rastafari as pan afrikanism

7/29/2019 Rastafari as Pan Afrikanism

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Rastafari as Pan Africanism in theCaribbean and AfricaHorace CampbellIntroductionAt the dawn of the twentieth century the celebrated Pan African Scholar,W .E.B . du B ois , had declared that "the problem of the twentieth century wasthe problem of the colour line". This fact of race and racial identification hadbeen part of the consciousness of mankind for a long period but took aspecific form after the A tlantic Slave trade justified the trade in racial terms.'Africa for the Africans' became the cry of the dispersed blacks usingreligious language in the 19th century and articulating this racial conscious-ness as Pan Africanism in the twentieth century. Garveyism was one brandof Pan Africanism which sought to root the ideas of African redemption in aconcrete organisational form - in the Universal Negro Improvement As-sociation. Thus far, however, the scholarship on Pan Africanism has tendedto document the five major Pan African Congresses which were held be-tween 1900 and 1945. This was easier than the study of the movement of PanAfricanism which took differing forms among Africans in the continent ofAfrica, in Europe, in North America and the Caribbean. Pan Africanismamong the masses in Africa was given concrete organisational form in theperiod of decolonisation in the compromise of the Organisation of AfricanUnity. (O A U ).1The end of colonialism in the Caribbean and in Africa ended the all classform of nationalist organisation and the masses in the new states soughtavenues of self expression and independent organisation. The Rastafarimovement in the Caribbean emerged as a popular mass movement, respond-ing to the need for a m ass based organisation among the people, free fromstate control. Reggae as a form of communication emerged specifically tomeet the needs of a section of society searching for self expression and selforganisation. Even with the hindrance of extending itself to an Africanmonarch and African religious forms, the social questions in the society


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76 H O R A C E C A M P B E L Lwhich had given rise to Ras ta and Reggae ensured that con crete social qu es-tions would come before the mysticism and metaphysical tendencies of themovement.

Inside the Caribbean the first response of state scholars was to view themovement as escapist and m illenarian. A prom inent sociologist, whose workon 'cultural pluralism' had gained influence in Western social 'science',obscured the interplay between race and class in the society which gave riseto the Rastafari. This was evident in the first Report on the Rastafari M ove-ment in K ingston w here th e tools which went into th e analysis followed therequirements of social control. The Rastafari had rejected the ideas of'development', 'growth', 'modernisation', 'the unlimited supplies of labour'and those concepts of social science which were cu rrent in the language ofthe politicians in the sixties.That the Rastafari movement and reggae music developed and spread inall the Caribbean and in Eu rop e posed new problem s not only for th e statesbut for the cultural leaders of the west who wanted to package music in amanner to pacify the youths in their societies. W alter R odney th e P anAfrican, Pan Caribbean scholar had perceived the po tential of the Rastafari

movement and sought to enrich their understanding of Africa in sessions thathe called The Grounding? with my Brothers? Rodney sought to break withthe idealism of the Pan Africanists of the 1930's, whose contribution to thestudy and understanding of Pan Africanism was to insist on the existence ofAfrican Kingdoms and civilisations prio r to Europ ea n colonialism. Thiswork among the Rastafari coincided with the em ergence of forms of Jamaicamusic which sought to insp ire the youths. The ensuing musical form, reggae ,carried forward the project of Garvey'to carry forth the work of the strugglefor African liberation from the centre of the international Western societies.Reggae artists mastered th e technology and sound of the electronics revolu-tion to develop a message which went beyond the Rastafari constituency.Bob Mariey emerged out of this thrust to become o ne of the most popu larexponents of Pan African liberation. In the words of one Caribbean PanAfricanistm, Eusi Kwayana, "the power of art tha t B ob M arley's music re pr e-sented had done more to popularise th e real issues of African liberation thanseveral deca des of backbrealdng work by Pan Africanists and internationalrevolutionaries.

