The Rastafari Movement and Ethiopia's Third Millennium

David González López
December 2007
 

Translated by the author. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
To be published 2008 in the journal Del Caribe, published in Santiago de Cuba.
Spanish original
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
David González López recently retired from the Center for the Study of Africa and the Middle East (CEAMO)

in Havana, Cuba where he worked for twenty-five years. He continues as a consultant at CEAMO. He is the

also author of numerous articles and of the books Etiopía, la oposición contrarrevolucionaria, La Habana,

Ed. Ciencias Sociales, 1987, and La memoria en las cultras del habla: problemas, metodos, y tecnicas
del trabajo historico con la fuentes orales (Ed. Santiago, Santiago de Cuba, 2000.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On September 17, 2007, Ethiopia hosted the world premiere of Africa Unite, a full-length documentary about the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the birth of Jamaican musician Bob Marley that had also taken place in Ethiopia two years before. The screening at the National Palace, with the presence of President  Girma W. Giorgis, highlighted the importance that the government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia attributed to this event, in the framework of the Africa Unite celebrations organized by the Bob and Rita Marley Foundation.[1]

 
Six days before the screening, on September 11, the Ethiopian nation celebrated the beginning of its third millennium, almost eight years after most of the rest of the world, because this country continues to follow an ancient national calendar. Treasured by its indigenous Ethiopian Orthodox Church, this calendar is the product of old Egyptian astronomic calculations together with the Hebrew and Julian calendars, adopted ages ago. Nevertheless, since 1582 Europe chose the Gregorian calendar, gradually accepted after by most of the world and continuing in force today.

In this article we will address, on the one hand, the peculiar and sometimes surprising Ethiopian history and culture and, on the other, the way that these influenced the appearance of the Rastafari in our region of the world. But we must caution that, as the Rastafari movement lacks a center and ruling scriptures, and, furthermore, its practices are not identical in every house or group, except the most general ones, each individual enjoys a great deal of autonomy, and thus, whatever might be said of them will not necessarily be applicable to all.   

The attraction exerted by Ethiopia

 
We have seen that Ethiopia, as so many times in history, refused to forego its tradition, took a course contrary to world developments and opted for keeping its thirteen-month calendar (twelve 30-days months plus a five or six-day final month depending on whether it is a leap year or not). The calculations that led to this calendar are intertwined with the beliefs of its Orthodox Church, according to which God created the earth 5 500 years prior to the birth of Jesus Christ, so the world would now be about 7 500 years old. But the solar Coptic calendar –the oldest in force today— would have originated at an unknown date some 3000 years before Jesus Christ, because its New Year supposedly marked the end of the great flood for which Noah built his Arc.[2]

Adding to the almost magical attraction that Ethiopia exercises on whoever approaches its history or culture, some of the oldest fossils of our pre-human and human ancestors have been found in its soil, together with their oldest stone tools. It was there, furthermore, that the first homo sapiens evolved and perfected their early subsistence –including agricultural— techniques; from its territory, crossing the Red Sea, primitive men started out on their long quest to reproduce humankind elsewhere in the world and, millenia afterwards, the first big civilizations extended to portions of its territory. Land of trade and passage, Ethiopia appears, millenia ago, in stories and accounts of European and Asian travellers.  

 
Ethiopia also appears and reappears in the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, because it offered safe haven to the followers of those three major religions since their very inceptions. Menelik I, born from a romance between the Sabean pagan Queen of Sheba and Hebrew King Solomon, was the first Ethiopian emperor, who, after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, is said to have returned home with the Arc of the Covenant and the slabs of the Ten Commandments received by Moses on Mount Sinai. Today they are supposedly hidden at the Cathedral of Our Lady Saint Mary of Sion, constantly guarded by a monk, the only one authorised, until his death, to access them.

