 2000 years ago. Immediately the parallel with the image of Christ and the context of his experience in effecting the revolution from which Christianity was produced is conjured up in the imagination. Bob the son, manifesting his work, in honor of his spiritual father. It is this ability and even audacity possessed by the Rastafarian which was taught by the elders. It is the re-membering of the African Nation, the re-establishment of the familial network, that view of the Most Holy Family in Africa, our Father afore, Abba, who teaches all who may come, how to live.

Preaching' and teaching of the Divinity of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie are seen as the embodiment of the core faith of this visionary Movement because the emergence of this Emperor is believed to be the fulfillment of the Prophesies of Repatriation/Redemption. These two basic indicators are important cornerstones of the Movement's philosophy or attitude to life, and further these ideas are seen as pillars around which the work of the Movement's teachers is built. Key teachers are identified through their works, and especially viewed through their students' works. The teachers are seen as repairers of the breach caused by "head decay shun" - the onomatopoetic rendition of education', which is viewed as having a head-decaying' effect on people who passed through this system. The Rastafarian teacher is thus presented as the transformer activist, creator, server/ social savior, constituting a revolutionary nexus in their communities on a continuum of self empowerment and change. The teacher is the creator of the revolution of culture, as a basic ingredient in the methodology of mental liberation. Through them ones' are transformed back to themselves', based on the praxis of Reasoning' or informal gatherings for social and intellectual exercising, a means of viewing ones' situation and examining reality and strategizing a way forward.

There is the commonly held view within the Movement that each one teach one'. The teaching/knowledge identified by this study relates to the ability/facility to inculcate within ones, a system of empowerment. Planno's residence in Trench Town nicknamed the "Fifth Street University", courted all who came, scholars and researchers from around the world. This environment provided rich critical thought for iconoclastic work and knowledge building, in the opinion of many notable researchers. This experience from Trench Town in constructing a vision of African Liberation can be of great benefit to African knowledge systems. Planno in this instance is not regarded as a mere teacher but indeed, as an institution himself, generating, disseminating and archiving knowledge and creating a space for the business of liberation thinking. [7]

Folk ideas like unsung heroes are generally undervalued and quite often misunderstood by the officials' in the societies from which they emerge. Often their sophisticated solutions are ignored because of their obvious simplicity. In this regard, even after one hundred years of Pan African activism, there is still the absence of a constructive engagement or the development of an acceptable' paradigm and vision of leadership within Diasporan African discourses. Absent fathers, Garvey's Children and the Back to Africa Movement comes as an interpretation, in a bid to review the idea', perhaps even the inner logic', of one of the African Diaspora's most successful revolutionary practices. It speaks to an African reality which has been perverted and underrated within the context of the Caribbean (Carry Beyond), as the male backbone of these societies has been configured and reconfigured in order to meet with the challenges of struggle and survival in the Diaspora.

The Father, absent and significantly disfigured by the experience of colonialism is here refocused to determine how it is that he has survived in this staging' between the forces of progressive resistance and those of systemic domination and destruction. The idea of absent father especially when viewed in its greatest concentration of Jamaica's population - Kingston's inner-city ghettoes, challenges the imagination to conjure up ideas of Port Royal, the reputed "wickedest city on earth", which makes the work of the Movement become most significant. What does this say of the role and place of the movement of Rastafarian within that locus from which they affected the world? When viewed in the context of the work of Ras Tafari, "Absent Father(s) Garvey's Scattered Children and the Back to Africa Movement" comes in the context of a socio-historical analysis drawing on the methods of Cultural Studies to historicize a Caribbean people's thought and praxis as it relates to theorizing on Progressive Resistance'. Bob Marley was one who was able to congeal the story of Capture in Africa, which he describes as being stolen from Africa, sold in the Americas, fighting on Arrival for survival. Male absence is evident at 3 levels, these being: the continental depletion of male population (the male to female ratio imported during slavery was 2:1); the institutional (psychological) destruction of the male / father figure, as the white planters became the surrogate father(s) and with respect to the peoples of the Anglo- Caribbean, where the white sovereign of Britain became the Mother country as well as the post Independence ethos of Father and Family among the African Jamaicans, being increasingly defined in urban margins with high incidence of female dominance within the household.