Throughout the world youths listened to the music of reggae. This PanAfrican message challenged the religion of mass consumption and com-modity fetistism. African youths in the urban areas with radio receivers andvideo recorders were particularly endeared to this internationalisation ofAfrican redem ption. This section of the youth could not always defferentiatebetween the work of Bob Mariey and Jimmy Cliff on the one hand and thework of Michael Jackson and Prince, on the other. Th er e w as also th e ad di-


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R A S T A F A R I A S P A N A F R I C A N I S M I N T H E C A R I BB E A N A N D A F R I C A 7 7tional contradiction of seeking to identify with the African roots of reggaewhile turnin g their backs on the vast resou rce of African culture in their vil-lages and townships. Yet at the level of consciousness the appeal of theRasta-lay not only in the conceptions of liberations, but in the admonitionthat the y ouths should em ancipate themselves from mental slavery.Rastafari was a reference point to maintain some form of self worth in aworld where the images of Africa were linked to inferiority. This wasproblematic in that the Rasta movement held defensively to the identifica-tion with Haile Selassie, the former Emperor of Ethiopia. However theEthiopian revolution of 1974 and the resulting social changes on the con-tinent led to a shift in the concern of the Rastafari to the struggle for libera-tion and eq ua l rights in South Africa. This was evident in the historic perfor-m ance of B ob M arley at the Zimbabwe independence celebrations in April1980.The concrete struggle for dignity in South Africa launched the struggleagainst apartheid on to the centre stage of the world. This problem inSouthern Africa brought to the fore the class content of Pan Africanismespecially in the context of liberation organisations bearing the Pan Africanname. Would the question of the twenty-first century be that of the colourfine or would it be on the form of the organisation of society? This questionwas posed most sharply by the popular forces in South Africa who foughtagainst the despotism of the factory and its manner of dividing communitiesand families. While the ideas of cultural pluralism were being reformulatedto devise federal forms of state support to capital/labour relations whichwould conceal th e racial division of labour, the youths inside the em battledtownships we re moving from making the system unworkable while laying theem bryo for pe op les p ow er. Pan Africanism in South Africa called for the in-ternationalism which liberated Africans from, the preoccupation with race.Partly for this reason the anti-apartheid struggle was of concern to leaderswho wanted to reduce the revolutionary potential of the struggles in SouthAfrica.Inside the Caribbean, youths and Rastas were beginning to grapple withthe question of the nature of organisations necessary for development afterth e reversals in G ren ad a of 1983. Th e subsequent piracy in the CaribbeanSeas epitomised by th e tr ad e in cocaine and n arcotics also forced the co n-scious you th to assess the kind of ideas which would guide the ir existence ashum an being s. In t h e process, the qu estion of the meaning of work, the pu r-pose of work and the need to humanise the environment became a crucialquestion in the period of the third technological revolution. The economiccrisis, the Orwellian efforts at thought control and the crude materialism ofpresent day Hollywood in the midst of the AIDS epidemic called for ideasand social movements which transcend the nationalist requirements of an


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78 H O R A C E C A M P B E L Learlier period. T o be able to shift attention of studies which a re n ee de d forstate control to studies which are needed to strengthen th e p rodu ce rs in th eprocess of recovering their history,5 Amilcar Cabral's concept of culturalliberation is an important tool in our analysis of this period of PanAfricanism.

Rastafarianism and Pan AfricanismRastafari culture in all its manifestations has been popularised by the musi-cal form of reggae throughou t the w orld in the past twenty years. Th e R as -tafari movement as a social movement evolved in the conditions of th e Carib-bean^ specifically in Jamaica in the context of the resistance to colonialism.The deification of an African monarch (Haile Selassie) was the response tothe dominance of the British crown in the culture of Jamaica, and in asociety where religion settled all social questions, the iden tification with theEthiopian monarch could be further justified on Biblical grounds. "Princescome out of Egypt, Ethiopia stretches forth her hands unto God". Religiousexpression, especially popular religious forms, took on political ov ertones inthe colonial society where popular participation and expression were notpossible. Moreover, because the colonial state blocked the development ofpopular organs, the people found their own method of asserting their placein society. Rastafarianism as a cultural form of protest embraced the politi-cal, the historical, the racial and the religious aspects of the Jamaican massmovement in the period prior to ind epen denc e. How ever it was th e religiousform which has be en widely docu mented by scholars.

