HAILE SELASSIE'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JAMAICA Pt. 1

PART 1

HAILE SELASSIE'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JAMAICA

By NZINGA NZINGA

HOSANNA IN THE HIGHEST

When the Rastafarians in Jamaica heard that Emperor Haile Selassie was coming to Jamaica in April 1966, they flocked to the airport to see Him on that blessed day.  The media (scribes), the governmental and secular (Pharisees) and the ecclesiastical (Sadducees) authorities were blatantly disobeyed, disregarded and ignored by the Rastafarians armed with drums and other musical instruments, flags, placards and banners, some with mighty locks exposed, others with a variety of headgear.
  
“And when he was come nigh, even at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen: Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven and glory in the highest.  And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.  And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” St. Luke 18: 37- 40.

The Jamaican authorities (Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees) who could not keep the multitude at bay must have felt the despair of the Pharisees et al of some 2000 years ago as they watched with dissatisfaction and chagrin the descendant of King David and King Solomon riding triumphantly into Jerusalem in the name of the Lord, and like them must have said among themselves, as they watched another descendant of King David, King Solomon and of the Queen of Sheba coming triumphantly into Jamaica in the name of the Lord:                                              

“Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? Behold, the world is gone after him.” St. John 12: 19              

If the powers that be, if the leaders but knew the significance of the moment and of things and times to come, if they were attuned to the nat’ral mystic blowing in the air, if they could but feel the positive Rastaman vibrations let loose in their midst, if like Natty Dread they were moving through the mystics of tomorrow, they, when they looked on the red, gold and green and on the emblem of the Lion of Judah, in front of their very eyes, would understand that:

The Lion of Judah has prevailed! Blessed is the King of Africa that cometh in the name of the Lord! 

“On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went forth to meet him, and cried Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.  The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye, how ye prevail nothing? Behold the world is gone after him.”      St. John 12:12-13, 19       

                              FACE TO FACE WITH JAH RASTAFARI.

                       

…One from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother…

Deuteronomy 17:15.

And it came to pass that Jah Rastafari arrived in the flesh in the Island of Jamaica on April 21, 1966 for a three-day visit. And again he walked among His disciples. Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name. Jeremiah 14:9 
And they saw Him face to face and some shook hands with Him. And He spoke with certain among them. The world saw Him but knew not that He was the One. But this the world knew. The world knew that Rastafarians beheld Him in the flesh, looked upon Him with their own eyes, heard His voice with their own ears and handled Him with their own hands, thus bearing witness that their God is real. 

That which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life.  1 John 1:1.
SELASSIE 1! Jah RASTAFARI

To be continued

All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright. 

HOMAGE TO THE ANCIENT RASTA PT 3

                HOMAGE TO THE ANCIENT RASTA    

                                             By Nzinga Nzinga

To Morgan Heritage, children of Denroy Morgan (Black Eagles). It is their song which provided the theme of this tribute to the Ancient Rastas. Also to their father, Denroy, whom I had the honour of meeting in Jamaica. Brother Denroy, I have enjoyed your songs tremendously. Blessed love!

♪♪Could you live thru what the ancient Rasta lived thru?         

Would you hold on to your faith if you’d been thru what they’ve been thru? ♪♪

--Could You Live Thru’? Morgan Heritage

Part 3

“Rasta brethren and sistren of today, would you hold on to your faith if you’d been thru what our Ancients been thru?” 

One of the prime factors that helped many present-day Rastas to hold on to their faith is that of the absolute dedication and commitment of the Elders or the Ancient Rastas to Rastafari. In the beginning, when Rastas first reared their natty dreads in Jamaica and orally presented their political, religious and cultural manifestos, there were as yet no uptown disciples. The followers of Jah Rastafari were practicing peaceful cohabitation in that they did not take up weapons against anyone. They separated themselves communally as best they could from the ‘vampire’ system they called ‘Babylon system’, but they were still subject to all the laws of the land. In fact they were subject to more unjust laws of the land than any other Jamaican tribe. 

The terrible thing about this is that the laws were made to keep them down and to promote people who do not look like them in colour and general appearance. Even though they were peaceful, their beliefs were such that the state saw them as heretical, belligerent and subversive. Their beliefs were untenable. They were absolutely unacceptable to the majority of Jamaicans, including those who were unmixed-black-skinned. But why should that come as a surprise? Rastas were talking and living ‘Africa’, at least their perception of Africa, and that was anathema to the majority of black people of predominantly African descent, who held firmly to the propaganda that Africa was a benighted and uncivilized continent of savage, barbaric, and cannibalistic tribes.

In earlier years many black Jamaicans of predominantly African ancestry had rejected Marcus Garvey and his allegedly revolutionary philosophy and opinions for ‘Blackman redemption through identity with his ancestral homeland Africa and even worse, repatriation thereto’. So again they wholeheartedly rejected the Rastas who were not only promoting disobedience to white supremacy and adherence to Garveyism, but also the hitherto new, unheard-of, dangerous and extremely heretical, idolatrous, pagan, irreverent and blasphemous attributing of divinity to a little black African King far, far away in Ethiopia.