Whilst the educated elites placed their faith in western scholarship to find legitimacy, the intellectuals among the folk searched Africa. The assertion of an African identity and a scholarly critique of colonialism were for the first time given Imperial support through the unique African leadership provided by Haile Selassie. The character of Ras Tafari, publicly crowned His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Emperor of All Ethiopia on November 2, 1930, is one which has only been fully' proclaimed by visionaries in particular the Rastafarians who see Him and hail Him as the Godhead, the All Mighty Father Jah Rastafari. This idea and its emergent ontological pathways have made one of it leading thinkers and teachers Mortimo Planno (1996) view the Rasta man, as "the Earth Most Strangest Man", and then he goes further to call for a new faculty of interpretation to interpret this society. While Planno calls for new interpretation, he acknowledges that the Rastafarians - drawing on ancient traditions based on the faith held by members of the Movement, constitutes the important New Faculty of Interpretation'. The genesis of this New Faculty of Interpretation can be identified as pre-dating World War II but especially active during and after the war. This "Earth Most Strangest Man" had to find himself. The simple logic of this new way was founded on the very idea of the Christian teachers who taught of the word becoming Flesh.

In Jamaica the words of Emperor Haile Selassie became a source of inspiration - by the 1950s a distinct national Movement was noticeable, attracting academic, legal and colonial scrutiny. By the late 1960s this Movement had fine-tuned its approach into one whose philosophy was transmitted through music that captured the ear-waves and spoke to the youth worldwide, especially to those who saw themselves as oppressed. In 1960 the University College of the West Indies undertook to survey the Rastafarian Movement in Kingston to help to interpret the Movement's ideas to the public and government. This was a period of confrontations and hostile encounters between the supporters of the Movement and especially the representatives of the law. The Movement was a symbol of new enlightenment, a neo-resistance against systemic colonial repression geared at keeping docile and compliant the "loyal" colonial subjects.

The combined attack and repression of the Rastafarian movement by the colonial authorities, as well as Jamaican class prejudice had rendered the sensitive' academic work undertaken by the UCWI in 1960 absolutely necessary. This was the perception of leading members of the Movement - leaders such as Sam Brown, Mortimo Planno, and Bongo Watto, who sent a letter to the Principal Arthur Lewis, inviting the University's help in the articulation the Movement's case. The brethren concluded that someone like Arthur Lewis, who had worked in Ghana, was experienced enough to give the type of intellectual treatment the Movement's claim required. The wider society had failed to see the inner logic of the Rastafarian claims. Lewis pulled together an eclectic multidisciplinary team to survey and report findings, which were then communicated to the Government for urgent action. This was followed by two tours of Africa, based on the university's recommendations to the Government of Jamaica, to explore the logistics of Repatriation by way of a fact finding and technical mission to five African countries. Why is it that the Return of people back to their homeland so infected and invigorated people that a new Ethiopianism' emerged as a social Movement? This question is crucial for a true understanding of what the Rastafari movement represents to Jamaica.

Chevannes posits that storytelling is what we do at the University while also saying that Rastafari is the Memory of the Jamaican people. (Chevannes, 2001a; 1999b) These two prisms if viewed in light of the work of Chevannes' as well as other scholars (including Nettleford et al, Campbell, Rodney, and Yawney), place the Rastafarian movement at the centre of the project of construction of Diasporan History, particularly as it concerns African Redemption. The stories of the Rastafarian movement hold cultural and historical value. In charting history' through the epistemological framework of the Movement, we are given the ability to see history as local networks connected to global webs/'networks of ideas, actors and events.

The problematic of dysfunctional families and the marginalization of the male father figure is a lingering schema in Jamaican society, and perhaps one of the greatest legacies of European Colonialisms. Chevannes ascribes the problem to our own actions when he reminds us that "what we sow is what we reap". He outlines the predicament of our society as follows:

"One of the charges leveled against Jamaican men is their sexual irresponsibility. Not only do they not stick to one partner, but they also run from commitment and from paternity. The number of single mothers is proof enough: the fathers have abandoned their responsibility. That is why, in this country, it is the women who father their children. The men who stick to one partner, who acknowledge paternity and live up to their responsibility as fathers are the few exceptions&" (Chevannes, 1999)

Who are these few exceptions? This absent father' feature has deep socio-historical roots. The Rastafari movement has supplied the engagement of this problematic faced by the African Diasporan Family in a critical and transformative way. It is here argued that the Rastafarians are an exception to this general perception of the Jamaican male (see Levy, 1996, pp. 10 & 31). They provide a Revolutionary cosmology in the way that the Movement represents a fundamental position of a return of the father, through his physical presence and involvement in the social sphere; as well as a return to the African homeland. This is the essence of the embrace of the Ethiopian Godhead, Haile Selassie I, as well as the claims to Repatriation, which the Movement makes.