Alternative interpretations of the Rastafari phenomena have beendeveloping with the work of scholars who are attempting to un de rsta nd theRastafari as a specific form of consciousness and protest in Jamaica.8 O urown study of Rasta and Resistance attempted to shift attention from anabstract search for millenarianism to a concrete expression of Pan Africansocial protest. T he study, encrusted as it were between two differing con cep -tualisations of Pan Africanism from Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney,sought to explore why resistance and consciousness took the specific formsthey did in post-colonial Caribbean society. Surveying th e R as ta m ovem entfrom its inception in the Caribbean to its particular forms in the streets ofBritain, to the repatriated settlement in Shashamane, Ethiopia, showed theconcrete Pan African form of th e Rastafari phenom enon.9

The T a n ' concept is an exercise in self-definition by a pe op le a im ed at es-tablishing a broader definition of themselves than that which had been per-mitted by those in power. Pan Africanism, as one exam ple of the 'P an ' con -cept, was a manifestation of nationalist consciousness an d this co nc ep t is in-


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RASTA FARI AS-P AN AFRICANISM INTH E CARIBBEAN AN D AFRICA 79temationalist in so far as it seeks the unity of people living in a large numberof juridically independent states. As a brand of nationalism, to be able tograsp its impact 'one must penetrate its nationalist form to appreciate itsclass content'.

10The appreciation of the form and content of PanAfricanism in the era of decolonisation has been made easier by the concretelessons of many of the leading figures of the Pan Africa movement when theytook over the reigns of political power in their respective countries. Politicalrepression, militarism, one partyism and tribalism replaced the essential e le-ments of Pan African solidarity which was at the core of the movement in theanti-colonial period.One of the cardinal principles of Pan Africanism which emerged at the

period of slavery and colonialism was that "the people of one part of Africaare responsible for the freedom of their brothers in other parts of Africa;and indeed black people everywhere were to accept this same responsibility.'1This ideal has been subverted in the O A U by the principle of non-interven-tion in the internal affairs of member states, thus leading to a conspiracy ofsilence among most states when African leaders carry out atrocities in then-own societies. M any leaders such as Sekou Toure and Idi Amin carried outrepression at home while verbally supporting the anti-colonial struggles inSouthern Africa.Secondly the leaders of the O A U flout the basic ideals of Pan Africanismby trying to enforce the stringent colonial boundaries that they inherited.Numerous examples exist of poor Africans seeking freedom of movement,because they believed that Africa w as for the Africans. The most recent ex-ample was the mass expulsion of Non-Nigerian nationals from Nigeria be-tween 1983 and 1985. The ruling class use then* power against the defence-less citizens of other states instead of confronting the real exploiters, thetransnational corporations.As the crisis of capitalism deepened in the eighties the African leaderseven gave up their attempt to direct the economies under the pressure ofdebt, drought, hunger and intensified western plunder of the resources.Space does not allow for an elaboration of the process of cash crop cultiva-tion which led to soil exhaustion, drought, famine and hunger.

