Rastafari

File:Flag of Ethiopia (1897–1974).svg

Rastafari often claim the flag of the Ethiopian Royal Standard as was used during Haile Selassie's reign. It combines the conquering lion of Judah, symbol of the Ethiopian monarchy, with red, gold, and green.

Rastafari is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.

Rastafari beliefs are based on an interpretation of the Bible. Central to the religion is a monotheistic belief in a single God, referred to as Jah, who partially resides within each individual. Rastas accord key importance to Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia between 1930 and 1974, who is regarded variously as the Second Coming of Jesus, Jah incarnate, or a human prophet. Rastafari is Afrocentric and focuses attention on the African diaspora, which it believes is oppressed within Western society, or "Babylon". Many Rastas call for this diaspora's resettlement in Africa, a continent they consider the Promised Land, or "Zion". Rastas refer to their practices as "livity", which includes adhering to Ital dietary requirements, wearing their hair in dreadlocks, and following patriarchal gender roles. Communal meetings are known as "groundations", and are typified by music, chanting, discussions, and the smoking of cannabis, the latter regarded as a sacrament with beneficial properties.

Rastafari originated among impoverished and socially disenfranchised Afro-Jamaican communities in 1930s Jamaica. Its Afrocentric ideology was largely a reaction against Jamaica's then-dominant British colonial culture. It was influenced by both Ethiopianism and the Back-to-Africa movement promoted by black nationalist figures such as Marcus Garvey. The religion developed after several Protestant Christian clergymen, most notably Leonard Howell, proclaimed that Haile Selassie's crowning as Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 fulfilled a Biblical prophecy. By the 1950s, Rastafari's countercultural stance had brought the movement into conflict with wider Jamaican society, including violent clashes with law enforcement. Early Rastafari often espoused black supremacy as a form of opposition to white supremacy, but this has gradually become less common since the 1970s. In the 1960s and 1970s, it gained increased respectability within Jamaica and greater visibility abroad through the popularity of Rastafari-inspired reggae musicians, most notably Bob Marley. Enthusiasm for Rastafari declined in the 1980s, following the deaths of Haile Selassie and Marley, but the movement survived and has a presence in many parts of the world.

The Rastafari movement is decentralised and organised on a largely sectarian basis. There are several denominations, or "Mansions of Rastafari", the most prominent of which are the Nyahbinghi, Bobo Ashanti, and the Twelve Tribes of Israel, each offering a different interpretation of Rastafari belief. There are an estimated 700,000 to one million Rastafari across the world. The largest population is in Jamaica, although small communities can be found in most of the world's major population centres. Most Rastafari are of black African descent, and some groups accept only black members, but non-black groups have also emerged.

Definition

File:Street vendors in Zeerust.jpg

Two Rastafas in Zeerust, South Africa; they are wearing and selling items that display their commitment to the religion

Rastafari has been described as a religion,Template:Sfnm meeting many of the proposed definitions for what constitutes a religion,Template:Sfn and is legally recognised as such in various countries.Template:Sfn Some scholars of religion have labelled it an Abrahamic religion,Template:Sfnm while other scholars have also classified it as a new religious movement,Template:Sfnm a sect,Template:Sfn a cult,Template:Sfnm and a revitalisation movement.Template:Sfn Having arisen in Jamaica, it has been described as an Afro-Jamaican religion,Template:Sfn and more broadly an Afro-Caribbean religion.Template:Sfnm

Although Rastafari focuses on Africa as a source of identity, it is a product of creolisation processes in the Americas,Template:Sfn described by the Hispanic studies scholars Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert as "a Creole religion, rooted in African, European, and Indian practices and beliefs".Template:Sfn The scholar Ennis B. Edmonds also suggested that Rastafari was "emerging" as a world religion, not because of the number of its adherents, but because of its global spread.Template:Sfn Many Rastas nevertheless reject descriptions of Rastafari as a religion, instead referring to it as a "way of life",Template:Sfnm a "philosophy",Template:Sfn or a "spirituality".Template:Sfn

Emphasising its political stance, particularly in support of African nationalism and pan-Africanism, some academics have characterised Rastafari as a political movement,Template:Sfnm a "politico-religious" movement,Template:Sfnm or a protest movement.Template:Sfnm It has alternatively been labelled a social movement,Template:Sfnm or more specifically as a new social movement,Template:Sfn and a cultural movement.Template:Sfn Many Rastas or Rastafarians—as practitioners are known—nevertheless dislike the labelling of Rastafari as a "movement".Template:Sfn In 1989, a British Industrial Tribunal concluded that, for the purposes of the Race Relations Act 1976, Rastafarians could be considered an ethnic group because they have a long, shared heritage which distinguished them from other groups, their own cultural traditions, a common language, and a common religion.Template:Sfnm

Rastafari has continuously changed and developed,Template:Sfn with significant doctrinal variation existing among practitioners depending on the group to which they belong.Template:Sfn It is not a unified movement,Template:Sfn and there has never been a single leader followed by all Rastafari.Template:Sfnm It is thus difficult to make broad generalisations about the movement without obscuring the complexities within it.Template:Sfnm The scholar of religion Darren J. N. Middleton suggested that it was appropriate to speak of "a plethora of Rasta spiritualities" rather than a single phenomenon.Template:Sfn

The term "Rastafari" derives from "Ras Tafari Makonnen", the pre-regnal title of Haile Selassie, the former Ethiopian emperor who occupies a central role in Rasta belief. The term "Ras" means a duke or prince in the Ethiopian Semitic languages; "Tafari Makonnen" was Selassie's personal name.Template:Sfnm It is unknown why the early Rastas adopted this form of Haile Selassie's name as the basis of the term for their religion.Template:Sfn As well as being the religion's name, "Rastafari" is also used for the religion's practitioners themselves.Template:Sfn Many commentators—including some academic sourcesTemplate:Sfnm and some practitionersTemplate:Sfn—refer to the movement as "Rastafarianism".Template:Sfn However, the term is disparaged by many Rastafari, who believe that the use of -ism implies religious doctrine and institutional organisation, things they wish to avoid.Template:Sfnm

Beliefs

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The Liberty Bell Temple in Los Angeles

Rastas refer to the totality of their religion's ideas and beliefs as "Rastalogy".Template:Sfn Edmonds described Rastafari as having "a fairly cohesive worldview";Template:Sfn however, the scholar Ernest Cashmore thought that its beliefs were "fluid and open to interpretation".Template:Sfn Within the movement, attempts to summarise Rastafari belief have never been accorded the status of a catechism or creed.Template:Sfn Rastas place great emphasis on the idea that personal experience and intuitive understanding should be used to determine the truth or validity of a particular belief or practice.Template:Sfn No Rasta, therefore, has the authority to declare which beliefs and practices are orthodox and which are heterodox.Template:Sfn The conviction that Rastafari has no dogma "is so strong that it has itself become something of a dogma", according to the sociologist of religion Peter B. Clarke.Template:Sfn

Some Rastas consider themselves Christian,Template:Sfn and the religion has been deeply influenced by both Christian and Jewish thought;Template:Sfnm the scholar Michael Barnett called Rastafari "an Afrocentralized blend of Christianity and Judaism".Template:Sfn Like Christianity, Rastafari treats the Bible as a holy book occupying a central place in its belief system,Template:Sfnm with Rastas often adopting a literalist interpretation of its contents.Template:Sfn Rastas regard the Bible as an authentic account of early black African history and of their place as God's favoured people.Template:Sfn They believe the Bible to be key to understanding both the past and the present and for predicting the future,Template:Sfn while also regarding it as a source book from which they can form and explain their beliefs and practices.Template:Sfnm Rastas commonly perceive the final book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, as the most important part, because they see its contents as having particular significance for the world's present situation.Template:Sfn

Contrary to scholarly understandings of how the Bible was compiled, Rastas commonly believe it was originally written on stone in the Ethiopian language of Amharic.Template:Sfnm They also believe that the Bible's true meaning has been warped, both through mistranslation into other languages and by deliberate manipulation by those seeking to deny black Africans their history.Template:Sfnm They also regard it as cryptographic, meaning that it has many hidden meanings.Template:Sfn They believe that its true teachings can be revealed through intuition and meditation on the "book within" which allows them to commune with God.Template:Sfn Because of what they regard as the corruption of the Bible, Rastas also turn to other sources that they believe shed light on African history, including Leonard Howell's 1935 work The Promised Key, Robert Athlyi Rogers' 1924 book Holy Piby, and Fitz Balintine Pettersburg's 1920s work, the Royal Parchment Scroll of Black Supremacy.Template:Sfn Many Rastas also treat the Kebra Nagast, a 14th-century Ethiopian text, as a source through which to interpret the Bible.Template:Sfn

Jah and Jesus Christ

Rastas are monotheists, worshipping a singular God whom they call Jah. The term "Jah" is a shortened version of "Jehovah", the name of God in English translations of the Old Testament.Template:Sfnm Rastas believe in the immanence of Jah,Template:Sfn who is inherent within each individual.Template:Sfnm This belief is reflected in the aphorism, often cited by Rastas, that "God is man and man is God",Template:Sfn and Rastas speak of "knowing" Jah, rather than simply "believing" in him.Template:Sfn In seeking to narrow the distance between humanity and divinity, Rastafari embraces mysticism.Template:Sfn This idea of connecting to a singular divine force within differs from the forms of spirit possession found in other African diaspora religions, such as Kumina and Convince, where external spirits are invited into the body.Template:Sfn

Jesus is an important figure in Rastafari.Template:Sfn However, practitioners reject the traditional Christian view of Jesus, and they also reject the depiction of him as a white European.Template:Sfnm They believe Jesus was a black African, and that the white Jesus was a false god.Template:Sfnm Many Rastas regard Christianity as the creation of the white man;Template:Sfn they treat it with suspicion out of the view that the oppressors (white Europeans) and the oppressed (black Africans) cannot share the same God.Template:Sfn Some Rastas take the view that the God worshipped by most white Christians is actually the Devil,Template:Sfn and a recurring claim among Rastas is that the Pope is Satan or the Antichrist.Template:Sfnm Rastas therefore often view Christian preachers as deceiversTemplate:Sfn and regard Christianity as being guilty of furthering the oppression of the African diaspora,Template:Sfnm frequently referring to it as having perpetrated "mental enslavement".Template:Sfn

Haile Selassie

File:Haile Selassie in full dress (cropped).jpg

Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia between 1930 and 1974. He is of central importance to Rastas, many of whom regard him as the Second Coming of Jesus and thus God incarnate in human form.