Additionally, in the construction of this cosmology the Rastafari Brethren have claimed the common Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man, in the way in which Marcus Garvey described the African as worshiping God through the spectacles of Ethiopia. But, perhaps most importantly, the Movement manifests the idea of the dispersed African as a modern expression of the captive children of Israel referred to by the Old Testament prophets who articulated visions of the release of the captive children in Babylon and their return to the life of righteousness. In the twentieth century the Rastafarians have applied the Bible's so-called rhetoric literally, demanding that the North "give up" and the "South to keep not back" as the liberators work to bring the "sons from far, and daughters for the ends of the earth". This vision of a Return to the land of Our' father required the awakening of the hearts of the fathers, and to focus on what the Old Testament prophet Malachi referred to as the day of the Lord, to see how the Great Redeemer would infuse the people with his spirit. Malachi bore witness to the great redemption stating, "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." (Mal. 4:6). The Rastafari movement represents a Return of the scattered and estranged offspring of Africa, the sons and daughters of her soil, to the way of their original foundation, the All Mighty Father Creator / Mother Africa.

A Return to Addis Abba, to Our Fada, Masa Gad, Rasta

"&failings in the past, present and future will be through our failures to know ourselves and realize the true functions of man on this mundane sphere&" (His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I)

What is the "true function of man on this mundane sphere"? In this tropical belt of the Western hemisphere, thinking on African Diasporicity, its foundation and logic is not immediately translatable into grassroots empowerment and activism by the intellectuals, Rodney's The Groundings with my Brothers being perhaps one of the few exceptions. When the historical development of the Rastafari Movement is examined, it provides useful insight into the evolution of a collective cultural vision of the phenomenon of Diasporicity, and puts forward a view of Redemption, and how it is that that this project can be achieved based on the history and culture of the scattered Africans. And so Marcus Garvey's mobilization of the dispersed Africans' consciousness was but only one important starting point for work which is still in progress.

The emergence of the Rastafari Movement marked a new direction to the ideas of Garvey as far as an immediate engagement of the system through its preaching of a mental disengagement' from the oppressive colonial administration and an embrace of the kind favor of the African Redeemer King. This was the achievement of Howell at Pinnacle, his self-sufficient Rastafari encampment in the hills of St Catherine, where the foundation logic of the Movement's modus operandi and doctrine were established. The Rastafari Movement's message of liberation quickly caught on, its converts felt empowered to reason and preach out his position in society. Never before had the ideas of a return to Africa held such a supreme place in popular folks' consciousness. The idea of a return to Africa was viewed by the Colonial administration as extremely subversive in potential. It is this concept related to returning to Africa that the traditional academics have failed to sufficiently engage, so much so that Marcus Garvey's cry for mental liberation is still echoed (almost as a cliché) today as demonstrated by Bob Marley in song (Bob Marley, Redemption Song'). The society sees itself operating as a dysfunctional system, with crime and violence as the normative behavior, inherited by the present generations.

"Marcus Garvey wi fada&help wi find fi wi Africa&"

Garvey, while commenting on the "retrograded" individuals he now encountered, describes the context of the Diasporan African as one where it was "&impossible to find a real man" (Garvey, 1986, pp. 24-25). With the exception of Marcus Garvey's work, there is little evidence to suggest that Jamaican scholars understand the inner logic of the project of African Redemption. Marcus is often interpreted as a John the Baptist character. In the face of the colonial empire - he anchored his project in the US and embarked on the rebuilding of the Scattered African nation and spirit through the Universal Negro Improvement Agency. Garvey asked crucial questions such as: How has man changed since creation? Garvey's critique of the negro', the Black man in the Americas' provided a point of introspection for those questioning their position in the world. The early publication of his Philosophies and Opinions' provided a unique document that could be considered a liberation text for his growing web of awakened Africans.

In the virtual absence of other early Jamaican scholarship, and the relative silence of the educated elite on the issue of the resettlement of the enslaved African, it is the so-called illiterate', or the organic intellectual' among the African Diasporan folk who have re-directed their angst toward charting a course to re-humanize' Marcus Garvey's children. There is then no choice but to interrogate sources which are non-scribal to give an account of the experience of that large section of the Jamaican Caribbean population that is treated marginally in the academic literature and dismissed as composed of Afro-centric fanatics, escapists and lunatics by their societies. In this approach, what immediately becomes apparent is that the source of folk scholarship is the culture which it creates. In the realms of thinking on liberation, the music has been one of the most vocal, succinct and sustainable discourses. It could be argued that Marcus Garvey was resurrected through the music of Rastafari, particularly the music of Burning Spear.

This notion of the resurrection of Garvey leads us to the issue of the African Presence and the role of Rastafari, the Movement's members and ideas in providing thoughtful leadership' to the Jamaican People about the vision of Africa. Planno (1996) once more provides us with some insight through which we may begin to discern the logic of the Movement's approach to Redemption. He reminds us that the memories of slavery live on in the blood even of the unborn children, and that the psychology of the society constructed in slavery, has few concerns for the harmony and balance in Creation.