What is important is the way in which the international response to thecrisis reinforced the conception of the childlike and helpless Africans.M edia coverage of the famine which was geared to mobilise popular supportin the W est for famine victims at the same time supported the conception ofAfricans as incapable of solving their problem without help from Europe.This conception was fuelled by the alliance between the African ruling classand Western imperialism, now clothed as donor agencies. Undcrdcvclop-ment in its forms stared the population in the face, not in the least in theareas of cultural reprod uction." Their cultural dependence led - in the


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80 H O R A C E C A M P B E L Lwords of Fanon - to "underdeveloped countries which imprisoned nationalconsciousness in sterile formalism." This sterility was most evident for ur-banised youth who searched for areas of cultural liberation.and inspirationbeyond the cu ltural repression in their societies.It was among this section of the African youth that the sounds of reggaefound a fertile b ase. Fo r thousands of African youths, .the future seems topromise the same hardships and depende nce on Eu rop e which charac terisedthe alienated petty bourgeoisie. Absence of independent and autonomousorganisations among the youth deepened the search for an identity consis-tent with their dignity as human beings. The youth wing of parties becamepacification centres to ensure social and ideological control over the youngand energetic. It would not be incorrect to say that m ost of the youths - ou t-side the arenas of armed struggles in the Sahara, Eritrea, and SouthernAfrica - were politically uninformed and demobilised. The potentialities ofthe mobilisation of these youths were imm ense and this was d em onstrated bythe guerilla movement of the National Resistance Movement (RNM) inUganda.The power of N orth A m erican films an d Am erican com m unications med iahad hoped to use the cultural reservoir of Africans in Am erica t o further thecause of cultural imperialism. This was most evident in the w ay the U SA at-tempted to sell the P an African epic Ro ots by Alex H aley into a prod uct ofthe Am erican D rea m . But as in all areas of culture - art, music and danc e -the anti-capitalist and anti-racist component of black American music,theatre, Sim became a component of Pan Africanism in this period. It waswithin the context of this med ia complex tha t African you ths w ere exposed toreggae music. T he pow er of reggae music from th e o utset lay in its stridentcall for black liberation . Cen tral to the lyrics of the reggae artists w ere com-parisons between present day conditions and slavery. The obvious PanAfrican calls were for m ilitary prep ared ness , which w ere at th e bas e of B obMarley's music, endeared it to a generation of youths including the freedomfighters of Zimbabwe. Locked in states where the internationalism of PanAfricanism was be ing re placed by regressive forms of triba l solidarity, someof the urban youths even began to take on the physical appearance of theRastafari movem ent. In some societies small cultural gro up s em erg ed whichexperimented with reggae m usic, while in on e society a p articu lar bra nd ofAfrican reggae was developing. This was the case of the Ivorian reggaesinger Alpha B km die.Th e nuntbers of groups in Africa playing reggae are qu ite sm all an d t he ac -tual numbers of youths taking on the physical appearance of Rasta aresmaller still. But Bob Marley and reggae music appeal to a wide cross sec-tion of the urban African working people. For African musicians and artistswho did not make the ir living singing songs of praise to th e 'gr ea t le aders of


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R AS T AF A R I AS P A N AF R IC ANIS M IN T H E C AR IB B E AN AND AF R IC A 8 1their societies', (these artists) they consciously sought to deepen the form ofsocial com mentary which was to be found in reggae. W hether in the culturalrevolt in South Africa or in the cultural - assertion of Fela in Nigeria, theform and content of reggae was having an impact on urban music iiTAfrica.T o be able to streng then the links between cultural artists in Africa and thePan African groups of the West was one of the tasks of Rastafari. However,the tremendous prejudice against the Rastafari, which was fueled byWestern scholarship, meant that cultural exchanges between Africans in theW est and A fricans in th e continent had to be mediated through states whichw ere not kindly disposed to Rastafari. Fo r this reason some states even referto Rastafarians as rogues.12

Was it coincidental that it was a racially divided independent Africansociety that the Rastafari movement in Africa sought to rear its head?Moreover, was it not significant that the same leaders who mobilised thereservoir of resistance of the spirit mediums felt threatened by the ap-pearance of Rastafari youths in their midsts.13 It is important to note thattho se lead ers w ho manifested hostility to those youths attracted to the P an-African principles of Rastafari did not find the attraction of African youthsto bre ak da nc e an d M ichael Jackson as offensive. Pan- Africanism has beenso clearly flouted by the present African ruling class Aat it has been left tothose still locked in struggle in Southern Africa to hold high its banner,deepening this concept of liberation with a renewed spirit of inter-nationalism.