From its origins, Rastafari was intrinsically linked with Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974.Template:Sfnm He remains the central figure in Rastafari ideology,Template:Sfnm and although all Rastas hold him in esteem, precise interpretations of his identity differ.Template:Sfn Understandings of how Haile Selassie relates to Jesus vary among Rastas.Template:Sfn Many, although not all, believe that the Ethiopian monarch was the Second Coming of Jesus,Template:Sfnm legitimising this by reference to their interpretation of the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation.Template:Sfn By viewing Haile Selassie as Jesus, these Rastas also regard him as the messiah prophesied in the Old Testament,Template:Sfnm the manifestation of God in human form,Template:Sfn and "the living God".Template:Sfnm Some perceive him as part of a Trinity, alongside God as Creator and the Holy Spirit, the latter referred to as "the Breath within the temple".Template:Sfnm Rastas who view Haile Selassie as Jesus argue that both were descendants from the royal line of the Biblical king David,Template:Sfn while Rastas also emphasise the fact that the Makonnen dynasty, of which Haile Selassie was a member, claimed descent from the Biblical figures Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.Template:Sfnm

Other Rastas see Selassie as embodying Jesus' teachings and essence but reject the idea that he was the literal reincarnation of Jesus.Template:Sfn Members of the Twelve Tribes of Israel denomination, for instance, reject the idea that Selassie was the Second Coming, arguing that this event has yet to occur.Template:Sfn From this perspective, Selassie is perceived as a messenger or emissary of God rather than a manifestation of God himself.Template:Sfnm Rastas holding to this view sometimes regard the deification of Haile Selassie as naïve or ignorant,Template:Sfn in some cases thinking it as dangerous to worship a human being as God.Template:Sfn There are various Rastas who went from believing that Haile Selassie was both God incarnate and the Second Coming of Jesus to seeing him as something distinct.Template:Sfn

On being crowned, Haile Selassie was given the title of "King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah".Template:Sfn Rastas use this title for Haile Selassie alongside others, such as "Almighty God", "Judge and Avenger", "King Alpha and Queen Omega", "Returned Messiah", "Elect of God", and "Elect of Himself".Template:Sfn Rastas also view Haile Selassie as a symbol of their positive affirmation of Africa as a source of spiritual and cultural heritage.Template:Sfn

While he was emperor, many Jamaican Rastas professed the belief that Haile Selassie would never die.Template:Sfn The 1974 overthrow of Haile Selassie by the military Derg and his subsequent death in 1975 resulted in a crisis of faith for many practitioners.Template:Sfnm Some left the movement altogether.Template:Sfn Others remained, and developed new strategies for dealing with the news. Some Rastas believed that Selassie did not really die and that claims to the contrary were Western misinformation.Template:Sfnm To bolster their argument, they pointed to the fact that no corpse had been produced; in reality, Haile Selassie's body had been buried beneath his palace, remaining undiscovered there until 1992.Template:Sfn Another perspective within Rastafari acknowledged that Haile Selassie's body had perished, but claimed that his inner essence survived as a spiritual force.Template:Sfnm A third response within the Rastafari community was that Selassie's death was inconsequential as he had only been a "personification" of Jah rather than Jah himself.Template:Sfn

During his life, Selassie described himself as a devout Christian.Template:Sfnm In a 1967 interview, Selassie was asked about the Rasta belief that he was the Second Coming of Jesus, to which he responded: "I have heard of this idea. I also met certain Rastafarians. I told them clearly that I am a man, that I am mortal, and that I will be replaced by the oncoming generation, and that they should never make a mistake in assuming or pretending that a human being is emanated from a deity."Template:Sfn His grandson Ermias Sahle Selassie has said that there is "no doubt that Haile Selassie did not encourage the Rastafari movement".Template:Sfn Critics of Rastafari have used this as evidence that Rasta theological beliefs are incorrect,Template:Sfn although some Rastas take Selassie's denials as evidence that he was indeed the incarnation of God, based on their reading of the Gospel of Luke.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnm

Afrocentrism and race

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File:Ethiopia (Africa orthographic projection).svg

The eastern African nation of Ethiopia is given great prominence in Rasta doctrine.

According to Clarke, Rastafari is "concerned above all else with black consciousness, with rediscovering the identity, personal and racial, of black people".Template:Sfn The movement began among Afro-Jamaicans who wanted to reject the British colonial culture that dominated Jamaica and replace it with a new identity based on a reclamation of their African heritage.Template:Sfn Accordingly it decenters Europe and whiteness and emphasises Africa and blackness,Template:Sfn seeking to purge from its followers any belief in the inferiority of black people and the superiority of white people.Template:Sfn Rastafari is therefore Afrocentric,Template:Sfnm equating blackness with the African continent,Template:Sfn and endorsing Pan-Africanism.Template:Sfnm

Practitioners of Rastafari identify themselves with the ancient Israelites—God's chosen people in the Old Testament—and believe that black Africans broadly or Rastas more specifically are either the descendants or the reincarnations of this ancient people.Template:Sfnm This is similar to beliefs in Judaism,Template:Sfn although many Rastas believe that contemporary Jews' status as the descendants of the ancient Israelites is a false claim.Template:Sfn Rastas typically believe that black Africans are God's chosen people, meaning that they made a covenant with him and thus have a special responsibility.Template:Sfnm Rastafari espouses the view that this, the true identity of black Africans, has been lost and needs to be reclaimed.Template:Sfn

There is no uniform Rasta view on race.Template:Sfn Black supremacy was a theme early in the movement, with the belief in a distinctly black African race that was superior to other racial groups.Template:Sfn This has opened the religion to accusations of racism.Template:Sfnm While some Rastas still hold such beliefs, black supremacy has waned in the movement since at least the 1970s, and non-black Rastas are now widely accepted.Template:Sfnm Some Rastas cite a 1963 speech by Haile Selassie in support of racial acceptance.Template:Sfnm Some sects maintains that white Europeans can never be legitimate Rastas but others believe an "African" identity is not inherently linked to black skin but whether an individual displays an African "attitude" or "spirit".Template:Sfn

Exile in Babylon

Rastafari teaches that the black African diaspora are exiles living in "Babylon", a term which it applies to Western society.Template:Sfnm For Rastas, European colonialism and global capitalism are regarded as manifestations of Babylon,Template:Sfn while police and soldiers are viewed as its agents.Template:Sfnm The term "Babylon" is adopted because of its Biblical associations. In the Old Testament, Babylon is the Mesopotamian city where the Israelites were held captive, exiled from their homeland, between 597 and 538 BCE;Template:Sfn Rastas compare the exile of the Israelites in Mesopotamia to the exile of the African diaspora outside Africa.Template:Sfn Rastas perceive the exile of the black African diaspora in Babylon as an experience of great suffering,Template:Sfn with the term "suffering" having a significant place in Rasta discourse.Template:Sfn

Rastas view Babylon as being responsible for both the Atlantic slave trade, which removed enslaved Africans from their continent, and ongoing poverty in the African diaspora.Template:Sfn Rastas believe Biblical scripture explains the Atlantic slave trade,Template:Sfn and that the enslavement, exile, and exploitation of black Africans was punishment for failing to live up to their status as Jah's chosen people.Template:Sfnm Many Rastas, adopting a Pan-Africanist ethos, have criticised the division of Africa into nation-states, regarding this as a Babylonian development,Template:Sfn and are often hostile to capitalist resource extraction from the continent.Template:Sfn Rastas seek to delegitimise and destroy Babylon, something often conveyed in the Rasta aphorism "Chant down Babylon".Template:Sfn Rastas often expect the white-dominated society to dismiss their beliefs as false, and when this happens they see it as confirmation of the correctness of their faith.Template:Sfn

Return to Zion

Rastas view Zion as an ideal to which they aspire.Template:Sfn As with "Babylon", this term comes from the Bible, where it refers to an idealised Jerusalem.Template:Sfn Rastas use "Zion" either for Ethiopia specifically or for Africa more broadly.Template:Sfnm Many Rastas use the term "Ethiopia" as a synonym for Africa, following its usage in English translations of the Bible.Template:Sfnm Rastas in Ghana, for instance, describe themselves as already living within "Ethiopia".Template:Sfn Other Rastas apply the term "Zion" to Jamaica or they use it to describe a state of mind.Template:Sfn Rastas believe that Africa, as the Promised Land, will allow them to escape the domination and degradation they experience in Babylon.Template:Sfn