Historically within the Jamaican Family, the fathers disappeared, since children belonged to owners of estates and were given these planters' surnames, and in essence a new history. The absence of the biological father is experienced in the society through the fifty to seventy percent of the Jamaican population born to single mothers, many of whom lack support of the male parent. This absent father, this "retrograded man" is thus evolved through the interplay of culture, history, violence, and "polite violence" [8], creating a nature' among the Jamaican male which renders them officially marginal to childrearing responsibilities. The men are also considered absent from society due to their invisibility in domestic and day to day issues. The male figure often attests to looking for work, a place to live, and food. Often he is a migrant from the country into the city in search of opportunity, often also opting to migrate (to North America and Europe) in search of a way of sustaining himself and his family. Many are forced into illegal activity. The transience of male life produces further social complications, demonstrated by Planno's analogy of Miss Rainbow, a woman who loses all the men she encounters, while left with a brood of children (for these absent men) with a spectrum of surnames such as Brown, Green, Gray, Black etc. In a society based on the overarching Christian' teachings under the colonial mind, such a woman and her family would face a continued struggle for survival. Society would also judge her as indecent based on her repeated misfortune with men.

Rastafari reject Babylon, which means among other things, that they reject the brutal logic of gun culture, violence and death in favor of the image of a new man. In this regard, the exponents of the Movement devised the first comprehensive system to arrest the problematic situation of the dispersed African family. This came by way of the construction of a community with an inner logic based on returning the Father to that unit. This was achieved at the spiritual, domestic and community levels, founded on a synthesis of cultural knowledge. Nettleford notes that when the camps were visited as a part of the UWI research, the women were noticeably absent and the men were present with the children. It is in these camps, strewn from Rock Fort in eastern Kingston to Trench Town in western Kingston, that the Rastafarian brethren and their families developed a system of critical thinking for survival. The music industry was a gentler but perhaps, also a more potent way for men to fight the battle for mental liberation, and it was a fight that children could participate in without fear of danger. Bob Marley was able to bring his children into the training camp at 56 Hope Road, and they have emerged with a capacity to carry on their father's work.

Grafting History: A New Faculty of Interpretation

Garvey estimated that left for fifty years undisturbed or unmolested, the comeliness of Africa's children will outshine the age of Solomon. Since the Movement's emergence its development has attempted to claim and assert a demand for Marcus' undisturbed or gestational independence'. The leadership ideas espoused by Rastafari suggest to researchers that there are links between the traditional and current African Presence, combined with information learned from the experience of multiculturalism in the Caribbean. These experiences, which extend from the earliest expressions of Ethiopianism to more recent Pan Africanism and beyond, took on a radical difference with the rising visibility of Ethiopia after the Coronation of Haile Selassie. The most outstanding periods noticeable in the Movement's cultural identity are as follows:

1913-32: Pan Africanism, characterized by the teaching of Africa in the Garveyist Pan African mode. This allowed a positive picture of Africa to take root in the consciousness of the folk. Athlianism with the Holy Piby, as its new gospel emerges in this period. Modern Ethiopianism emerged in the period from 1930-40 with the ascension of Haile Selassie to the throne. This was intensified during the Italo-Ethiopian war which saw Africans globally coming together to defend Ethiopia and her ancient historical past. In Jamaica and North America this translates into Ethiopianist Volunteerism and the action politics of engagement of the society. Jamaica experienced the growth of anti-colonial sentiments which saw riots replicated through the colonial world. There was also the promulgation of the new truth about Rastafari, and a new faith in his name (1940-1954). The social welfare concerns which developed in the inner-city urban environment of the Movement's urban poverty (1955-66) resulted in the development of bases and common areas for meeting, the Ras Tafari Movement, Planno's Local 37' is identified within this label as well as with this period. The growth of the organized activity seen through the Ethiopian World Federation is one of the chief organizational characteristics of this period. Common survival strategies dominate this period in a way which unified many in the urban areas in centers of Rastafari teaching. Music production, the visits of Haile Selassie to the west and Jamaica in particular are highlights of the period. Ultimately by the 1970s the idea of the Rastafarians had become popularized, launching Reggae music to the world through the creativity of its artistes as Ambassadors of Rastafari. For many outside Jamaica Rastafari was the symbol of Jamaica. The maturity of the Movement by the 1980s comes with an understanding of the Universal Liberation and the evidence of continuous work especially facilitated by the extensive travel (near and far by the reggae Messenger of Jah) boldly traveling with the work to the ends of the earth.