The Youths in South AfricaEv en though th e S outh African State had initially sought to proscribe reggaemusic, the lyrics of the song "Get up stand up for your rights'1 becomes partof the rallying cry for a generation of youths in South Africa, after theSow eto uprisings of 1976. Young blacks in their daily struggles to affirm theirdignity as human beings ensured that the question which kept the OAUtoge ther was the q uestion of liberation in South Africa. The South A fricanstruggles and the ensuing military destabilisation of the neighbouring statesreinforced the Pan-African dictum of Kwame Nkrumah that "No Africanstate is free as long as an inch of the African continent is under foreignyoke." The politicisation and mobilisation of the South African youth in theand- apartheid struggles was the pivot for the re-politicisation of the op-pressed youth of Africa. Tha t the question of apartheid became the numberone problem before humanity in the eighties was in no small measure, be-cau se of the sp read of. self organisation and self mobilisation among theyouths, wo rkers a nd comm unity leaders.14 The rise of grassroots forms of


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82 H O R A C E C A M P B E L Lgovernance, as- the people moved from 'ungovernability t o p eo ples pow er5,claimed the attention of the world as the alliance of workers, students andcommunity leaders seized the initiative in the deba te on th e future of Africa.

This struggle in South Africa sharpened the internationalist conceptionsand exposed the limits of the 'nationa list' b rand of Pa n Africanism in Africa.Many African leaders openly called for the dismantling of apartheid butquivered at the potentialies which would develop if a social force in SouthAfrica successfully carried forth this historical task.It is precisely because of the social question of aparthe id, the qu esti on of adecent wage, proper housing, relevant education and cheaper rents that theanti-apartheid struggle is pa rt of the anti-capitalist strugg le an d no t simply aproblem of majority rule or independence. Because of this fact certainleaders in Africa seek solutions to the struggle which would take the initia-tive out of the han ds of the oppressed masses themselves. In this re gar d th eidea of a Fan African defence force is intriguing, when already m os t m em berstates of the OAU do not pay their annual dues to the OAU liberationCommittee. Moreover, the most recent call for a Pan African force wasmade by France in 1978 to guard Western interests in Zaire. Also, this call

casts doubt on the capacity of the Africans in Sou th Africa an d Nam ibia toeffect their own libera tion.These contradictions of the co ncept of Pan A fricanism in the eigh ties sim-mer as part of the contradictions between the oppressed of Africa and im-perialism on one hand, and between the produ cers in Africa an d t h e Africanpetty bourgeousie on the other. The South African process of establishingthe dignity and self worth of the black person went through the motions of

black consciousness and developed as pa rt of the con sciousness of a no n-ra -cial socialist ord er. Th e nature of this struggle m eant th at th ere w er e only afew youth in South Africa who carried aro un d th e symbols of Rasta fari. In -terestingly the development of a non-racist culture meant that even wherethe embryonic rasta formations w ere found the re were whites w ho cou ld b efound in the ranks of the young R astafari.13 The existence of an organisedpolitical movement and the massive struggles in the society meant that thealienation which multiplied the Rasta in independent Caribbean countriescould not become the dom inant force am ong die youths of South A frica. A tthe same time the struggles in South Africa become the central externalreference point for Pan Africanists hi the Caribbean an d in the A m er ica s.