File:Ethiopia - Location Map (2013) - ETH - UNOCHA.svg

A map of Ethiopia, sometimes called "Zion" by Rastas

During the first three decades of the Rastafari movement, it placed strong emphasis on the need for the African diaspora to be repatriated to Africa.Template:Sfn To this end, various Rastas lobbied the Jamaican government and United Nations to oversee this resettlement process.Template:Sfn<ref name=":0" /> Other Rastas organised their own transportation to the African continent.Template:Sfn Critics of the movement have argued that the migration of the entire African diaspora to Africa is implausible, particularly as no African country would welcome this.Template:Sfn

By the movement's fourth decade, the desire for physical repatriation to Africa had declined among Rastas,Template:Sfn a change influenced by observation of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia.Template:Sfn Rather, many Rastas saw the idea of returning to Africa in a metaphorical sense, entailing the restoration of their pride and self-confidence as people of black African descent.Template:Sfnm The term "liberation before repatriation" began to be used within the movement.Template:Sfnm Some Rastas seek to transform Western society so that they may more comfortably live within it rather than seeking to move to Africa.Template:Sfn There are nevertheless many Rastas who continue to emphasise the need for physical resettlement of the African diaspora in Africa.Template:Sfn

Salvation and paradise

Rastafari is a millenarian movement,Template:Sfnm espousing the idea that the present age will come to an apocalyptic end.Template:Sfnm Many practitioners believe that on this Day of Judgment, Babylon will be overthrown,Template:Sfn with Rastas being the chosen few who survive the upheaval.Template:Sfn With Babylon destroyed, Rastas believe that humanity will enter a "new age",Template:Sfn a millennium of peace, justice, and happiness in which the righteous shall live in Africa.Template:Sfn In the 1980s, many Rastas believed that the Day of Judgment would happen around the year 2000.Template:Sfn A view then common in the Rasta community was that the world's white people would wipe themselves out through nuclear war,Template:Sfn with black Africans then ruling the world, something that they argued was prophesied in the Book of Daniel.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn

Death and reincarnation

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Rasta views on death vary.Template:Sfnm Traditionally, many Rastas believed in the possibility of eternal life.Template:Sfnm In the 1980s, scholar of religion Leonard E. Barrett observed Jamaican Rastas who believed that practitioners who died had not been faithful to Jah.Template:Sfn He suggested that this attitude stemmed from the large numbers of young people in the movement, who had thus seen very few Rastas die.Template:Sfn Another common Rasta view is that those who are righteous may undergo reincarnation.Template:Sfnm

Rastas have traditionally avoided death and funerals,Template:Sfnm meaning that many were given Christian funerals by their relatives.Template:Sfn This attitude to death is less common among more recent or moderate strands of Rastafari, with many considering death a natural part of life.Template:Sfnm Unlike other African diaspora religions, Rastas typically avoid ancestor veneration.Template:Sfn

Morality, ethics, and gender roles

File:Rasta Man Barbados.jpg

A Rasta in Barbados, wearing a rastacap decorated in the Rastafari colours: green, gold, red and black

Most Rastas share a pair of fundamental moral principles known as the "two great commandments": love of God and love of neighbour.Template:Sfn Many Rastas believe that to determine whether they should undertake a certain act or not, they should consult the presence of Jah within themselves.Template:Sfn

Rastafari emphasises the idea of "living naturally".Template:Sfnm As an extension of this view, Africa is considered the natural abode of black Africans—a continent where they can live according to African culture and tradition, and be themselves on a physical, emotional, and intellectual level.Template:Sfn Practitioners believe that Westerners and Babylon have detached themselves from nature through technological development and thus have become debilitated, slothful, and decadent.Template:Sfnm Some Rastas also believe they should adhere to African laws rather than the laws of Babylon, potentially putting them at odds with the law of the countries in which they currently live.Template:Sfn In emphasising this Afrocentric approach, Rastafari expresses overtones of black nationalism.Template:Sfn

The scholar Maureen Warner-Lewis observed that Rastafari combined a "radical, even revolutionary" stance on socio-political issues, particularly regarding race, with a "profoundly traditional" approach on other issues.Template:Sfn Rastas typically look critically upon modern capitalism,Template:Sfn instead favouring small-scale, pre-industrial and agricultural societies.Template:Sfn Some Rastas have promoted activism for socio-political reform, while others believe in awaiting change that will be brought about through divine intervention.Template:Sfn In Jamaica, Rastas typically do not vote,Template:Sfnm dismissing politics as "politricks",Template:Sfn and rarely involve themselves in political parties or unions.Template:Sfn The Rasta tendency to believe that socio-political change is inevitable opens the religion up to the criticism from the political left that it discourages attempts to alter the status quo.Template:Sfnm Other Rastas do engage in political activism; the Ghanaian Rasta singer-songwriter Rocky Dawuni for instance was involved in campaigns promoting democratic elections,Template:Sfn while in Grenada, many Rastas joined the People's Revolutionary Government formed in 1979.Template:Sfn

Gender roles

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Rasta discourse has traditionally presented women as morally weak, susceptible to deception by evil,Template:Sfn and impure while menstruating,Template:Sfnm citing the Book of Leviticus and the writings of Paul the Apostle.Template:Sfnm By contrast, Rastafari often espouses the belief that black men in the African diaspora have been emasculated by Babylon and that their manhood must therefore be restored.Template:Sfnm As a result, Rastafari often affirms patriarchal principles,Template:Sfnm including the idea that women should submit to male leadership.Template:Sfnm External observers—including scholars such as Cashmore and EdmondsTemplate:Sfnm—have claimed that Rastafari accords women an inferior position to men.Template:Sfn Cashmore suggests Rastafari women accept this subordinate position and regard it as their duty to obey their men.Template:Sfn The academic Maureen Rowe suggested that women were willing to join the religion despite its restrictions because they valued the life of structure and discipline it provided.Template:Sfn Attitudes to women within Rastafari have changed since the 1970s, however, with a growing "womanist" movement, and increasing numbers of women in leadership positions at local and international levels.Template:Sfnm

File:Rasta Shop – Seaside, Oregon.jpg

The Rasta Shop, a store selling items associated with Rastafari in the U.S. state of Oregon

Rasta women usually wear clothing that covers their head and hides their body contours.Template:Sfnm Trousers are usually avoided,Template:Sfnm with long skirts preferred.Template:Sfnm Women are expected to cover their head while praying,Template:Sfn and in some Rasta groups this is expected of them whenever in public.Template:Sfn According to traditional Rasta discourse, this dress code is necessary to prevent the sexual objectification of women by men in Babylon.Template:Sfn Rasta men do not usually have such a dress code.Template:Sfnm Some Rasta women have challenged gender norms by wearing their hair uncovered in public and donning trousers.Template:Sfn

Although men and women took part alongside each other in early Rasta rituals, from the late 1940s and 1950s the Rasta community increasingly encouraged gender segregation for ceremonies.Template:Sfn This was based on the belief that women's menstruation made them impure and that their presence at the ceremonies would distract male participants.Template:Sfn

Sexuality

As it existed in Jamaica, Rastafari did not promote monogamy.Template:Sfn Though it is not especially common, Rasta men are permitted to engage in polygamy,Template:Sfnm while women are expected to reserve their sexual activity for one male partner.Template:Sfn Common-law marriage is the norm,Template:Sfnm although many Rastas are legally married.Template:Sfn Rasta men refer to their female partners as "queens",Template:Sfnm "empresses",Template:Sfn or "lionesses",Template:Sfn while the males in these relationships are known as "kingmen".Template:Sfnm Rastafari places great importance on family life and the raising of children,Template:Sfn with reproduction being encouraged.Template:Sfn Traditionally, the religion emphasised the place of men in child-rearing, associating this with the recovery of African manhood.Template:Sfnm Women would often work, sometimes while the man raised the children at home.Template:Sfn

Rastafari regards procreation as the purpose of sex, and thus oral and anal sex are usually forbidden.Template:Sfn Both contraception and abortion are usually censured,Template:Sfnm and a common claim in Rasta discourse is that these were inventions of Babylon to decrease the black African birth-rate.Template:Sfnm Rastas typically express hostile attitudes to homosexuality, regarding homosexuals as evil and unnatural;Template:Sfnm this attitude derives from references to same-sex sexual activity in the Bible.Template:Sfn Cashmore reported that Rastas typically saw the growing acceptance of birth control and homosexuality in the 1970s and 1980s as evidence of the degeneration of Babylon and proof of its approaching demise.Template:Sfn LGBTQ+ Rastas may conceal their sexual orientation because of these attitudes.Template:Sfn

Practices

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Rastas refer to their cultural and religious practices as "livity".Template:Sfnm Rastafari does not place emphasis on hierarchical structures.Template:Sfn It has no professional priesthood,Template:Sfn with Rastas believing that there is no need for a priest to act as mediator between the worshipper and Jah.Template:Sfnm It nevertheless has "elders", an honorific title bestowed upon those with a good reputation among the community.Template:Sfn Although respected figures, they do not necessarily have administrative functions or responsibilities.Template:Sfn When they do oversee ritual meetings, they are often responsible for helping to interpret current events in terms of Biblical scripture.Template:Sfn Elders often communicate with each other through a network to plan movement events and form strategies.Template:Sfn