Cultural Studies: An Approach

After over seventy years, what Chevannes describes as a "Caribbean worldview" clearly exists within the Rastafari tradition. Unfortunately, the extensive Experience of the Movement, its multi-tasked teaching approach, its history, philosophy, literature, politics, sociology - its Livity' or way of life - all of which have received some measure of scrutiny within the framework of those disciplines have yet to be placed together as a paradigm for integrated research. Cultural Studies provides us with some an eclectic and essential tool with which to view this project.

Cultural Studies, for which a multi-disciplinary approach to research is necessary, brings the inner logic of the Rastafari worldview together, allowing for clearer and more holistic interpretation of the texts. Viewing more, and viewing more sensitively, are part of the requirement for projects in Cultural Studies, and in this Caribbean space it could also be said to be the basis of the formation of returning to ourselves - this culture when viewed by its own creators and p ractitioners becomes part of a project of self articulation.

The ideational and philosophical high points of the Movement's history as a way of viewing how such an organism' of liberation emerges, grows and develops in the face of extreme struggle, persecution and oppression are of key concern. Such events as the 1930 Coronation of the Emperor of Ethiopia; the 1935-1941 Italo- Ethiopia war; the 1938 Riots in Jamaica; the political activism leading to the 2nd world war and especially its peace settlement (which set a new tone for international relations); the 1944 Granting of adult suffrage in Jamaica and the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights; His Majesty's movements towards the west in the decade of the 1950s; the decades of the 1950-70s (and its high points for the Movement's leaders), these and other events reveal interesting patterns of a connected thread - a wave-like motion' of ideas and related events. In particular we see how cultural practices emerged often out of expedience and how this in turn results in cross- fertilization. These events are "glocal" in the sense that they are a combination of the local and global operating in tandem. They show patterns of spiritual bonds, divine threads, which are culturally similar in purpose and direction. [9] To the acknowledge that the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie's work was so well projected so far and wide that Jamaicans hailed him as the Godhead, is to recognize the great contribution of the Emperor's thoughts to the project of re-membering' of self' and the identification with the Ethiopian-African Empire.

Between the contributions made by Rastafari to discourses on the Liberation of African people and the view of Jamaica as home to this mass religion which stands against oppression, it is not far fetched to construe a regard for Jamaica as a Mecca of Pan Africanism with Ras Tafari Faith being the leading sustainable populous (mass) movement emanating from this space. It is to this extent that Sir Arthur Lewis' pronouncement that "we are all Rastas" (Nettleford, 1999) makes sense, since those inhabiting this space are connected to everyone else through the crucible of a common European colonialism which Nettleford invokes as the melody of Europe with the rhythm of Africa (Nettleford, 1972). Rastafari has been acknowledged by reputable authorities as a vocal African Diasporan voice that engages in warring with words for liberation of Apartheid Southern Africa, against nuclear war, crime and violence. But the Rastafarians more than others have actively engaged the oppressive world system from the margins, and agree to hold and represent through wordsound' the feelings, memories, pain, homelessness, poverty, and estrangement because of this Faith'.

Music as a Medium

Music is a significant medium and its text crucial evidence that can be used to identify ideas related to the treatment of Back to Africa and the dissemination of the Movement's ideas. Planno provides an interesting view of the medium of music:

"we decided now to use the POP MUSIC&to take out the E in the POPE and call it POP, and use the POP MUSIC to influence the youth. And if one really looks at the world today you'll see that apart from the seven hundred million Roman Catholics the church boast about, there are more than seven hundred million youth attracted to pop music&" [Planno, 1979]

Bob Marley is a textbook case of the construction of a philosophical weapon through the medium of music. His sentiment of peace and love as well as his advocacy for human rights and liberties - for the advancement of a new civilizing mission' the new hope that the Movement offers is unparalleled in acclaim in our modern epoch. Aside from the selection of "Exodus" as album of the century, his works such as "Confrontation", "Uprising", and "Survival" contain Rastafarian interpretation, philosophy and thought. Many of these works are imbued with cultish and liturgical significance by Rastafarians. [10] Marley's clarity of orature has created almost cultic acclaim related to his ideas and legacy, allowing for his image to be an icon of Rastafari representation as well as a symbol of Caribbean livity.