 
This catedral is in Axum, the two-thousand-year-old capital of one of the great ancient states, founded around the time of the birth of Christ and first well-documented link in the long chain of Ethiopian culture until today. Following Armenia, Ethiopia was the second country in the world to adopt Christianity,[3] when Axum’s King Ezana, proclaimed it as state religion around 330-350 a.c.

 
It is precisely due to the antiquity of Ethiopia’s irruption in history that it becomes more difficult than elsewhere to separate myths, legends, religion and history. Ethiopia’s own history is hard to explain because it not always responds to the “logics” of historians. Instead of inciting study, this has tended to foment a comparative lack of interest of the academia, that already attributed scant attention to African history in general. This “difference” of Ethiopian history has been conceptualized by David Phillipson as “the proverbial autonomy of Ethiopian events with respect to those of the rest of the world.”[4] In other words, few things would happen there as would be expected from a comparison with events elsewhere, and this is so because everything is mediated and re-processed by its very peculiar culture. For instance, it has been said of the very rich Ethiopian religious art that it underlines a characteristic that the Ethiopian nation has preserved during the centuries of its existence: its capacity to re-fuse old traditions and outside influences, not by copying, but by always endowing them with an original expression, adapted to its national conditions.[5]

All this goes to explain why many Ethiopian developments, until recent times, tend to surprise and fill people with admiration in many parts of the world. The paradigm of those moments was the one that occurred in the second half of the 19^th Century  and that, in the end, allowed Ethiopia to become, against every calculation from abroad, in the sole African country capable of resisting the otherwise unstoppable European push to subject and submit the entire Afro-Asian universe.[6] In the course of the first decades of the 20^th Century, therefore, Ethiopia appeared as a singular, almost unexplainable case, of an African nation that remained unconquered by European colonialism.

Marcus Garvey: unwilling promoter of the Ethiopian myth

Three factors converged to foment the emergence of the Rastafari towards the third decade of the 20th Century. Firstly, the tense racial relations existing in Jamaica due to its colour bar, further tensed by the declining economic situation of the poor majority. Secondly,  the ideas of Marcus Mosiah Garvey (1887-1940), elaborated either in Jamaica or in New York City. Thirdly, an absolutely random development, disconnected from the two previous ones: the coronation of a new sovereign in Ethiopia on November 2, 1930. This last element provided a crucial ingredient to the whole articulation of the Rastafari imaginary.   

 
In the 1920s, Garvey had been elaborating his Pan-Africanist ideas, marked by what has been labeled his separatism. Contrary to the criteria of other Black leaders of his time, Garvey believed that the Black of the diaspora could never prosper in countries governed by whites and therefore must migrate to Africa, in order to contribute to the creation of a strong nation, governed by Blacks and capable, in turn, of defending the well-being of Blacks anywhere in the world. However, between the only two independent African nations, led by Black governments at the time, Ethiopia and Liberia, Garvey chose the second for his projects of migration and colonization, because, due to negative historic experiences, Ethiopia tended to reject foreign presence, whereas Liberia’s government elite was itself a product of migration from the Americas. Nevertheless, in his speeches, full of mysterious prophecies sprinkled with biblical passages, Garvey stated things that later seemed to point to Ethiopia. He warned that Blacks, oppressed at the time, would “surprise the world”[7] and said: “Look to Africa, to the crowning of a Black King that will be the Redemptor.”[8] And, turning their eyes in that direction, many thought the prophecy fulfilled when, on November 2, 1930, an emperor was crowned in Addis Ababa and named Haile Selassie I.  

 
Garvey provided a sizeable portion of the Rastafari ideological corpus, and many see the movement itself as an extension of garveyism. Also, many Rastafari relieve that Garvey was “a new Saint John the Baptist, and in the movement’s esteem he is only surpassed by Selassie”:[9] the Rastafari celebrate both their birthdays. There is no documentary proof, however, of Garvey’s identification with the Rastafari, and indirectly he rather marked his differences with them around the figure of Selassie: the organization that he founded, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), opposed the tendency of the so-called first rasta preacher, Jamaican Leonard P. Howell, to divinize Selassie.[10] In his writings, Garvey also criticized Selassie for fleeing Ethiopia during the fascist Italian invasion, and even Ethiopians, who he went as far as to accuse of “fanaticism”.[11] But the few leaders of independent African countries at the times would not have been thrilled to hear of Garvey’s self-proclamation –symbolic rather than anything else— as President of Africa.