Grounding

File:Rastafarians celebrate Marcus Garvey.jpg

A group of Rastas in Liberia celebrating Marcus Garvey's birthday

The term "grounding" is used among Rastas to refer to the establishment of relationships between like-minded practitioners.Template:Sfn Groundings often take place in a commune or yard, and are presided over by an elder.Template:Sfn The elder is charged with keeping discipline and can ban individuals from attending.Template:Sfn The number of participants can range from a handful to several hundred.Template:Sfn Activities that take place at groundings include the playing of drums, chanting, the singing of hymns, and the recitation of poetry.Template:Sfnm Cannabis, known as ganja, is often smoked.Template:Sfnm Most groundings contain only men, although some Rasta women have established their own all-female grounding circles.Template:Sfn

One of the central activities at groundings is "reasoning".Template:Sfnm This is a discussion among assembled Rastas about the religion's principles and their relevance to current events.Template:Sfnm These discussions are supposed to be non-combative, although attendees can point out the fallacies in any arguments presented.Template:Sfn Those assembled inform each other about the revelations that they have received through meditation and dream.Template:Sfn Each contributor is supposed to push the boundaries of understanding until the entire group has gained greater insight into the topic under discussion.Template:Sfn In meeting together with like-minded individuals, reasoning helps Rastas to reassure one another of the correctness of their beliefs.Template:Sfn Rastafari meetings are opened and closed with prayers. These involve supplication to Jah for the vulnerable and needy, calls for the destruction of the Rastas' enemies, and closing statements of adoration.Template:Sfn

The largest groundings were known as "groundations" or "grounations" in the 1950s, although they were subsequently re-termed "Nyabinghi Issemblies".Template:Sfn The term "Nyabinghi" is adopted from the name of a mythical African queen.Template:Sfn Nyabinghi Issemblies are often held on dates associated with Ethiopia and Haile Selassie.Template:Sfn These include Ethiopian Christmas (7 January), the day on which Haile Selassie visited Jamaica (21 April), Selassie's birthday (23 July), Ethiopian New Year (11 September), and Selassie's coronation day (2 November).Template:Sfn Some Rastas also organise Nyabinghi Issemblies to mark Jamaica's Emancipation Day (1 August) and Marcus Garvey's birthday (17 August).Template:Sfn

Nyabinghi Issemblies typically take place in rural areas, being situated in the open air or in temporary structures—known as "temples" or "tabernacles"—specifically constructed for the purpose.Template:Sfn Any elder seeking to sponsor a Nyabinghi Issembly must have approval from other elders and requires the adequate resources to organise such an event.Template:Sfn The assembly usually lasts between three and seven days.Template:Sfn During the daytime, attendees engage in food preparation, ganja smoking, and reasoning, while at night they focus on drumming and dancing around bonfires.Template:Sfn Nyabinghi Issemblies often attract Rastas from a wide area, including from different countries.Template:Sfn They establish and maintain a sense of solidarity among the Rasta community and cultivate a feeling of collective belonging.Template:Sfn Unlike in many other religions, rites of passage play no role in Rastafari;Template:Sfn on death, various Rastas have been given Christian funerals by their relatives, as there are no established Rasta funeral rites.Template:Sfn

Use of cannabis

Template:See alsoTemplate:Anchor The principal ritual of Rastafari is the smoking of ganja, also known as marijuana or cannabis.Template:Sfnm Among the names that Rastas give to the plant are callie, Iley, "the herb", "the holy herb", "the grass", and "the weed".Template:Sfnm Cannabis is usually smoked during groundings,Template:Sfn although some practitioners also smoke it informally in other contexts.Template:Sfn Some Rastas smoke cannabis very frequently, something other practitioners regard as excessive.Template:Sfn Many practitioners alternatively consume cannabis in a tea, as a spice in cooking, and as an ingredient in medicine.Template:Sfnm Not all Rastas use cannabis;Template:Sfnm many abstainers explain that they have already achieved a higher level of consciousness and thus do not require it.Template:Sfn

File:Cannabis Plant.jpg

A flowering cannabis plant; the smoking of which is considered a Biblically sanctioned sacrament by Rastas

In Rastafari, cannabis is considered a sacrament.Template:Sfnm Rastas argue that the use of ganja is promoted in the Bible, specifically in Genesis,Template:Efn Psalms,Template:Efn and Revelation.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnm They regard it as having healing properties,Template:Sfnm eulogise it for inducing feelings of "peace and love",Template:Sfn and claim that it cultivates a form of personal introspection that allows the smokers to discover their inner divinity.Template:Sfn Some Rastas believe that cannabis smoke serves as an incense that counteracts immoral practices in society.Template:Sfn

Rastas typically smoke cannabis in the form of a large, hand-rolled cigarette known as a spliff.Template:Sfnm This is often rolled together while a prayer is offered to Jah; the spliff is lit and smoked only when the prayer is completed.Template:Sfn At other times, cannabis is smoked in a water pipe referred to as a chalice: styles include kutchies, chillums, and steamers.Template:Sfn The pipe is passed in a counter-clockwise direction around the assembled circle of Rastas.Template:Sfn

There are various options that might explain how cannabis smoking came to be part of Rastafari. By the 8th century, Arab traders had introduced cannabis to Central and Southern Africa.Template:Sfn In the 19th century, enslaved Bakongo people arrived in Jamaica, where they established the religion of Kumina. In Kumina, cannabis was smoked during religious ceremonies in the belief that it facilitated possession by ancestral spirits.Template:Sfn The religion was largely practiced in south-east Jamaica's Saint Thomas Parish, where a prominent early Rasta, Leonard Howell, lived while he was developing many of Rastafari's beliefs and practices; it may have been through Kumina that cannabis became part of Rastafari.Template:Sfn A second possible source was the use of cannabis in Hindu rituals.Template:Sfnm Hindu migrants arrived in Jamaica as indentured servants from British India between 1834 and 1917, and brought cannabis with them.Template:Sfn A Jamaican Hindu priest, Laloo, was one of Howell's spiritual advisors, and may have influenced his adoption of ganja.Template:Sfn The adoption of cannabis may also have been influenced by the widespread medicinal and recreational use of cannabis among Afro-Jamaicans in the early 20th century.Template:Sfn Early Rastafarians may have taken an element of Jamaican culture which they associated with their peasant past and the rejection of capitalism and sanctified it by according it Biblical correlates.Template:Sfn

In many countries—including JamaicaTemplate:Sfn—cannabis is illegal and by using it, Rastas protest the rules and regulations of Babylon.Template:Sfn In the United States, for example, thousands of practitioners have been arrested because of their possession of the drug.Template:Sfn Rastas have also advocated for the legalisation of cannabis in those jurisdictions where it is illegal;Template:Sfnm in 2015, Jamaica decriminalized personal possession of marijuana up to two ounces and legalized it for medicinal and scientific purposes.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2019, Barbados legalised Rastafari use of cannabis within religious settings and pledged Template:Convert of land for Rastafari to grow it.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Music

File:RastaBongo.jpg

A Rasta playing a batá drum

Rastafari music developed at reasoning sessions,Template:Sfn where drumming, chanting, and dancing are all present.Template:Sfn Rasta music is performed to praise and commune with Jah,Template:Sfn and to reaffirm the rejection of Babylon.Template:Sfn Rastas believe that their music has healing properties, with the ability to cure colds, fevers, and headaches.Template:Sfn Many of these songs are sung to the tune of older Christian hymns,Template:Sfnm but others are original Rasta creations.Template:Sfn

The bass-line of Rasta music is provided by the akete, a three-drum set, which is accompanied by percussion instruments like rattles and tambourines.Template:Sfn A syncopated rhythm is then provided by the fundeh drum.Template:Sfn In addition, a batá drum improvises over the rhythm.Template:Sfn The different components of the music are regarded as displaying different symbolism; the bassline symbolises blows against Babylon, while the lighter beats denote hope for the future.Template:Sfn

As Rastafari developed, popular music became its chief communicative medium.Template:Sfn During the 1960s, ska was a popular musical style in Jamaica, and although its protests against social and political conditions were mild, it gave early expression to Rasta socio-political ideology.Template:Sfn Particularly prominent in the connection between Rastafari and ska were the musicians Count Ossie and Don Drummond.Template:Sfnm Ossie was a drummer who believed that black people needed to develop their own style of music;Template:Sfnm he was heavily influenced by Burru, an Afro-Jamaican drumming style.Template:Sfn Ossie subsequently popularised this new Rastafari ritual music by playing at various groundings and groundations around Jamaica,Template:Sfn with songs like "Another Moses" and "Babylon Gone" reflecting Rasta influence.Template:Sfn Rasta themes also appeared in Drummond's work, with songs such as "Reincarnation" and "Tribute to Marcus Garvey".Template:Sfn

1968 saw the development of reggae in Jamaica, a musical style typified by slower, heavier rhythms than ska and the increased use of Jamaican Patois.Template:Sfn Like calypso, reggae was a medium for social commentary,Template:Sfn although it demonstrated a wider use of radical political and Rasta themes than were previously present in Jamaican popular music.Template:Sfn Reggae artists incorporated Rasta ritual rhythms, and also adopted Rasta chants, language, motifs, and social critiques.Template:Sfn Songs like The Wailers' "African Herbsman" and Peter Tosh's "Legalize It" referenced cannabis use,Template:Sfn while tracks like The Melodians' "Rivers of Babylon" and Junior Byles' "Beat Down Babylon" referenced Rasta beliefs in Babylon.Template:Sfn Reggae gained widespread international popularity during the mid-1970s,Template:Sfn coming to be viewed by black people in many different countries as music of the oppressed.Template:Sfn Many Rastas grew critical of reggae, believing that it had commercialised their religion.Template:Sfn Although reggae contains much Rastafari symbolism,Template:Sfn and the two are widely associated,Template:Sfnm the connection is often exaggerated by non-Rastas.Template:Sfn Most Rastas do not listen to reggae music,Template:Sfn and reggae has also been utilised by other religious groups, such as Protestant Evangelicals.Template:Sfn Out of reggae came dub music; dub artists often employ Rastafari terminology, even when not Rastas themselves.Template:Sfn

