Rastafari is a young, Africa-centred religion which developed in Jamaica in the 1930s, following the coronation of Haile Selassie I as King of Ethiopia in 1930. Rastafarians believe Haile Selassie I is God and that he will return to the African members of the black community who are living in exile as the result of colonisation and the slave trade. (www.bbc.co.uk) Marcus Garvey a political activist developed the idea of Rastafari ideology because he wanted to improve the status of his fellow black people. There are approximately one million people worldwide adherents of Rastafari as a faith. The 2001 census found 5,000 Rastafarians living in England and Wales (bbc.co.uk) Rastafarians are known by different names such as Rasta, sufferers, locks men, and dreadlocks or dreads.
The movement is closely linked to Ethiopian civilization, based on interpretations Blacks made through the bible. One key part of the bible to Rastafarians is in Psalm 38, “Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.” (Abram, Hamann, “The Rastafarian Movement”) Rastafarian is more of a philosophy on life than a religion; Rastas do follow strict guidelines on how to live their lives but every man is allowed to express his own opinion. Some common ideology of Rastafarianism is the rejection of western civilization; such as voting, police, political institutions, medical treatments, contraception, and even marriage. Other ideas include their very strict diet referred to as “Ital.” Many believe the consumption of meat is allowing you body to turn into a cemetery. Several Rastas follow a vegan diet for religious purposes, but not all are strictly vegetarian.
Rastafarian is defined by Dictionary.com as “a member of an originally Jamaican religion that regards Ras Tafari (the former emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I) as God” (Dictionary.com 1). Rastafari have progressed from being a group on the outskirts of society to becoming a religious faith and movement recognized in many parts of the world. The Rastafarian religion is not just a religion, but a way of life, a movement derived from Christianity in Jamaica in 1930 (BBC 1 and Wikipedia 1). Marcus Mosiah Garvey is credited with essentially shaping and initiating the Rastafarian Movement and considered by many Rastafarians to be the reincarnation of Saint John the Baptist (Wikipedia 7). Marcus Garvey ignited a philosophy entitled “Africa for Africans” which was a Black self-empowerment movement that proposed all Blacks should move back to Africa – the home of their ancestors (Erskine 30).
The Rastafarian religion was first set up to empower the black people of Jamaica in a time of strife and poverty. They set up rules or doctrines to lead them away from the oppressors that they refer to as Babylon and follow the path to freedom back to Ethiopia or as they refer to it as Zion. There are 6 doctrines
Leader Leonard Howell took control and led the group to initiate six fundamentals principles of Rastafarian belief. (1) Hatred for the Whites (2) Superiority of the Black race (3) Revenge on Whites for their wickedness (4) Negation and humiliation of the government of Jamaica (5) Preparation for repatriation to Africa (6) The acknowledgement of Emperor Haile Selassie as the Supreme being and the only ruler of Black people. In 1966, the famous Bob Marley converted to Rasta fari, grew his dreads, adopted marijuana as a sacred sacrament, sang reggae music and with his songs took rastafarianism to new
Rastafari developed in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1920s and 30s. In an environment of great poverty, depression, racism and class discrimination, the Rasta message of black pride, freedom from oppression, and the hope of return to the African homeland was gratefully received. The Rastafarian movement began with the teachings of Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), a black Jamaican who led a "Back to Africa" movement. He taught that Africans are the true Israelites and have been exiled to Jamaica and other parts of the world as divine punishment. The Rastafarian movement first became visible in Jamaica in the 1930s, when peaceful communities were founded in the Kingston slums.
“Integration of Theory and Practice” Case Study Presentation -Violence between Muslims and Christians in Guinea- The current West African country called Guinea is the home of diverse socio-cultural and political history of the region. It was successively an important part of the great empires of Ghana, Mali, Sosso, Songhai, Gao, Wassolon, and the theocratic kingdoms of Fouta Diallon before the French invasion in the late nineteenth century. Guinea is historically known to be the last West African territory to surrender under the European colonial army, and the first to recover its independence among the French African colonies in 1958. And as many other coastal counties, Guinea was the departure point for innumerable men and women for the new world (Americas) during the Atlantic slave trade. At the time when Islam was massively being practiced in the northern part of the country since the eleventh century, Christianity was reshaping the socio-cultural life of the indigenous people along the coast with the slave trade in fifteenth century.
The novel The Hills of Hebron (1962) by the female Caribbean author Sylvia Wynter tells the story of a group of formerly enslaved Jamaicans as they attempt to create a new life and assert themselves against the colonial power. Strongly anti-colonial, the novel depicts Hebron as a Revivalist community embracing Afro-Caribbean religious practices and gives voice to the social forces of that period in Jamaican and Caribbean history. Based on the early twentieth century Bedwardism movement (a revivalist group led by Alexander Bedward), The Hills of Hebron was one of the first attempts to present the lives of black Jamaicans not as colonial subjects, but as independent human beings. The author Sylvia Wynter was born in Cuba to Jamaican parents and grew up in Jamaica. She was a student in Britain and Spin and returned to Jamaica in 1962.
According to Ayittey, "In Sudan... the Arabs monopolized power and excluded blacks - Arab apartheid." Many African commentators join Ayittey in accusing Sudan of practising Arab apartheid. Boston Globe columnist Fred Jacoby has accused Sudan of practising apartheid against Christians in what is now South Sudan "where tens of thousands of black Africans in the country's southern region, most of them Christians or animists, have been abducted and sold into slavery by Arab militias backed by the Islamist regime in Khartoum." Beginning of the conflict The beginning point of the conflict in the Darfur region is typically said to be 26 February 2003, when a
In the following extract David Coplan and Bennetta Jules-Rosette , “…explore the ways in which Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, transformed from church hymn into protest song.” King and Vos (2009:78) . The scholars on this subject also explore how the song was spread throughout the continent of Africa because of freedom fighters who went for exile . From the middle of the nineteenth century, an emergent urban black intellectual elite used choral music to articulate the experiences and aspirations of their people. The loss of independence