Haile Selassie and Ethiopia in the Rastafari imaginary

 
In its first years of existence, the Rastafari seemed in fact to concentrate on the “back to Africa” initiative and on the adoration of Selassie: even the name of the movement comes from the Negus’ title and pre-coronation name: Ras Tafari Makonen. Furthermore, deifying the Ethiopian emperor is among the basic factors of the movement and one of the few common aspects among all its affiliates. One of the six basic principles enonciated   by Howell at the time of its emergence (the other five, by the way, have already lost all validity) were  to acknowledge Selassie “as Supreme Being and only ruler of Blacks.”[12]

 
It has been observed that the four Rastafari groups that were recognizable in Jamaica in the 1930s differed in the styles of their cults and on the emphasis placed on one or the other aspect of their doctrines, and only had in common four points: they condemned Jamaican colonial society, called for a return to Africa, spoke in favor of non-violence and –again— worshiped Selassie’s divinity.[13]  

 
The Rastafari movement has been classified as a very syncretic religion that traces its origins back to Prophet Abraham and seeks explanations in the Bible. Precisely, its followers interpret passages such as Psalms 87:4-6 and 5:5 from the Book of Revelation of the New Testament as a prophecy of Selassie’s coronation and the substantiation of his divine nature.[14] The Negus is frequently called Jah, Selassie Jah or Jah Rastafari, names to which a great power is attibuted.[15] It is, however, difficult to establish the exact essence that the Rastafari attribute to Selassie, because ideas differ from group to group and even among individuals. Some see and venerate him as an all-powerful living, God of flesh and blood or –according to their interpretations of the Bible— a divine spirit manifest and represented in Selassie; for others, he is the Mesias, the Son of Psalm Two, or a reencarnation of Jesus (in his second coming to earth prophesized in the Bible), or at least akin to Him, from his same lineage, whose arrival the first Jesus Christ had announced.[16] Others still consider that he is at the same time God the Father and God the Son from the Holy Trinity, to which every human being would be potentially linked  in the form of the Holy Spirit, to complete the Holy Trinity:[17] by considering themselves in communion with Selassie, and because the latter would live inside them, they would also be kings and princes.[18] Some Rastafari take Selassie for “the fourth avatar” and the “climax of God’s revelation”, following Moses, Elijah and Jesus Christ.[19] More generally, the Rastafari saw in Selassie “the Black Mesias appeared in flesh and blood to redeem all Blacks that are exhiled in the world of white oppressors,”[20] taking them to Africa, the promised land. Many believed that Selassie would fix the date of the Final Judgement, when the righteous would return to their home on Mount Zion and forever live in peace, love and harmony.[21]

 
Beyond the coincidences with biblical enonciations and the effects of the unusual access to power of a Black sovereign in an independent African territory, certain circumstances surrounding Selassie’s crowning contributed to foment his deification. The document conventionally considered the first of true Rastafari inspiration, The Promised Key, published by Howell under a pseudonym in the early 1930s, offers us a glimpse of the impact that Selassie’s crowning had among Caribbean Blacks. Howell assures that he witnessed the coronation on November 2, 1930 in Addis Ababa, and since them proclaimed a doctrine that places Selassie as “true leader of Creation”.[22] To understand the commotion experienced in the minds of many one must bear in mind –on the one hand— the effects of the splendour of the ceremony, abundantly reported by the world media, that excited the imagination of readers in various countries.[23] On the other hand, the information that Selassie was a direct descendant of King David and 225^th sovereign in an uninterrupted list of kings since Menelik I, son of Solomon, had a special impact in the minds of Blacks in search for a Mesias. The racial pride evident in the monarch’s beraring, the meaning of his name (Haile Selassie meant “Power of the Trinity” in ancient Geez) and his titles of “Chosen by God,” “Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judeah” [24], also captured Caribbean minds, although they were the normal titles of Ethiopian monarchs. That is why, in the Rastafari imaginary, his throne should represent that of God on Earth, established through the Alliance sealed between God and King David, mentioned in the Old Testament (2 Samuel 7).[25]

