Chevannes (Sociology/Univ. of the West Indies, Jamaica) uses oral
history, interviews, and a good deal of historical interpretation
and synthesis to present a history of Rastafarianism, the
Jamaican-based pan-African movement. Crudely speaking, Rastafarian
ideology has elements of African religions, Christian revivalism,
and Jewish messianism. Rastafaris believe that, since being
abducted from Africa during the slave trade, all those in the
African diaspora have been living in exile and are destined, writes
Chevannes, to be "delivered out of captivity by a return to 'Zion,'
that is, Africa...or Ethiopia, the seat of Jah, Ras Tafari himself,
Emperor Halle Selassie's precoronation name." Rastafarianism was
heavily influenced by the black nationalism of Marcus Garvey,
played a large part in the political turmoil of 20th-century
Jamaica, and was made familiar to Americans through the music of
Bob Marley and other reggae artists. Chevannes addresses all these
currents and ties his history of the Rastafari to domestic Jamaican
politics and to global pan-African movements. Scholarly and
cautious about making factual claims without sufficient data,
Chevannes is also unabashedly sympathetic to the Rastafari. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Interviews with 30 converts from the 1930s and 1940s are a
component of Barry Chevanne's book, a look into the origins and
practices of Rastafarianism. From the direct accounts of these
early members, he is able to reconstruct pivotal episodes in
Rastafarian history to offer a look into a subgroup of Jamaican
society whose beliefs took root in the social unrest of the 1930s.
The little that most people know about Rastafarianism has come
through the Jamaican music, Reggae, which resonates with the
contemporary social and political struggle of the poverty-stricken
cities of Trenchtown and Kingston. Bob Marley and the Wailers, for
instance, with their politically charged lyrics about the ghetto,
became emissaries for the Jamaican poor. Here Chevannes traces
Rastafarianism back to 1930's prophet Marcus Garvey and his mass
coalition against racial oppression and support of a free Africa.
Before Garvey, few Jamaicans, the overwhelming majority of whom had
been brought to the island from Africa and enslaved by Europeans,
held positive attitudes about Africa. The rise of black
nationalism, however, provided the movement with its impetus to
organise a system of beliefs. Likewise, Chevannes explores the
movement's roots in the Jamaican peasantry, which underwent
distinct phases of development between 1834 and 1961 as freed
slaves became peasants. The peasants established themselves in the
recesses of the island and many eventually moved to cities, where
the economic and social hardship already inherent in Jamaican
society, was even more desolate. Between 1943 and 1960, detrimental
social changes transformed Jamaica's rapidly expanding cities.
Kingston's population grew by 86 percent, and crime and disease
were rampant. It was under this severe social decay that Rastafari
became a hospice for the uprooted and derelict masses. As a
spiritual philosophy, Rastafarianism is linked to societies of
runaway slaves or maroons and derives from both the African Myal
religion and the Revivalist Zion churches. Like the revival
movement, Rastafarianism embraces the 400-year-old doctrine of
repatriation. Rastas believe that they and all Africans who have
migrated are but exiles in ""Babylon"" and are destined to be
delivered out of captivity by a return to Zion or Africa - the land
of their ancestors and the seat of Jah Rastafari himself, Haile
Selassie I, the former emperor of Ethiopia. ""Rastafari"" is a work
with an historical and ethnographic approach that seeks to correct
several misconceptions in existing literature - the true origin of
dreadlocks, for instance. It should be of interest to religion
scholars, historians, scholars of Black studies, and a general
audience interested in the movement and how Rastafarians settled in
other countries.
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Review This Product
A must read
Thu, 7 Jul 2016 | Review
by: StuM.
For those wishing to gain a comprehensive understanding of the social context that gave rise to the Rastafari movement in Jamaica, this book is a must read.
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