Language and symbolism

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Rastas typically regard words as having an intrinsic power,Template:Sfn seeking to avoid language that contributes to servility, self-degradation, and the objectification of the person.Template:Sfn Practitioners therefore often use their own form of language, known commonly as "dread talk",Template:Sfnm "Iyaric",Template:Sfn and "Rasta talk".Template:Sfn Developed in Jamaica during the 1940s,Template:Sfn this use of language fosters group identity and cultivates particular values.Template:Sfn Adherents believe that by formulating their own language they are launching an ideological attack on the integrity of the English language, which they view as a tool of Babylon.Template:Sfn The use of this language helps Rastas distinguish and separate themselves from non-Rastas,Template:Sfnm for whom—according to Barrett—Rasta rhetoric can be "meaningless babbling".Template:Sfn However, Rasta terms have also filtered into wider Jamaican speech patterns.Template:Sfn

File:Flag of Ethiopia (Blank).svg

Rastas regularly use the three colours of the Ethiopian flag for their movement, although they often add black to this tricolour, symbolising the black skin of the African people

Rastas make wide use of the pronoun "I".Template:Sfnm This denotes the Rasta view that the self is divine,Template:Sfn and reminds each Rasta that they are not a slave and have value, worth, and dignity as a human being.Template:Sfnm For instance, Rastas use "I" in place of "me", "I and I" in place of "we", "I-ceive" in place of "receive", "I-sire" in place of "desire", "I-rate" in place of "create", and "I-men" in place of "Amen".Template:Sfn Rastas refer to this process as "InI Consciousness" or "Isciousness".Template:Sfn Rastas typically refer to Haile Selassie as "Haile Selassie I", thus indicating their belief in his divinity.Template:Sfnm Rastas also typically believe that the phonetics of a word should be linked to its meaning.Template:Sfn For instance, Rastas often use the word "downpression" in place of "oppression" because oppression bears down on people rather than lifting them up, with "up" being phonetically akin to "opp-".Template:Sfnm Similarly, they often favour "livicate" over "dedicate" because "ded-" is phonetically akin to the word "dead".Template:Sfnm In the early decades of the religion's development, Rastas often said "Peace and Love" as a greeting, although the use of this declined as Rastafari matured.Template:Sfnm

Rastas often make use of the colours red, black, green, and gold.Template:Sfn Red, gold, and green were used in the Ethiopian flag, while, prior to the development of Rastafari, the Jamaican black nationalist activist Marcus Garvey had used red, green, and black as the colours for the Pan-African flag representing his United Negro Improvement Association.Template:Sfnm According to Garvey, the red symbolised the blood of martyrs, the black symbolised the skin of Africans, and the green represented the vegetation of the land, an interpretation endorsed by some Rastas.Template:Sfnm The colour gold is often included alongside Garvey's three colours; it has been adopted from the Jamaican flag,Template:Sfn and is often interpreted as symbolising the minerals and raw materials which constitute Africa's wealth.Template:Sfn Rastas often paint these colours onto their buildings, vehicles, kiosks, and other items,Template:Sfn or display them on their clothing, helping to distinguish Rastas from non-Rastas and allowing adherents to recognise their co-religionists.Template:Sfn As well as being used by Rastas, the colour set has also been adopted by Pan-Africanists more broadly, who use it to display their identification with Afrocentricity;Template:Sfn for this reason it was adopted on the flags of many post-independence African states.Template:Sfn Rastas often accompany the use of these three or four colours with the image of the Lion of Judah, also adopted from the Ethiopian flag and symbolizing Haile Selassie.Template:Sfn

Diet

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File:Ital food - 01.jpg

An ital breakfast; ackee, plantain, boiled food, breadfruit, and mango-pineapple juice

Rastas seek to produce food "naturally",Template:Sfn eating what they call ital, or "natural" food.Template:Sfnm This is often grown organically,Template:Sfnm and locally.Template:Sfn Most Rastas adhere to the dietary laws outlined in the Book of Leviticus, and thus avoid eating pork or crustaceans.Template:Sfnm Other Rastas remain vegetarian,Template:Sfnm or vegan,Template:Sfn a practice stemming from their interpretation of Leviticus.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn Many also avoid the addition of additives, including sugar and salt, to their food.Template:Sfnm Rasta dietary practices have been ridiculed by non-Rastas; in Ghana for example, where food traditionally includes a high meat content, the Rastas' emphasis on vegetable produce has led to the joke that they "eat like sheep and goats".Template:Sfn In Jamaica, Rasta practitioners have commercialised ital food, for instance by selling fruit juices prepared according to Rasta custom.Template:Sfn

Rastafarians typically avoid food produced by non-Rastas or from unknown sources.Template:Sfnm Rasta men refuse to eat food prepared by a woman while she is menstruating,Template:Sfnm and some will avoid food prepared by a woman at any time.Template:Sfn Rastas also generally avoid alcohol,Template:Sfnm cigarettes,Template:Sfnm and hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine,Template:Sfn presenting these substances as unnatural and dirty and contrasting them with cannabis.Template:Sfn Rastas also often avoid mainstream scientific medicine and will reject surgery, injections, or blood transfusions.Template:Sfn Instead they utilise herbal medicine for healing, especially teas and poultices, with cannabis often used as an ingredient.Template:Sfn

Appearance

File:Pessoa pedindo justiça, vão do Masp, 2013.jpg

A man with dreadlocks in São Paulo, Brazil

Rastas use their physical appearance as a means of visually demarcating themselves from non-Rastas.Template:Sfn Male practitioners will often grow long beards,Template:Sfnm and many Rastas prefer to wear African styles of clothing, such as dashikis, rather than styles that originated in Western countries.Template:Sfn However, it is the formation of hair into dreadlocks that is one of the most recognisable Rasta symbols.Template:Sfnm Rastas believe that dreadlocks are promoted in the Bible, specifically in the Book of Numbers,Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnm and regard them as a symbol of strength linked to the hair of the Biblical figure of Samson.Template:Sfnm They argue that their dreadlocks mark a covenant that they have made with Jah,Template:Sfnm and reflect their commitment to the idea of 'naturalness'.Template:Sfn They also perceive the wearing of dreads as a symbolic rejection of Babylon and a refusal to conform to its norms regarding grooming aesthetics.Template:Sfnm Rastas are often critical of black people who straighten their hair, believing that it is an attempt to imitate white European hair and thus reflects alienation from a person's African identity.Template:Sfn Sometimes this dreadlocked hair is then shaped and styled, often inspired by a lion's mane symbolising Haile Selassie, who is regarded as "the Conquering Lion of Judah".Template:Sfnm

Rastas differ on whether they regard dreadlocks as compulsory for practicing the religion.Template:Sfn Some Rastas do not wear their hair in dreadlocks; within the religion they are often termed "cleanface" Rastas,Template:Sfn with those wearing dreadlocked hair often called "locksmen".Template:Sfn Some Rastas have also joined the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Christian organisation to which Haile Selassie belonged, and these individuals are forbidden from putting their hair in dreadlocks by the Church.Template:Sfnm In reference to Rasta hairstyles, Rastas often refer to non-Rastas as "baldheads",Template:Sfnm or "combsome",Template:Sfn while those who are new to Rastafari and who have only just started to grow their hair into dreads are termed "nubbies".Template:Sfn Members of the Bobo Ashanti sect of Rastas conceal their dreadlocks within turbans,Template:Sfnm while some Rastas tuck their dreads under a rastacap or tam headdress, usually coloured green, red, black, and yellow.Template:Sfnm Dreadlocks and Rastafari-inspired clothing have also been worn for aesthetic reasons by non-Rastas.Template:Sfn For instance, many reggae musicians who do not adhere to the Rastafari religion wear their hair in dreads.Template:Sfn

File:Rastafarian Man In Rasta Cap.jpg

A Rasta man wearing a rastacap in Jamaica

From the beginning of the Rastafari movement in the 1930s, adherents typically grew beards and tall hair, perhaps in imitation of Haile Selassie.Template:Sfn The wearing of hair as dreadlocks then emerged as a Rasta practice in the 1940s;Template:Sfn there were debates within the movement as to whether dreadlocks should be worn or not, with proponents of the style becoming dominant.Template:Sfn There are various claims as to how this practice was adopted.Template:Sfn One claim is that it was adopted in imitation of certain African nations, such as the Maasai, Somalis, or Oromo, or that it was inspired by the hairstyles worn by some of those involved in the anti-colonialist Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya.Template:Sfn An alternative explanation is that it was inspired by the hairstyles of the Hindu sadhus.Template:Sfn

The wearing of dreadlocks has contributed to negative views of Rastafari among non-Rastas, many of whom regard it as wild and unattractive.Template:Sfn Dreadlocks remain socially stigmatised in many societies; in Ghana for example, they are often associated with the homeless and mentally ill, with such associations of marginality extending onto Ghanaian Rastas.Template:Sfn In Jamaica during the mid-20th century, teachers and police officers used to forcibly cut off the dreads of Rastas.Template:Sfn In various countries, Rastas have since won legal battles ensuring their right to wear dreadlocks: in 2020, for instance, the High Court of Malawi ruled that all public schools must allow their students to wear dreadlocks.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The decision is to be enforced before the 30th of June 2023 or schools will be in breach of the country's constitution.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