These Rastas, in the most part, unschooled illiterates, these most marginalized blackest-of-the- black blacks, poorest of the poor people from the ghettoes and the rural areas, were taking these incredible steps without the permission of not only their white colonisers and their light-skinned sycophants, but also of their not so light-skinned and black-skinned yes-men-lackeys. A Rasta was called ‘blackheart man’, meaning wicked, heartless and criminal witchcraft man. The very idea that these black-skinned and so-called ‘blackheart’ nobodies were claiming that not only they, but also the majority of Jamaican people were Africans, was abhorrent to most Jamaicans. That must have hurt a great number of people who considered themselves anything but African. They might be black-skinned but they were by no stretch of the imagination African. Yet, it was a fact that 98% of Jamaicans were black, therefore Africans. 

Didn’t Peter Tosh, a latter-day Rasta, now an ancestor, sing in accents pure and sweet?

♪♪ “No matter where you come from
As long as you’re a blackman 
you’re  an African.
Don’t mind your nationality.
You’ve got the identity of an African.
If you ‘plexion high, high, high
If you ‘plexion low, low, low; 
If you ‘plexion in between.
Don’t mind your denomination 
That’s only segregation. 
If you go to Catholic;
If you go to Methodist,
If you go to Church of God,
As long as you’re a black man 
You’re an African. ♪♪

 (Thank you, Peter!)

Didn’t Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, that great Ghanaian, say?:

“All peoples of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean, or in any other part of the world, are Africans and belong to the African nation.” 

The Ancient Rastas had no doubt as to their African identity and origin. They even went so far as to identify with the then Emperor of Ethiopia, His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I, as the true God of the black man. They were looking through their own African spectacles and what they saw was their God in the personality of the black African king of Ethiopia, a man in whose image they were created. Unlike the proselytizing whites, they were not anxious to convert other peoples to their Rasta Faith. Like Marcus Garvey, their concern was in finding their new theocratic ideal which was no longer the ideal of a white God or rather, the white man’s white God. Rastas could sing with confidence that their God was black and had a new and terrible name—that of JAH RASTAFARI. 

♪♪A new name Jah got and it terrible among men. ♪♪

                                              

 




 

To be continued

 All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright. 

  

 

HOMAGE TO THE ANCIENT RASTA Pt 2

                                          

HOMAGE TO THE ANCIENT RASTA 

Part 2 

HOMAGE TO THE ANCIENT RASTA

By Nzinga Nzinga

To Morgan Heritage, children of Denroy Morgan (Black Eagles). It is their song which provided the theme of this tribute to the Ancient Rastas Also to their father, Denroy, whom I had the honour of meeting in Jamaica. Brother Denroy, I have enjoyed your songs tremendously. Blessed love!

                                           ♪♪Could you live thru what the ancient Rasta lived thru?        

                                      Would you hold on to your faith if you’d been thru what they’ve been thru? ♪♪--Could You Live Thru’? Morgan Heritage

Although we see and know that our real enemy is white supremacy, yet we must be aware that the practice of oppression on our people is not limited to the white race because the hands we see against black people are black hands. The hands which sold us into slavery to the white alien race were black hands. Please exclude Diallo-of-Senegal-in-Harlem and his forty-one (41) bullets from the hands of three white law enforcers who escaped with impunity. Let’s back up. The hands we saw raised cruelly against the ancient Rastas, were black hands. I saw some of this wickedness with my own frightened eyes when I was a child, mis-taught to see these black dreadlocked folks as criminal and dangerous blackheart men to be avoided at all cost.

I can’t seem to stop crying for my black people, at home and abroad, oppressors and victims alike, for being so ignorant and misguided, for want of more appropriate words. Let me get up and swallow some Swedish Bitters and chew some Calamus Root to bear this pain I am going through. Please forgive us, Ancient Rastas. You knew the truth which you have passed on to us and it has set people like Bob Marley and me free. Thanks and praises to you. Selassie I, Jah Rastafari, please comfort us!

Although the founding Fathers and Mothers of Rastafari of day-before-yesterday who refused to let ‘them change them or rearrange them’ were faced with the choleric and punitive judgement of the Jamaican system, they survived to hold the Faith for the younger disciples of yesterday today and tomorrow.

“Rasta brethren and sistren of today, could you live thru what the ancient Rastas lived thru without losing your faith?”