 
Even if searching mainly in the New Testament the prophecies that would justify Selassie’s divinity, the Rastafari –as does the Orthodox Ethiopian Church— emphasize the Old Testament much more than other Christian churches. This would explain the association, on the one hand, of Zion and Ethiopia, Africa, the Promised Land, Paradise stolen from them and to be restored, and, on the other, Babylon and suffering on earth in the midst of white Western culture, and that is why they willingly embraced Garvey’s proposals about migrating to Africa.[26] Four of the eight dates that the Rastafari usually celebrate have to do with Selassie (his royal and ceremonial birthdays and the anniversaries of his coronation and his visit to Jamaica), and a fifth, with Ethiopia: the Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas.[27]

 
At the inception of Ethiopian culture we find the Sabean peoples of Semitic origin, who brought their Geez lenguage and writing from Arabia around the last millennium b.c., and mixed with Kushitic Black Africans. In Ethiopia we also find falasha or “Black Jews”, whose practices must have entered the country in remote times, considering the ancient type of Judaism that they practice and their use of vernacular Ethiopian languages –and not Hebrew— in their liturgy.[28] On the other hand, many Rastafari consider themselves the legitimate Israeli, descendants of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, enslaved later on. Therefore, they tend to follow an ital diet according to the norms of the Old Testament (as Orthodox Ethiopians), excluding pork. Furthermore, some Rastafari highly appraise (besides the Bible) the Kebra Negast, “Book of the Glory of Kings,” written in the late 13^th Century to substantiate the Solomonic origin of ruling dynasties.[29] It was precisely this work that allowed Selassie to present himself –in an exaggerated way, as far as history has proven— as king number 225 in an uninterrupted list begun, according to tradition, with Menelik I in 980 b.c.[30]

Repercussions in Africa and the Caribbean

Haile Selassie’s popularity –and even more: his deification— among the Blacks of Jamaica and other parts of the diaspora exploded at the very instant of his crowning and must have surprised the monarch: in fact, during the more than four decades of Selassie’s rule –as a distant God— we cannot find any testimony whatsoever of his opinions on the Rastafari movement.[31]

 
As in Medieval European countries, the Negus was invested with a supreme religious authority at the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, even over the Abuna, its major national hierarchy, underlining the fusion of religious and political powers in one and the same individual. But at the time of his crowning, as from the inception of Ethiopia’s Christianization in mid-4th Century a.c., Ethiopian Orthodoxy was ruled by the Coptic Orthodox Pope in Alexandria, Patriarch of All Africa, a situation that ended in 1959. From this year on, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church became independent, and then Selassie’s religious authority was unlimited. Nevertheless, the Patriarch of that church cautioned, at a given moment, against an excessive “deification” of Selassie, and there are reports that this church has baptized and converted many Rastafari to Orthodox Christianity.

