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.