Marley's historical anthems "Redemption Song" and "Africa Unite" are unambiguous messages of African experience and hope. He envisioned the return of Africans to the native land. More than any other, Marley's work, like that of Marcus Garvey, resounded with the truth of the conditions faced by Africans (as well as other oppressed peoples) all over the world. Bob Marley wailed such insights: "Them belly full but we hungry, a hungry man is an angry man&a pot a cook but the food no 'nuff&" The them' versus we' dichotomy is a core feature of the struggle faced within the system. Marley's brethren note that Bob Marley had no idea that there were concrete jungles' all over the world or that his themes were speaking for humanity. However, it is clear that in Jamaica there was a large contingent responsible for and dependent on Bob Marley for their survival. Chris Blackwell, Bob Marley's manager/producer, estimates that Bob was responsible for about 4,000 persons affiliated with his courtyard. To this extent Bob Marley's 56 Hope Road residence marked the outward growth and expansion of his original home base Trench Town which had in the early years provided an open learning atmosphere - at 5th Street. Marley's Hope Road re-location was testimony to the Movement's journey - he was the people's mouth piece and breadwinner and they were in turn his source of insight and understanding.

The use of songs as succinct treatment and treatise of the philosophy of liberation by the Movement started early. Reggae is an outgrowth of that practice of reasoning and other urban community entertainment innovation. These form a commonly available lyrical text made even more accessible through media as well as the informal trading of records abroad among dispersed Jamaicans. In more recent years radio stations such as Irie FM' and Roots FM' have become important mouthpieces for the ideas emerging from folk culture, particularly the culture of Reggae music. When music is viewed against the historical backdrop of the Dance Hall as a Jamaican institution for cultural training with an increasing amplification, Rastafari music (particularly reggae) can be seen as a major contributing source for the liberation discourse. Since 1990 artistes such as Capleton, Buju Banton, Garnet Silk, Luciano, Anthony B, and Sizzla have emerged to hold positions in this tradition of iconic teacher, musician/ leader. Prior to this time leaders such as Count Ossie; Prince Emmanuel Charles Edward; Bongo Watto; Sam Brown; Mortimo Planno and Bob Marley would have constituted some of the best known examples of the Rastafarian teacher-leader.

The Rastafari approach may be viewed as an anchor for a new method for looking at societal dynamics and power negotiations. This new anchor can be identified as developing from a Carry beyond (Caribbean) Faculty of Interpreters constructing a praxis of cultural studies from an African, Ethiopian-centered point of view. Within this are the seeds of a counter-hegemonic world religion, a foundation Caribbean tradition as well as a foundation stone in the development of a Caribbean Cultural Studies program by virtue of its purpose and approach. One can argue that this Caribbean Cultural Studies program became concretized with the Smith et al, 1960 Report on the Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica. Most literature categorizes the Rastafari Movement largely an as an under-class millenarian response to oppression.

Little or no attempt has been made to formally recognize the Movement as a studied cultural theorizing, a social science or even a social art, of the Divine African spirit, scholarly in formation, but with practical real life application in ways that have contributed to positive social engineering. What Nettleford describes as the inner logic' (Nettleford, 1999) of a people's way of being is yet to be adequately explored in scholarship. The Report on Ras Tafari is the one notable exception, some of whose follow-up action still continues today. That study brought together a multidisciplinary team of researchers consisting of historian, anthropologist and social scientist and artist to engage in unique social interventionist research that employed a Rapid Appraisal technique; provided extension and extra-mural services' to the community of Rastafarians through the injection of the University's resources; fostered wider social connections; and recommended an extensive program of action to the government. [11] The Movement contends that the scrutiny of researchers has resulted in national profit, tourist fascination and economic reward for many, especially academics, and in particular, the University of the West Indies, without rewards for those who have been studied. As they rightly claim, there is yet to be any significant channeling of resources back to help achieve the Movement's key objective(s).

Some questions emerge from the condition of the father' and family': What is the place of the African male and his ideas in the home especially given the idea of the family, house, and yard' as a female realm in the Jamaican African context? How does one measure the successful African family? These questions become crucial in assessing the contribution of the Movement in this time.

Movement of Jah People&back to my father's land

"Emperor Haile Selassie is my Father". This is proclaimed by many if not most in the Rastafarian faith, and provides us with a vision of father constructed by the Movement as a Jamaican embrace of an Ethiopian tradition with regard to the Emperor as the father of the Empire (Abba Jannoi). It behooves us to understand what is meant by the term father' and to discern its fullest meaning. Is it that the father is that force which glues, translates and functionally interlinks persons to the society? To what extent are Fathers the' determinant of the family's life chances and way of being', opportunities and method? Within the Rastafarian Movement the example of father and family in general shows itself to be a socio-historical mode of organization. This family has prescribed role expectations and quite often these roles are congealed around the center pole of father. This patriarch' is the figure around which horizontal and vertical relations are built, is measured in degrees of visibility or invisibility, his role is perhaps first and foremost a spiritual one which is translated into varying levels of physical manifestations.