History

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Rastafari developed out of the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, in which over ten million enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries.Template:Sfn Under 700,000 of these slaves were settled in the British colony of Jamaica.Template:Sfn The British government abolished slavery in the Caribbean island in 1834,Template:Sfnm although racial prejudice remained prevalent across Jamaican society.Template:Sfn

Ethiopianism, Back to Africa, and Marcus Garvey

File:Marcus Garvey (1922).jpg

Marcus Garvey, a prominent black nationalist theorist who heavily influenced Rastafari and is regarded as a prophet by many Rastas

Rastafari owed much to intellectual frameworks arising in the 19th and early 20th centuries.Template:Sfn One key influence on Rastafari was Christian Revivalism,Template:Sfn with the Great Revival of 1860–61 drawing many Afro-Jamaicans to join churches.Template:Sfnm Increasing numbers of Pentecostal missionaries from the United States arrived in Jamaica during the early 20th century, climaxing in the 1920s.Template:Sfnm

Further contributing significantly to Rastafari's development were Ethiopianism and the Back to Africa ethos, both traditions with 18th-century roots.Template:Sfn In the 19th century, there were growing calls for the African diaspora located in Western Europe and the Americas to be resettled in Africa,Template:Sfn with some of this diaspora establishing colonies in Sierra Leone and Liberia.Template:Sfn Based in Liberia, the black Christian preacher Edward Wilmot Blyden began promoting African pride and the preservation of African tradition, customs, and institutions.Template:Sfnm Also spreading throughout Africa was Ethiopianism, a movement that accorded special status to the east African nation of Ethiopia because it was mentioned in various Biblical passages.Template:Sfnm For adherents of Ethiopianism, "Ethiopia" was regarded as a synonym of Africa as a whole.Template:Sfn

Of significant influence on Rastafari was the Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey, who spent much of his adult life in the US and Britain. Garvey supported the idea of global racial separatism and called for part of the African diaspora to relocate to Africa.Template:Sfn His ideas faced opposition from civil rights activists like W. E. B. Du Bois who supported racial integration,Template:Sfn and as a mass movement, Garveyism declined in the Great Depression of the 1930s.Template:Sfn A rumour later spread that in 1916, Garvey had called on his supporters to "look to Africa" for the crowning of a black king; this quote was never verified.Template:Sfnm However, in August 1930, Garvey's play, Coronation of an African King, was performed in Kingston. Its plot revolved around the crowning of the fictional Prince Cudjoe of Sudan, although it anticipated the crowning of Haile Selassie later that year.Template:Sfn Rastas hold Garvey in great esteem,Template:Sfn with many regarding him as a prophet.Template:Sfnm Garvey knew of Rastafari, but took a largely negative view of the religion;Template:Sfn he also became a critic of Haile Selassie,Template:Sfnm calling him "a great coward" who rules a "country where black men are chained and flogged".Template:Sfn

Haile Selassie and the early Rastas: 1930–1949

Haile Selassie was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930, becoming the first sovereign monarch crowned in Sub-Saharan Africa since 1891 and first Christian one since 1889. A number of Jamaica's Christian clergymen claimed that Selassie's coronation was evidence that he was the black messiah that they believed was prophesied in the Book of Revelation,Template:Efn the Book of Daniel,Template:Efn and Psalms.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfnm Over the following years, several street preachers—most notably Leonard Howell, Archibald Dunkley, Robert Hinds, and Joseph Hibbert—began claiming that Haile Selassie was the returned Jesus.Template:Sfnm They first did so in Kingston, and soon the message spread throughout 1930s Jamaica,Template:Sfnm especially among poor communities who were hit particularly hard by the Great Depression.Template:Sfn Clarke stated that "to all intents and purposes this was the beginning" of the Rastafari movement.Template:Sfn

File:Addis Ababa-8e00855u.jpg

Emperor Haile Selassie in 1942, a year after he re-took control of Ethiopia

Howell was the early movement's "leading figure".Template:Sfn He preached that black Africans were superior to white Europeans and that Afro-Jamaicans should owe their allegiance to Haile Selassie rather than to King George V. The island's colonial authorities arrested him and charged him with sedition in 1934, resulting in a two-year imprisonment.Template:Sfnm Following his release, Howell established the Ethiopian Salvation Society and in 1939 formed a Rasta community, known as Pinnacle, in Saint Catherine Parish.Template:Sfnm Jamaica's police feared that Howell was plotting an armed rebellion and raided Pinnacle repeatedly. Pinnacle ultimately closed in 1954 and Howell was committed to a mental hospital.Template:Sfnm

In 1936, Italy invaded and occupied Ethiopia, and Haile Selassie went into exile. The invasion brought international condemnation and led to growing sympathy for the Ethiopian cause.Template:Sfn In 1937, Selassie created the Ethiopian World Federation, which established a branch in Jamaica later that decade.Template:Sfnm In 1941, Allied forces drove the Italians out of Ethiopia and Selassie returned to reclaim his throne. Many Rastas interpreted this as the fulfilment of a prophecy made in the Book of Revelation.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn

Growing visibility: 1950–1969

Rastafari's main appeal was among Jamaica's lower classes.Template:Sfn For its first thirty years, Rastafari was in a conflictual relationship with the Jamaican authorities.Template:Sfn Jamaica's Rastas expressed contempt for many aspects of the island's society, viewing the government, police, bureaucracy, professional classes, and established churches as instruments of Babylon.Template:Sfn Relations between practitioners and the police were strained, with Rastas often being arrested for cannabis possession.Template:Sfnm During the 1950s the movement grew rapidly in Jamaica and also spread to other Caribbean islands, the United States, and the United Kingdom.Template:Sfn

In the 1940s and 1950s, a more militant brand of Rastafari emerged.Template:Sfn The vanguard of this was the House of Youth Black Faith, a group largely based in West Kingston.Template:Sfn Backlash against the Rastas grew after a practitioner allegedly killed a woman in 1957.Template:Sfn In March 1958, the first Rastafarian Universal Convention was held in Back-o-Wall, Kingston.Template:Sfnm Following the event, militant Rastas unsuccessfully tried to capture the city in the name of Haile Selassie.Template:Sfnm Later that year they tried again in Spanish Town.Template:Sfn The increasing militancy of some Rastas resulted in growing alarm;Template:Sfn according to Cashmore, the Rastas became "folk devils" in Jamaican society.Template:Sfn

In 1959, the self-declared prophet and founder of the African Reform Church, Claudius Henry, sold thousands of tickets to Afro-Jamaicans, including many Rastas, for passage on a ship that he claimed would take them to Africa. The ship never arrived and Henry was charged with fraud. In 1960 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment for conspiring to overthrow the government.Template:Sfnm Henry's son was accused of being part of a paramilitary cell and executed, confirming public fears about Rasta violence.Template:Sfnm One of the most prominent clashes between Rastas and law enforcement was the Coral Gardens incident of 1963, in which an initial skirmish between police and Rastas resulted in several deaths and led to a larger roundup of practitioners.Template:Sfn Clamping down on the Rasta movement, in 1964 the island's government implemented tougher laws surrounding cannabis use.Template:Sfn

At the invitation of its government, Haile Selassie visited Jamaica for the first time on 21 April 1966, with thousands of Rastas assembled to meet him at the airport.Template:Sfnm Over the course of the 1960s, Jamaica's Rasta community underwent a process of routinisation,Template:Sfn with the late 1960s witnessing the launch of the first official Rastafarian newspaper, the Rastafarian Movement Association's Rasta Voice.Template:Sfn The decade also saw Rastafari develop in increasingly complex ways,Template:Sfn as it did when some Rastas began to reinterpret the idea that salvation required a physical return to Africa, instead interpreting salvation as coming through a process of mental decolonisation that embraced African approaches to life.Template:Sfn

Whereas its membership had previously derived predominantly from poorer sectors of society, in the 1960s Rastafari began attracting support from more privileged groups like students and professional musicians.Template:Sfnm The foremost group emphasising this approach was the Twelve Tribes of Israel, whose members came to be known as "Uptown Rastas".Template:Sfn Many Rastas came under the influence of the Guyanese black nationalist academic Walter Rodney, who lectured to their community in 1968 before publishing his thoughts as the pamphlet Groundings.Template:Sfnm Like Rodney, many Jamaican Rastas were influenced by the U.S.-based Black Power movement,Template:Sfnm and after that movement declined, Rastafari filled the vacuum it left for many black youth.Template:Sfn

International spread and decline: 1970–present

In the mid-1970s, reggae's international popularity exploded.Template:Sfn The most successful reggae artist, Bob Marley, played a major role in introducing Rastafari themes to audiences across the world.Template:Sfn Reggae's popularity led to a growth in "pseudo-Rastafarians", individuals who listened to reggae and wore Rasta clothing but did not share its belief system.Template:Sfn Many Rastas were angered by this, believing it commercialised their religion.Template:Sfn

File:Bob-Marley-in-Concert Zurich 05-30-80.jpg

Reggae musician Bob Marley did much to raise international awareness of the Rastafari movement in the 1970s.