Rasta and Pan Africanism in the CaribbeanThe Rasta movement in the Caribbean like most popular movements suf-fered a severe blow by the reversals in G ren ad a in 1963. This b low was sig-


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R A S T A F A R I A S P A N A F RI C A N IS M IN T H E C A R IB B E A N A N D A F R I C A 83nificant in that it was in Grenada that the New Jewel Movement sought toend the forty year old state persecution of Rastafari. Rastafari found theirplace in the ranks of the G renadian revolution for a section of the leadershiprefused to accept the standard Marxist version of the Rasta movement, i.e.,that it was a symbol of Western decadence. The change in the direction ofthe Grenadian society after 1979 offered new possibilities for the Rastafarimovement. That the Rastafari could be organised for collective and alterna-tive forms of pow er intensified the pressu res on G renada , for, if the other is-land states in the region could harness the energies of the Rastafari, theCaribbean could be transformed.

It was th is reality which led to efforts t o isolate the R astafari from progres-sive ideas. O ne of the ways to do this was for transnational capital to tiedown young Rastas in the trade of cannabis (marijuana), thus diverting theirene rgies . A nd in the specific case of Grenad a, before the invasion, externalelements had attempted to use the question of cannabis production to des-tabilise the Gre nad ian revolution.16Fa ced with th e con crete impact of the potential to mobilise Rastafari andunem ployed youths, ther e was a conscious attempt in the eighties to promote

the anti-social and negative features of the Rastafari movement, especiallyresulting from the p osition of lump ens who took the physical appearance ofRastafa ri. Thi s becom es m ost evident in the violence, guns, cannabis exportand cocaine trade which was becoming the foundation of the islandeconomies.That the Rastafari used cannabis (ganja) had been adequately docu-m ente d by social scientists, who studied the symbols of Rasta instead of thesocial conditions which produced Rasta. One of the contradictions of theCaribbean since the period of slavery has been the inability of the states toorganise productive work or meaningful leisure for the vast majority of thepeople. Unemployment acted as a social sanction against the poor bydepressing wages, bu t also ensuring that th ere was a poo l of lumpens to ac tas enforcers or strike-breakers. In this period of the 1970's, lumpen ele-m ents found an alliance with capitalists in the US A to export cannabis to theU S m ainland. By the en d of the seventies the export of ganja to the USA b e-

came the number one cash crop and the big agents made vast profits fromthis t ra d e 1 7

Cocaine in the CaribbeanT he fetishisation of the smoking of the herb , marijuana, by young R astafariwas an asp ect of popu)arism of the m ovem ent T he small trade to provide forurban dwellcrs~in the Caribbean could be distinguished from the multimil-


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84 HO RACE CAMPBELLlion dollar trade which now exists across the Caribbean Sea. The chillumpipe and ganja, which were incorporated as part of the culture, had been su-perceded by the introduction of cocaine in the Caribbean. Cocaine,unlikemarijuana, is a manufactured product from coca leaves which has beengrown in South America for centuries. Coca paste pressing facilities havebeen scattered all over South Am erica - Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Colombia.Cocaine is manufactured from cocaine paste and exported to the UnitedStates of America, the principal market for cocaine in the Western hemi-sphere. The cocaine trade in the United States.grosses over $80 billion dol-lars per year for the US economy and now ranks ahead of the machine toolindustry in the process of capital accumulation. Numerous Congressionalreports from the US Houses of Congress and scientific studies attest to thedestructive social effects of cocaine and its new derivative 'rock' or crackwhich is cheaper and stronger. This social crisis is dealt with through moralexhortation rather than taxing and arresting the big capitalists who earn mas-sive profits from the cocaine trade.The cocaine problem of the U SA was one of the signposts of the social andcultural crisis in that society.18 Instead of dealing with the root causes of thecrisis which generated the trade and consumption of cocaine the USA hasused the trade across the Caribbean Seas to intensify its military presence inthe Caribbean and Latin America. Recent military manoeuvres by UShelicopter gunships in Bolivia was only the tip of the massive police, military,naval, and coast guard operations in the Caribbean in the era of revolutionand democratic openings. The Federal Drug Enforcement Agency (D EA ) ofthe US administration took the issue of narcotics transhipment in the Carib-bean to carry out large scale 'interdiction' exercises, which were in fact USmilitary intelligence operations. The DEA was integrated with the CentralIntelligence Agency, the Interpol, the El Paso Intelligence Agency, the USCoast Guard, the U S Navy and the Federal Aviation Administration. In thecontext of the interdiction of the cocaine traffic, the US Naval and militarypresence increased the militarisation of the Caribbean* The extensiveoperations of narcotic agents, drug traffickers and US naval operationsbrought the Caribbean Sea back to the era of piracy in the region. Similar tothe era of primitive accumulation when the island societies were backyardsfor the illicit operations of the international capitalist system, now the mini-states are Uttered with off-shore banks where normal banking regulatorypractices are not present. It is through these banks that the profits fromcocaine are laundered. At the same time all sectors of th e Caribbean societyhave been affected by the cocaine trade. It is not uncommon to hear ofPrime Ministers being arrested in Miami on charges of trafficking in cocaine.And the same politicians and police officers harass th e young Rastafari forthe possession of marijuana.