In Jamaica and much of the Caribbean, children may or may not bear their father's name, he may or he may not provide for them, and he may or may not relate to their mother. He has options as to how he commits to his offspring in a way that women are less able to choose. Increasingly many, especially the marginalized males, express anger with the society for providing little opportunity for their economic and social sustenance, and largely for encouraging greater dysfunction of families and children. The problems of male nurture, fathering and fathers' influence, of paternal absence or invisibility' are usually blamed on the sexually irresponsible man. In contrast to the archetypical Jamaican male, Rastafari has brought increasing stability to the society, availing themselves through an omnipresent testimony of music and community hands-on involvement to counsel and guide the youth, particularly men, through the Presence of the Father, and by directing their hearts and minds to the Emperor. [12]

Ras Tafari, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie, through an embrace of the African Diaspora, and through a guiding philosophy centered on the idea of progress, has provided a way of life to repair the breach inflicted on the African Family. This is the testimony of the Movement. Rastafari presents an operational critique to avert a continuum of genocide of the species through the acceptance of the paternity of the dispersed children, and an acceptance of the responsibility of leadership of self as a counter-force to the slave master and his ideals, the denial of African patriarchy as well as the attempted undervaluing of the inevitability of the African mother of creation, supplanted by notions of the European mother country. For all those who were oppressed and heavily burdened a place had been prepared.

Some of the earliest social activism for social improvement and justice were advanced by the Movement. These issues were later called Human Rights. Rastafari provided one of the earliest critiques of the practices of the church which were antithetical to the gospel of Love, but instead identified the church as oppressor. Christian practices which entailed the society shunning those children born out of wedlock as bastards', and thus, who could not be baptized in regular church services but in the vestries of the ministers were critiqued as damaging to the excluded.

The abused, especially the marginalized male, found refuge in the open yard gatherings on the Dungle and later Trench Town. The defense and care for the innocent children and the problems presented them through the socially ambiguous prejudices and mores of their parents were resolved early by the brethren. Howell is said to have attracted many single mothers, orphans and outcasts, all of whom he nurtured. He was able to literally reinstate these persons into life', by providing a solid model of father', but more so of a community father in the way the shepherd's creed', adopted by the Movement as guidelines for its work. This creed' spoke of the infant, the aged and the sick, and the need to appropriately consider them in the Rastafarian construction of society. Nettleford's observation of fathers seated in reasoning with children present while mothers were out working is a potent critique of western gender role-play and the stereotypes about the male provider. These social reinterpretations would have been an early feature of a so considered patriarchal and conservative Movement.

Who is the Rasta man?

The methodology or methodological approach, that Brodber (1996) calls "re-engineering Black space" has been perfected by the Movement. Characteristic of this re-engineering has been a drive for literacy, the early publication of the liberation discourse(s), and Jamaican literatures (Garvey, 1923/86; A. Rogers, 1924/2000; Howell, 1935), all featuring the claims made about Ethiopia and its Ruler. Marcus' reminder that we will worship through the spectacles of Ethiopia was a clear and timely message. As Teacher of Famed Wisdom - Gangunguru Maragh, Howell was to capitalize on these principles intertwining them into the Movement. Also he had by 1950 created a Black space' to infect the world with conscience, teaching the Message from Ras Tafari, "Tell[ing] the people to come home" to Africa, making into a religion the embrace of Repatriation and commitment to a return to the Way of the Father. By establishing a cure, a panacea for "Mental Slavery", emancipating ourselves for none but ourselves can free our minds. The method employed was the affirmative confidence in oneself and one's own abilities, that is: a Return to our Senses.

The Movement has also provided an African-centered Brotherhood and Family, established by its Patriarchs (especially Leonard Howell, a lieutenant of Garvey), further expanding consciousness among the illiterate Jamaican masses. It communalism and cooperative economics as key contribution to solidly resisting the systemic oppression&essentially the Patriarchs took a simple approach engaging all senses which included new presentations of self, the dread-look as a most profound symbol coupled with the embrace of Ganja as sacrament; the foundation Sound - Reggae as spirit music in tune with the heart beat; Word-sound-Power as a touchable practice and tangible philosophy, to redeem the estranged children - corrupt word, the identity of God/Man (equation rationalized and its Revelation). All these features brought a simple logic to Resistance, a new feeling which the system of Babylon viewed as greatly subversive due to its active disengagement from the system' represented through the British Mother.

