Merchant Trade Around the World During World Colonization - Research Paper Example

The Rastafarian movement can be traced in part to Marcus Moziah Garvey, a black Jamaican nationalist who was convinced that in order to overcome oppression, blacks must be united. He was the influence behind the movement’s theme of repatriation, “one of the cornerstones of Rastafari belief” (Barry Chevannes, p. 1), sponsoring the Black Star Steamship Line for transporting blacks to Africa. It was he who coined the slogan “Africa for Africans”. “Although ridiculed by Jamaica’s dominant society, Garvey was worshiped by the Rastafarian movement as a “prophet”. He also inspired the Rastafarian’s belief in a living black God (King, Bays and Foster xv-xvi). Since the rise of the Rastafari movement, they believed that “they and all Africans in the diaspora are but exiles in ‘Babylon,’ destined to be delivered out of captivity by a return to ‘Zion,’ that is, Africa, the land of our ancestors, or Ethipia, the seat of Jah, Ras Tafari himself, Emperor Haile Selassie’s precoronation name” (Chevannes 1). The movement’s “diversification and lack of centralized leadership” strengthened their ability to survive whenever they were persecuted (King, Bays and Foster xv-xvi). Leonard Howell, who is known to establish the Pinnacle, a commune where his followers lived, forming a community, was just one of the first preachers of Rastafari, who returned to Jamaica in the midst of an upsurge of Revivalism after being discharged from Panama to join the U.S. Army Transport Service as a cook was a defiant anticolonialist. “He is said to have encouraged or threatened peasants not to pay taxes” (Chevannes 121-122). In 1932, he encouraged Jamaicans to reject the authority of the King of England and to give their loyalties to the new emperor of Ethiopia, selling pictures of Haile Selassie as future passports to Ethiopia. He was arrested, together with his deputy for breaking Jamaica’s sedition laws and sentenced to two years of hard labor, and his deputy to one year(King, Bays and Foster xv-xvi). The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices identified many variants within Rastafarianism. It adds that “the 1983 Rastafari Theocratic Assembly passed a resolution declaring a single variant that associated with the House of Nyahbinghi – as the orthodox faith. The House of Nyahbonghi creed proclaims Haile Selassie a Living God and states that all African peoples are one and that the descendants of those who were taken from Africa to be slaves in Babylon will be repatriated…Haile Selassie I was expected to arrange for the return of all people of African descent to Africa, but following his death in 1975, there has been less emphasis on a physical return to Africa and greater emphasis on a spiritual return” (p. 2368). According to Ennis B. Edmonds and Michelle A. Gonzalez, “the rise of a new generation of Rastafarian artists …has returned a ‘conscious’ discourse to the center of Jamaican popular music. Artists…have focused the critical eye of Rastafari on continued inequities and exploitation in Jamaican society… It has grown from small beginnings to become a religion known and embraced around the world.” The movement spread to other countries because people, particularly students from other places such as the Caribbean islands who study in Jamaica brought Rastafari to their own countries while Jamaican students who study in other countries like Barbados, Trinidad, Cuba and other countries shared their belief and convictions, together with their reggae music. Edmonds and Gonzalez further stated that “Jamaican Rastas emigrating to North America, Europe, and Africa, practicing their faith in their new location. Many second-generation Jamaicans and other Caribbean and African youths, especially in England, turn to Rastafari and reggae in the face of the alienation they experience in their new lands” (p. 200-201). Rituals performed by Rastafari serve to shape and perpetuate religion and sociality in addition to different networks and groups. These are what they call “grounding” in which “circles of like-minded brethren are formed and maintained.” “Grounding” is an informal instruction in Rasta precepts and ideology. It takes place when a few members gather to smoke ganja spiffs or to “draw the chalice” to reflect on their faith or other important matters. During “grounding” there is an “open-ended, dialogical discourse between two or more brethren”, an informal discussion known as “reasoning.” With the help of the inspiration of ganja, it aims to stimulate the intersubjective exploration of truth. ‘Nyabinghis”, the periodic movement-wide conventions by the Rastas take place on important holy days in the Rastafari calendar. These conventions can last up to seven days during which feasting, ganja smoking and “reasoning” in small groups happen. During the nights, there are huge bonfires to which they gather round drumming, dancing, chanting and smoking. It is a celebration and re-enforcement of the unity among all Rastas as well as an occasion for spiritual upliftment (Hansing 93-94). 