Through reggae, Rasta musicians became increasingly important in Jamaica's political life during the 1970s.Template:Sfn To bolster his popularity with the electorate, Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley employed Rasta imagery and courted support from Marley and other reggae musicians.Template:Sfnm Manley described Rastas as a "beautiful and remarkable people"Template:Sfn and carried a cane which he claimed was a gift from Haile Selassie.Template:Sfnm Following Manley's example, Jamaican political parties increasingly employed Rasta language, symbols, and reggae references in their campaigns,Template:Sfnm while Rasta symbols became increasingly mainstream in Jamaican society.Template:Sfn This helped to confer greater legitimacy on Rastafari,Template:Sfn with reggae and Rasta imagery being increasingly presented as a core part of Jamaica's cultural heritage for the growing tourist industry.Template:Sfn In the 1980s, a Rasta, Barbara Makeda Blake Hannah, became a senator in the Jamaican Parliament.Template:Sfn

Enthusiasm for Rastafari was likely dampened by the death of Haile Selassie in 1975 and that of Marley in 1981.Template:Sfn During the 1980s, the number of Rastas in Jamaica declined,Template:Sfn with Pentecostal and other Charismatic Christian groups proving more successful at attracting young recruits.Template:Sfn Several prominent Rastas converted to Christianity,Template:Sfn and two of those who did so—Judy Mowatt and Tommy Cowan—maintained that Marley had converted to Christianity, in the form of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, during his final days.Template:Sfn The significance of Rastafari messages in reggae also declined with the growing popularity of dancehall, a Jamaican musical genre that typically foregrounded lyrical themes of hyper-masculinity, violence, and sexual activity rather than religious symbolism.Template:Sfn

The mid-1990s saw a revival of Rastafari-focused reggae associated with musicians like Anthony B, Buju Banton, Luciano, Sizzla, and Capleton.Template:Sfn From the 1990s, Jamaica also witnessed the growth of organised political activity within the Rasta community, seen for instance through campaigns for the legalisation of cannabis and the creation of political parties like the Jamaican Alliance Movement and the Imperial Ethiopian World Federation Incorporated Political Party, none of which attained more than minimal electoral support.Template:Sfn In 1995, the Rastafari Centralization Organization was established in Jamaica as an attempt to organise the Rastafari community.Template:Sfn

Organisation

Rastafari is not a homogeneous movement and has no single administrative structure,Template:Sfn nor any single leader.Template:Sfnm A majority of Rastas avoid centralised and hierarchical structures because they do not want to replicate the structures of Babylon and because their religion's ultra-individualistic ethos places emphasis on inner divinity.Template:Sfn The structure of most Rastafari groups is less like that of Christian denominations and is instead akin to the cellular structure of other African diasporic traditions like Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santería, and Jamaica's Revival Zion.Template:Sfn Since the 1970s, there have been attempts to unify all Rastas, namely through the establishment of the Rastafari Movement Association, which sought political mobilisation.Template:Sfn In 1982, the first international assembly of Rastafari groups took place in Toronto, Canada.Template:Sfn This and subsequent international conferences, assemblies, and workshops have helped to cement global networks and cultivate an international community of Rastas.Template:Sfn

Mansions of Rastafari

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File:ReggaeV4.0.svg

A stylised Rastafari motif, depicting the Lion of Judah

Sub-divisions of Rastafari are often referred to as "houses" or "mansions", in keeping with a passage from the Gospel of John (14:2): as translated in the King James Bible, Jesus states, "In my father's house are many mansions".Template:Sfn The three most prominent branches are the House of Nyabinghi, the Bobo Ashanti, and the Twelve Tribes of Israel, although other important groups include the Church of Haile Selassie I, Inc., and the Fulfilled Rastafari.Template:Sfn By fragmenting into different houses without any single leader, Rastafari became more resilient amid opposition from Jamaica's government during the early decades of the movement.Template:Sfn

Probably the largest Rastafari group, the House of Nyabinghi is an aggregate of more traditional and militant Rastas who seek to keep the movement close to the way in which it existed during the 1940s.Template:Sfn They stress the idea that Haile Selassie was Jah and the reincarnation of Jesus.Template:Sfn The wearing of dreadlocks is regarded as indispensable and patriarchal gender roles are strongly emphasised.Template:Sfn According to Cashmore, writing in 1983, they are "vehemently anti-white".Template:Sfn Nyabinghi Rastas refuse to compromise with Babylon and are often critical of reggae musicians like Marley for collaborating with the commercial music industry.Template:Sfn

The Bobo Ashanti sect was founded in Jamaica by Emanuel Charles Edwards through the establishment of his Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress (EABIC) in 1958.Template:Sfnm The group established a commune in Bull Bay, where they were led by Edwards until his death in 1994.Template:Sfnm The group hold to a highly rigid ethos,Template:Sfn and are influenced by Mosaic Law.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Edwards advocated the idea of a new trinity, with Haile Selassie as the living God, himself as the Christ, and Garvey as the prophet.Template:Sfnm Male members are divided into two categories: the "priests" who conduct religious services and the "prophets" who take part in reasoning sessions.Template:Sfn It places greater restrictions on women than most other forms of Rastafari;Template:Sfn women are regarded as impure because of menstruation and childbirth and so are not permitted to cook for men.Template:Sfn The group teaches that black Africans are God's chosen people and are superior to white Europeans,Template:Sfnm with members often refusing to associate with white people.Template:Sfn By the opening decades of the twenty-first century, the Bobo Ashanti have become more welcoming of outsiders, even those who are menstruating.Template:Sfn Bobo Ashanti Rastas are recognisable by their long, flowing robes and turbans.Template:Sfnm

File:Twelve Tribes of Israel headquarters.jpg

The headquarters of the Twelve Tribes of Israel group in Shashemene, Ethiopia

The Twelve Tribes of Israel group was founded in 1968 in Kingston by Vernon Carrington.Template:Sfnm He proclaimed himself the reincarnation of the Old Testament prophet Gad and his followers call him "Prophet Gad", "Brother Gad", or "Gadman".Template:Sfnm It is commonly regarded as the most liberal form of Rastafari and the closest to Christianity.Template:Sfn Practitioners are often dubbed "Christian Rastas" because they believe Jesus is the only saviour; Haile Selassie is accorded importance, but is not viewed as the second coming of Jesus.Template:Sfn The group divides its members into twelve groups according to which Hebrew calendar month they were born in; each month is associated with a particular colour, body part, and mental function.Template:Sfnm Maintaining dreadlocks and an Ital diet are considered commendable but not essential,Template:Sfn while adherents are called upon to read a chapter of the Bible each day.Template:Sfnm Membership is open to individuals of any racial background.Template:Sfn

The Twelve Tribes peaked in popularity during the 1970s, when it attracted artists, musicians, and many middle-class followers—Marley among themTemplate:Sfnm—resulting in the terms "middle-class Rastas" and "uptown Rastas" being applied to members of the group.Template:Sfn Carrington died in 2005, since which time the Twelve Tribes of Israel have been led by an executive council.Template:Sfn The council includes an equal number of men and women.Template:Sfn As of 2010, it was recorded as being the largest of the centralised Rasta groups.Template:Sfn It remains headquartered in Kingston, although it has followers outside Jamaica;Template:Sfn the group was responsible for establishing the Rasta community in Shashamane, Ethiopia.Template:Sfnm

The Church of Haile Selassie, Inc., was founded by Abuna Foxe and operated much like a mainstream Christian church, with a hierarchy of functionaries, weekly services, and Sunday schools.Template:Sfn In adopting this broad approach, the Church seeks to develop Rastafari's respectability in wider society.Template:Sfn Fulfilled Rastafari is a multi-ethnic movement that has spread in popularity during the 21st century, in large part through the Internet.Template:Sfn The Fulfilled Rastafari group accept Haile Selassie's statements that he was a man and that he was a devout Christian, and so place emphasis on worshipping Jesus through the example set forth by Haile Selassie.Template:Sfn The wearing of dreadlocks and the adherence to an ital diet are considered issues up to the individual.Template:Sfn

Demographics

As of 2012, there were an estimated 700,000 to 1,000,000 Rastas worldwide.Template:Sfn They can be found in many different regions, including most of the world's major population centres.Template:Sfn Rastafari's influence on wider society has been more substantial than its numerical size,Template:Sfnm particularly in fostering a racial, political, and cultural consciousness among the African diaspora and Africans themselves.Template:Sfn Men dominate Rastafari.Template:Sfn In its early years, most of its followers were men, and the women who did adhere to it tended to remain in the background.Template:Sfn This picture of Rastafari's demographics has been confirmed by ethnographic studies conducted in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.Template:Sfn

The Rasta message resonates with many people who feel marginalised and alienated by the values and institutions of their society.Template:Sfn Internationally, it has proved most popular among the poor and among marginalised youth.Template:Sfn In valorising Africa and blackness, Rastafari provides a positive identity for youth in the African diaspora by allowing them to psychologically reject their social stigmatisation.Template:Sfn It then provides these disaffected people with the discursive stance from which they can challenge capitalism and consumerism, providing them with symbols of resistance and defiance.Template:Sfn Cashmore expressed the view that "whenever there are black people who sense an injust disparity between their own material conditions and those of the whites who surround them and tend to control major social institutions, the Rasta messages have relevance."Template:Sfn

Conversion and deconversion

Rastafari is a non-missionary religion.Template:Sfnm However, elders from Jamaica often go "trodding" to instruct new converts in the fundamentals of the religion.Template:Sfn On researching English Rastas during the 1970s, Cashmore noted that they had not converted instantaneously, but rather had undergone "a process of drift" through which they gradually adopted Rasta beliefs and practices, resulting in their ultimate acceptance of Haile Selassie's central importance.Template:Sfn Based on his research in West Africa, Neil J. Savishinsky found that many of those who converted to Rastafari came to the religion through their pre-existing use of marijuana as a recreational drug.Template:Sfn