A New World African: Rastafarians and the Return to the Father

On the issue of African Liberation and the intellectual inventions out of Jamaica to beat down Babylon, Rastafari, Reggae music, and Bob Marley as its vanguard are crucial agents in the charting of this course. The Ways of the father had been suppressed through the oppressive system of Babylon. The Movement represents a resurrection and a Return to the Way of the All Mighty Father Creator. In Reality the Ethiopian Abba, the father, has stretched forth His hands to embrace the Diasporan Africans, in particular those with the memory of their original Homeland and those capable of helping to solve Africa's big problems. The Rastafarians from far away in the Carry beyond lands have embraced Ethiopia / Africa. This has placed Africa as center - Replacing the white Mother Country; the white civilization and its civilizing mission and essentially replacing the white god. These developments represent a spiritual and physical Re-pa-tri-a-tion or a relinking, back to the source, Back to Africa, to its inner logic and reality.

The Movement is often misunderstood and interpreted negatively. Rightly understood and properly interpreted, it represents one of the earliest and hitherto most successful Diasporan marginal and mass appealing fraternities or Faculties for the Interpretation of the peoples' liberation praxis. It pioneered the emergence of a path within Pan Africanism, with Africa at its core. Thus, it represented the Re-Empowerment of the idea of the Africa Nation in reality. It represented, in Planno's coinage, a New Faculty of Interpretation, constructed through the deep thinking and indigenous understanding of the environment of the scattered sons and daughters of Africa, alongside with a vision of the project of African redemption. This the Rastafarians have developed through the repairing of the identity of the male father figure by returning to a cultural expression centered on a new confidence in the Almighty Father Creator.

Endnotes

* This paper was presented on a panel entitled "Africa in the New Millennium: The African Diaspora and Diaspora Linkages", at the 10th General Assembly of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, 8-12 December, 2002. Kampala, Uganda.

[1] See Horace Campbell in Lewis & Bryan (ed), 1988. Garvey: His Work and Impact

[2] "the Rastafari lexicon offering to explain how people live, ideas that inform livelihood, responses to them, and ultimately how this impacts others. In respect of the Caribbean, culture can be viewed as a continuous inspiration of 'livity', organic and inorganic materials, organized around a constellation of landmasses, peoples and epochs, within a Western 'carried beyond' or Caribbean dispensation." "Caribbean Culture" http://www.welcometothecaribbean.com/culture.htm

[3] Mortimo Planno field notes. This should be distinguished from the Rastafari Movement which was a specific organisation established about 1960. See also van Dijk, 1993.

[4] The coming of the new era in Ethiopianism brought by Haile Selassie's emergence is marked by the adoption of new culture, i.e. Language, philosophy, food, lifestyle, while holding still the central idea of manifesting the Redemption or return to Africa. Zion.

[5] The notion of repatriation as repairing of the breach, of stolen nationality, land and heritage was introduced by Bobo Trevor Stewart of Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress, substantiating this through the United Nation's charter, articles 1 and 15. Beckles, Black History Month Lecture, "the Theory of Repatriation February 2002, LSW, REU.

[6] This is also the accepted designation held by Christ & see (Jn: 3 vs. 2) (Matt: vs. 8). Planno describes the gong as a sound resounding through the earth...big sound.

[7] Outside of that first encounter between the University and Planno's circle in the work on the Report on the Rastafarian Movement in Kingston, Walter Rodney, Kamau Brathwaite, Professor Heyman, Carol Yawney, Rupert Lewis, Erna Brodber and others all benefited from the insights brought by Bro. Planno at his 5th Street base. Heyman in Particular identifies Planno as a teacher of teachers.

[8] See Mortimo Planno's (Lecture) "Polite Violence", Faculty of Social Sciences Folk Filosofi, 1998 in LSW, REU, Planno collection, for an exploration of the issue of violence and Polite Violence' on the Movement.

[9] The researcher is grateful to Mr. Arthur Newland and Rev. Steven Jennings for discussions on the idea of cultural as spiritual bonds' wave-like and glocal'. These discussions were facilitated by the Institute of Caribbean Studies' colloquium in Cultural Studies 1999-2003.

[10] Such significance is observed among the Maori population in New Zealand, where Bob Marley visited and was accorded the courtesies of a head of state&(See Ian Boxill).

[11] Augier "The Norman Manley Initiative Revisited", REU, UWI, 1999.

[12] See Mutabaruka for discourses about Empress Manen and the Mama Omega principle express by this Rastafari thinker , "Cutting Edge", IRIE FM, Coconut Grove, Ja. 1996-2000.

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Discography

Bob Marley (1992). Bob Marley: Songs of Freedom

Peter Tosh (1997). Honorary Citizen

Barry Chevannes (2001). Black Op, Imani Productions

Videotape

Blackwell, C. Time will Tell Video Island Visual Arts, Inc., 1992.

Jalani A. Niaah is a Professor at the Institute of Caribbean Studies, University of the West Indies, Mona