Yes, Sons and Daughters of African ancestry, our ancient Rastas were punished and denigrated because they dared to castigate Babylon with tongue lashings and so upset the puppets, sycophants and stooges of those white British monarchs, King George VI & Queen Elizabeth II, descendants of slave-traders. So they were beaten, brutalized and thrown in jail for the least little thing, like smoking or possession of a herb called marijuana, ganja, or kaya or sensimilla (sensay). I personally do not use kaya. However, no serious government would pass laws to convict its bona fide citizens for smoking ganja while the nicotine inhalers and the alcohol imbibers get away scotch free. But then, who said these dreadlocked folks were bona fide citizens of Jamaica?

Year after year, the records show that most traffic accidents can be laid at the door of diminished performance of drivers operating under the undue influence of alcohol. Yet it is the poor ganja smoker who is causing no accidents who is thrown in jail. The majority of ganja smokers who are thrown in jail don’t even drive motor vehicles! They haven’t got the wherewithal to buy bicycles or motorbikes much less motor vehicles.

Now, though many non-Rastas smoke ganja, the first ganja smokers I knew of were Rasta people. We, children, didn’t get close up to them because we were told to run away from them because they were blackheart men. Of course we believed. Why not? They presented a dread appearance with their natty dread locks and long beards and they were as black as midnight. From our perspective, they looked like criminals. At that time, black was not yet beautiful and Rasta was the blackest of the black. Rastas were regarded as most undesirable, outcasts and untouchables.

To be continued

 All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright. 

HOMAGE TO THE ANCIENT RASTA Pt 1

  HOMAGE TO THE ANCIENT RASTA

BY NZINGA NZINGA

Part 1

                                                                  

To Morgan Heritage, children of Denroy Morgan (Black Eagles). It is their song which provided the theme of this tribute to the Ancient Rasta. Also to their father, Denroy, whom I had the honour of meeting in Jamaica. Brother Denroy, I have enjoyed your songs tremendously. Blessed love.

♪♪Could you live thru what the ancient Rasta lived thru?

                               Would you hold on to your faith if you’d been thru what they’ve been thru? ♪♪

--Could You Live Thru’? Morgan Heritage

The continued oppression, persecution and prosecution of the ancient Rastas, brethren and sistren, can be attributed to the fact that they dared to not only question, but also to outright defy the authority of the island’s status-quo-maintenance-men and to absolutely reject white supremacy. That was an outrageous line to take and the was going to make sure that, like their mentor, Marcus Moziah Garvey, they pay for their political, religious and cultural defiance. Rastas were in effect proclaiming to those to who or whom it might concern or rather to the world at large, that ‘you can take us out of Africa but you can’t take Africa out of us’. They were echoing the following decisive statement of Garvey:

“Africa is the legitimate, moral and righteous home of all black people and it is our duty to rouse every black person at home and abroad to a consciousness of himself as an African.”

After Marcus Garvey, Rastas, using the medium of Reggae songs as a conduit for their messages, are the most conspicuous African-oriented people who go around spreading true, though unacceptable charges and allegations about their oppressors, their enemies, Babylonians whether they happen to be white, black or of any other colour. Very few, if any, of our ancient Rastas had the so-called privilege of so-called education which in effect, is really institutionalised programmes, geared to maintain the status quo of the island’s powers-that-be and to keep the black man in the inferior position in which the white race, buttressed by its weapons of imperialism, slavery, colonization, apartheid, Jim Crowism, neo-colonialism divide-and-rule-black-people-ism and other uncivilized and barbaric practices of white racism, kept him. 

However, these so-called uneducated ancient Rastas, lacking or deficient in the so-called privilege of higher institutionalized learning, recognized their covert and overt enemy which our misguided educational, political, religious, social and cultural practices have successfully masked over the centuries. Unlike most black folks, privileged or otherwise, the ancient Rastas did not make their kith and kin their enemy while they erroneously and sanctimoniously make the real enemy their God. Yes, Sons and Daughters of African DNA, the ancient Rastas were quite confident about the identity of their real enemy and were not afraid to state it loud and clear.

Conscious Africans, at home or abroad, seeking clarification on the many pertinent questions concerning African redemption, need only search the copious scriptures of Marcus Garvey and there they will find enough food for thought to satisfy their concerns. I love to quote Marcus Garvey and I will do so here on his opinion of two aspects of true education. No matter how anti-Garvey one is, one ought to be able to find virtue in his observation below:

“Education is the medium by which a people are prepared for the creation of their own particular civilisation, and the advancement and glory of their own race. To see your enemy and know him is a part of the complete education of man”

Those of us, who are familiar with Garvey’s philosophy and opinions, are well aware that he is the ultimate ‘race-first’ exponent. However, considering how intellectualism is committed to analyzing and nit picking, I will be presumptuous enough to attempt to protect my darling ancestor’s reputation by adding the following condition of his to the first sentence: “...though not to the underdevelopment, debasing and destruction of any other.”

               

…Whom having not seen, ye loved, in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 1 Peter 1:8.

To be continued

 All the images were taken from the Internet and I claim no copyright.