Rastas often claim that—rather than converting to the religion—they were actually always a Rasta and that their embrace of its beliefs was merely the realisation of this.Template:Sfn There is no formal ritual carried out to mark an individual's entry into the Rastafari movement,Template:Sfn although once they do join an individual often changes their name, with many including the prefix "Ras".Template:Sfn Rastas regard themselves as an exclusive and elite community, membership of which is restricted to those who have the "insight" to recognise Haile Selassie's importance.Template:Sfn Practitioners thus often regard themselves as the "enlightened ones" who have "seen the light".Template:Sfn Many of them see no point in establishing good relations with non-Rastas, believing that the latter will never accept Rastafari doctrine as truth.Template:Sfn

Some Rastas have left the religion. Clarke noted that among British Rastas, some returned to Pentecostalism and other forms of Christianity, while others embraced Islam or no religion.Template:Sfn Some English ex-Rastas described disillusionment when the societal transformation promised by Rastafari failed to appear, while others felt that while Rastafari would be appropriate for agrarian communities in Africa and the Caribbean, it was not suited to industrialised British society.Template:Sfn Others experienced disillusionment after developing the view that Haile Selassie had been an oppressive leader of the Ethiopian people.Template:Sfn Cashmore found that some British Rastas who had more militant views left the religion after finding its focus on reasoning and music insufficient for the struggle against white domination and racism.Template:Sfn

Regional spread

Although it remains most concentrated in the Caribbean,Template:Sfn Rastafari has spread to many areas of the world and adapted into many localised variants.Template:Sfn It has spread primarily in Anglophone regions and countries, largely because reggae music has primarily been produced in the English language.Template:Sfn It is thus most commonly found in the Anglophone Caribbean, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and Anglophone parts of Africa.Template:Sfn

Jamaica and the Americas

File:Jamaican Man.jpg

A practitioner of Rastafari in Jamaica

Barrett described Rastafari as "the largest, most identifiable, indigenous movement in Jamaica."Template:Sfn In the mid-1980s, there were approximately 70,000 members and sympathisers of Rastafari in Jamaica.Template:Sfn The majority were male, working-class, former Christians aged between 18 and 40.Template:Sfn In the 2011 Jamaican census, 29,026 individuals identified as Rastas.<ref name="state2007">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Jamaica's Rastas were initially entirely from the Afro-Jamaican majority,Template:Sfn and although Afro-Jamaicans are still the majority, Rastafari has also gained members from the island's Chinese, Indian, Afro-Chinese, Afro-Jewish, mulatto, and white minorities.Template:Sfn Until 1965, the vast majority were from the lower classes, although it has since attracted many middle-class members; by the 1980s, there were Jamaican Rastas working as lawyers and university professors.Template:Sfn Jamaica is often valorised by Rastas as the fountain-head of their faith, and many Rastas living elsewhere travel to the island on pilgrimage.Template:Sfn

Both through travel between the islands,Template:Sfn and through reggae's popularity,Template:Sfnm Rastafari spread across the eastern Caribbean during the 1970s. Here, its ideas complemented the anti-colonial and Afrocentric views prevalent in countries like Trinidad, Grenada, Dominica, and St Vincent.Template:Sfn In these countries, the early Rastas often engaged in cultural and political movements to a greater extent than their Jamaican counterparts had.Template:Sfn Various Rastas were involved in Grenada's 1979 New Jewel Movement and were given positions in the Grenadine government until it was overthrown and replaced following the U.S. invasion of 1983.Template:Sfnm Although Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist government generally discouraged foreign influences, Rastafari was introduced to Cuba alongside reggae in the 1970s.Template:Sfnm Foreign Rastas studying in Cuba during the 1990s connected with its reggae scene and helped to further ground it in Rasta beliefs.Template:Sfn In Cuba, most Rastas have been male and from the Afro-Cuban population.Template:Sfnm

Rastafari was introduced to the United States and Canada with the migration of Jamaicans to continental North America in the 1960s and 1970s.Template:Sfn American police were often suspicious of Rastas and regarded Rastafari as a criminal sub-culture.Template:Sfn Rastafari also attracted converts from within several Native American communitiesTemplate:Sfn and picked up some support from white members of the hippie subculture, which was then in decline.Template:Sfn In Latin America, small communities of Rastas have also established in Brazil, Panama, and Nicaragua.Template:Sfn

Africa

Some Rastas in the African diaspora have followed through with their beliefs about resettlement in Africa, with Ghana and Nigeria being particularly favoured.Template:Sfn In West Africa, Rastafari has spread largely through the popularity of reggae,Template:Sfn gaining a larger presence in Anglophone areas than their Francophone counterparts.Template:Sfn

Caribbean Rastas arrived in Ghana during the 1960s, encouraged by its first post-independence president, Kwame Nkrumah, while some native Ghanaians also converted to the religion.Template:Sfn The largest congregation of Rastas has been in southern parts of Ghana, around Accra, Tema, and the Cape Coast,Template:Sfn although Rasta communities also exist in the Muslim-majority area of northern Ghana.Template:Sfn Middleton suggests that Rasta migrants' dreadlocks resembled the hairstyles of the native fetish priests, which may have assisted the presentation of these Rastas as having authentic African roots in Ghanaian society.Template:Sfn However, Alhassan has noted that prejudice against people wearing dreadlocks was present among at least some Ghanaians in 2008.Template:Sfn Ghanaian Rastas have also complained of social ostracism and prosecution for cannabis possession, while non-Rastas in Ghana often consider them to be "drop-outs", "too Western", and "not African enough".Template:Sfn Conversely, Alhassan noted an increased acceptance of dreadlocks by 2017, with notable Ghanaians such as Lordina Mahama and Ursula Owusu-Ekuful wearing their hair in this style. This has reportedly coincided with increased interest in Rastafari in Ghana. Alhassan suggests Ghanaians "trod the path" to Rastafari to "affirm their African identity" and engage in Pan-African anti-colonial politics, "despite adverse social consequences".Template:Sfn

File:East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa (20512396425).jpg

A Rasta street vendor in South Africa's Eastern Cape

A smaller number of Rastas are found in Muslim-majority countries of West Africa, such as Gambia and Senegal.Template:Sfn One West African group that wear dreadlocks are the Baye Faal, a Mouride sect in Senegambia, some of whose practitioners have started calling themselves "Rastas" in reference to their visual similarity to Rastafari.Template:Sfn The popularity of dreadlocks and marijuana among the Baye Faal may have been spread in large part through access to Rasta-influenced reggae in the 1970s.Template:Sfn A small community of Rastas also appeared in Burkina Faso.Template:Sfn

In the 1960s, a Rasta settlement was established in Shashamane, Ethiopia, on land made available by Haile Selassie's Ethiopian World Federation.Template:Sfn The community faced many problems; 500 acres were confiscated by the Marxist government of Mengistu Haile Mariam.Template:Sfn There were also conflicts with local Ethiopians, who largely regarded the incoming Rastas, and their Ethiopian-born children, as foreigners.Template:Sfn The Shashamane community peaked at a population of 2,000, although subsequently declined to around 200.Template:Sfn

By the early 1990s, a Rasta community existed in Nairobi, Kenya, whose approach to the religion was informed both by reggae and by traditional Kikuyu religion.Template:Sfn Rastafari groups have also appeared in Zimbabwe,Template:Sfn MalawiTemplate:Sfn and in South Africa;Template:Sfn in 2008, there were at least 12,000 Rastas in the country.Template:Sfn At an African Union/Caribbean Diaspora conference in South Africa in 2005, a statement was released characterising Rastafari as a force for integration of Africa and the African diaspora.Template:Sfn

Europe

File:Benjamin Zephaniah University of Hull.jpg

The English Rasta Benjamin Zephaniah was a well-known poet.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Rastas were among the thousands of Caribbean migrants who settled in the United Kingdom,Template:Sfnm leading to small groups appearing in areas of London such as BrixtonTemplate:Sfnm and Notting Hill in the 1950s.Template:Sfn By the late 1960s, Rastafari had attracted converts from the second generation of British Caribbean people,Template:Sfn spreading beyond London to cities like Birmingham, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol.Template:Sfn Its spread was aided by the gang structures that had been cultivated among black British youth by the rudeboy subculture,Template:Sfn and gained increasing attention in the 1970s through reggae's popularity.Template:Sfnm According to the 2001 United Kingdom Census there are about 5000 Rastafari living in England and Wales.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Clarke described Rastafari as a small but "extremely influential" component of black British life.Template:Sfn

Rastafari also established itself in various continental European countries, among them the Netherlands, Germany,Template:Sfn Portugal, Ukraine,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and France, gaining a particular foothold among black migrant populations but also attracting white converts.Template:Sfn In France for instance it established a presence in two cities with substantial black populations, Paris and Bordeaux,Template:Sfn while in the Netherlands, it attracted converts within the Surinamese migrant community.Template:Sfn

Australasia and Asia

Rastafari attracted membership from within the Maori population of New Zealand,Template:Sfnm and the Aboriginal population of Australia.Template:Sfn Rastafari has also established a presence in Japan,Template:Sfn including a small rural community of Rasta musicians in Yoshino.Template:Sfn Japanese Rastafari emerged from the 1960s counterculture and focuses on issues such as rural communities, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism and the environment.Template:Sfn Rastafari is also established in Israel, primarily among those highlighting similarities between Judaism and Rastafari.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• List of Rastafarians

References

Sources

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Further reading

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External links

• Rastafarianism profile at the World Religion and Spirituality Project (WRSP)
• Rastafari profile at the Religious Movements Homepage (University of Virginia)

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