1. Rastafari, Jibaro and Gebusi World colonization became evident at the beginning of the 17th century due to the aim of governments to increase wealth and control of merchant trade around the world. During this period, the three major colonial powers were the Spanish, Portuguese and the Dutch. Spain was considered the strongest power globally, having the most number of colonies but the Dutch were considered stronger in terms of commerce as they had the most number of merchant marine vessels. Dutch vessels were very active in trading in the West Indies and the Caribbean Sea. Recognizing the existing commercial power, England was motivated economically to also establish its own colonies to “derive (their own) commodities (to make them) less dependent on foreign countries” thereby improving their trade (Miller Par. 1-5). A race to establish colonies and trading posts by different nations resulted to the Dutch occupying the West Indies, including Indonesia, and the British, and eventually the United States, colonizing Jamaica and Puerto Rico. This resulted to “altering the composition of the populations in the societies colonized”, generally in the displacement of the native populace, inequality and slavery of the natives (Engerman and Sokoloff 22). Lillian Guerra adds that native populations were “displaced from their traditional location in the socioeconomic structure of the countryside by the loss of their access to land, the capitalization of agriculture, and the proletarianization of the workforce” (p. 8). Rastafarianism was born in Jamaica when it was colonized by the British. It was aimed at fighting colonialism and slavery by the blacks that were brought into the country from Africa to work as slaves and workers for the British colonizers. Chevanez adds there was stratification of society in the colony and it was based “on color: whites over blacks. The people of color …offsprings of white male planters and black female slaves, made up of (a) free group of society or else worked as house slaves. Free blacks enjoyed free status as the coloreds but suffered along with the slaves the contempt of the rest of society for being black” (p. 3). Started by Howell, Rastafari wanted freedom from the British colonizers, in terms of economy and politics for all blacks in Jamaica, by expressing their desires and sentiments through reggae songs. Started as a freedom movement, the Rastafari became the symbol of hope for the black people, a belief to which they can cling to as they resisted and fought for freedom. In the early-twentieth-century Puerto Rico, the natives were displaced by the intensification of “North American colonial policies” (Guerra 8). This resulted to the emergence of “writers disguising their oppositional politics behind a discursive mask (and) passing themselves off as native peasants, called jibaros, by contemporary island residents. These writers came from a privileged group… (seizing) plebeian customs, to uncover the subtle political meanings encrypted in them… (identifying) their own politics vis-'a-vis absolutists and other reactionaries with the maneuvers and strategies of everyday forms of popular resistance” (Scarano 1400-1401). Unlike the Rastafari, they used pseudonyms and peasant idioms to channel their criticisms on social and political inequalities prevalent in Puerto Rico during the time and “participated in one of the earliest and most inclusive delineations of national identity in Spanish America” (Scarano 1400-1401). Gebusi, in contrast to the two other above cultures, positively embraced and adapted many elements of the culture and tradition of its colonizers. Gebusi in contrast with the Jibaro and Rastafari was not established as an offshoot to a form of protest, but rather, was already in existence as a group or tribe in the Melanesian region. The Gebusi prior to influence by colonizers adapted many pagan practices and beliefs like “shamanism, sorcery and inquisitions…and have a high-level of violence” and elaborate sexual practices (Knauft 90). For many years prior to their contact with other cultures, they have not been subjected to other cultural impacts. The gebusi have been fast to adapt the ways of those not of their tribe. The main impact of which is the adaption of steel tools which they found useful. Other influences which greatly affected them is the desire for western clothing, willingness to be Christianized and participate in “churches, sports league, market and government activities” (Knauft 93). Contact with the outside world also resulted in the junking of many cultural traditions like spirit séances and mediumship (Knauft). Works cited Chevannes, Barry. Rastafari: Roots and Ideology. NY: Syracuse University Press. 1994. Print. Edmonds, Ennis B. and Gonzales, Michelle A. Caribbean Religious History: an Introduction. NY: New York University Press. 2010. Print. Guerra, Lillian. Popular Expression and National Identity in Puerto Rico: The struggle for Self, Community and Nation. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. 1998. Web. 12 December 2012. Hansing, Katryn. Rasta, Race and Revolution: The Emergence and Development of the Rastafari Movement in Socialist Cuba. Berlin: Lit Verlag. 2006. Web. 12 December 2012. King, Stephen A., Bays III, Barry T., and Foster, P. Renee. Reggae, Rastafari, and the Rhetoric of Social Control. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. 2002. Print. Knauft, Bruce M. “From Self-Decoration to Self-Fashioning.” Body Arts and Modernity. Ed. Elizabeth Ewart and Michel O’Hanlon. Wantage, Oxon, UK: Sean Kingston. 2007. Web 12 December 2012. Miller, FT. Origins of the Colonies. Missouri State University. N.d. Web. 12 December 2012. Scarano, Francisco A. “The Jíbaro Masquerade and the Subaltern Politics of Creole Identity Formation in Puerto Rico, 1745-1823.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 101, No. 5. American Historical Association. Dec., 1996. Web. 12 December 2012. ___. Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices. Ed. Gordon Melton and Martin Bauman. California: ABC-CLIO, LLC. 2010. Web. 12 December 2012. Read More