In Jamaica, the loyalty extended by the Rastafari to someone who was also the head of state of a foreign nation had its repercussions. By pinning all their faith on Selassie at the begining of the movement, the Rastafari proclaimed themselves free citizens of Ethiopia, subordinated to its Emperor and devoted to its flag: even the colors adopted by the Rastafari are the Ethiopian national hue –red, yellow or gold and green—, to which Garvey had added Black. All this led to a ferocious repression by British colonialism in Jamaica that caused deaths and Leonard Howell’s incarceration in 1934, accused of sedition[32] for having called the King of England an impostor in The Promised Key.[33] In the following decades the movement grew and political unrest increased, also due to agitation for independence. Although in the 1950s Selassie had received several Rastafari elders and even allowed some Blacks from the diaspora to establish themselves on lands that he owned, in 1960 a Rastafari delegation returned from Ethiopia seemingly convinced of the impossibility of large-scale migrations of Caribbean Blacks to that country.[34] In 1963, shortly after the creation of the Organization of African Unity, that fixed its secretariat in Addis Ababa –a step that enhanced Ethiopia’s world prestige— Haile Selassie pronounced a memorable address at the United Nations headquarters that had repercussions among the Rastafari due to his calls to peace, and also inspired a song by Bob Marley. Afterwards, in April 1966, Selassie visited Jamaica and enjoyed a grandiose popular welcome: many Jamaicans –as did Rita, who would later marry Bob Marley— thought they saw signs of Selassie’s divinity (it is true that a long drought concluded upon his very arrival) that induced them to join the Rastafari. Nevertheless, Selassie also advised that, before attempting to migrate to Ethiopia, Jamaicans should seek to free themselves.[35] Selassie continued, however, to be a central icon in Rastafari ideology and frequently came up in Jamaican national politics, as evidenced by Michael Manley’s (leader of the National People’s Party) appearance, in the course of the 1972 electoral campaign, with a cane –a present from the Negus— appealing to Rastafari support.[36]

Haile Selassie’s demise in 1974, and above all his death on the following year, shook the Rastafari faith. Many followers refused to accept the death of a “God”; others, again, searched for biblical explanations and thought they found them in the prophecies of Apocalipse 2 Esdras 7:28; others took it as a normal development and argued that his spirit would remain omnipresent[37] and his divinity would not perish, for it would reincarnate and continue to live, furthermore, within each Rastafari.[38] Nevertheless, Selassie’s physical disappearance did affect the movement.

In spite of this, the Rastafari continued to operate in various directions. Many approached the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and nowadays some associate the movement to this faith. Some of the converts argue that there are deliberate mistranslations of the Bible to European languages and therefore seek the Ahmaric version that Haile Selassie authorized in the 1950s, for until then all copies circulating in Ethiopia were written in Geez. As a consequence of this, and of the wish to approach Ethiopian culture, it is now frequent to find Rastafari who study Ahmaric.

 
Lastly (and although some Rastafari criticize reggae as a commercial product akin to Babylon), music, and more particularly that of Bob Marley, have had an enormous importance in the dissemination of Rastafari ideas. Inspired by Selassie’s above-mentioned speech, Marley composed the following text of a song:


     WAR
       Until the philosophy which hold one race
       Superior and another inferior
       Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned
       Everywhere is war, me say war

       That until there are no longer first class
       And second class citizens of any nation
       Until the colour of a man's skin
       Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes
       Me say war

       That until the basic human rights are equally
       Guaranteed to all, without regard to race
       Dis a war

       That until that day
       The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship
       Rule of international morality
       Will remain in but a fleeting illusion
       To be persued, but never attained
       Now everywhere is war, war

       And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
       that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique,
       South Africa sub-human bondage
       Have been toppled, utterly destroyed
       Well, everywhere is war, me say war

       War in the east, war in the west
       War up north, war down south
       War, war, rumours of war

       And until that day, the African continent
       Will not know peace, we Africans will fight
       We find it necessary and we know we shall win
       As we are confident in the victory

       Of good over evil, good over evil, good over evil
       Good over evil, good over evil, good over evil     [39]

 
In February 2005, tens of thousands of peoples converged on Addis Ababa, venue cosen by his widow and sons to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the birth of Bob Marley, who had died in 1981, and this celebration provided the material for the documentary Africa Unite. With his work of humanity and peace, Marley incarnates the best of the Rastafari movement and its genetical link with Ethiopian culture, that continues to re-fashion itself and to disseminate, vigorously still, on its third millennium.