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RA STA FAR I AS PA N AFRI CANI SM IN TH E CARI BBEAN AND AFRI CA 85The lack of progress of international efforts at de-criminalising the posses-sion of marijuana strengthen the anti-democratic forces in North Americaand the Caribbean. Imperialism found that it was in its interest to supportthe present UN statutes on marijuana even though in many states of theUSA the production of marijuana is now a major activity for small farmers.The struggles in the USA over the de-criminalisation of marijuana will haveimportant consequences for the Caribbean. But the administration opposesa proper scientific and legal framework for the possession and use ofmarijuana so that the US can continue the myth that they are fighting drugsand crime . In the Ca ribbean, the U S military presence is necessary to rein-force, and if possible, maintain the old relations of production. This is best

epitomised by the invasion of Grenada and the destructive war against thepopular experiment in Nicaragua.In the midst of this crisis and seeming reversals, small gains have beenregistered. The Rastafari as one section of the Caribbean have learned im-portant lessons on the political requirements for transformation. TheG ren ad a interlude ha d registered trem endo us cultural achievements and yetthese steps were not sufficient to override those aspects of the old politicalculture which generate leaderism and competition. Now, many groups, in-cluding the most advanced elements are assessing the lessons of Grenada.O ne political group, the W orking Peop les Alliance of Guyana noted:

"The explosion of the Grenadian revolution on to the streets in O ctober 1983,its self exposure, its unconscious injustices, its over-ratingits beautiful andattractive advocacy of internationalismand its rejectionof internationalismin crucial areas, the high-minded principles it defended and abused a t thesame time, its making the majority within the vanguard a fetish and ignoringthe majority among the masses: this is an act of de-poUticisation of thepeoples of the region which cradled it Disenchan tment is the chief resultingemotion.*xSuch a self-critical evaluation of the social proce ss in the Caribbean was animport element of the present Pan African, and Pan Caribbean movement.T he de-politicisation of the region can be seen among all strata of the work-ing po or including the Rastafari. And this could b e seen in the content of the

social commentary of reggae in the eighties; manifest in the lyrics of'Yellowman'.Yet the concrete experience of day to day life ensured that the culturalchang e which had be en push ed by the Rastafari remains a vibrant part of theanti-imperialist and internationalist traditions in the Caribbean. This is mostevident in th e way Rastafari youth in the Ea stern C aribbean h ad to deal withthe ir fellow youths of Asian descen t - breaking some of the racial insecuritywhich ha d be en exploited by Pan African leade rs in Guyana. Secondly the


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86 H O R A C E C A M P B E L Linternationalism is developing in the support for areas of the Caribbean stillfighting for political independence. T he anti-colonial m ovem ents of theCayenne, Guadeloupe, M artinique and P ue rto Rico call for new sup po rt anddraw from the experience of the social movements in the other Caribbeansocieties. This new internationalisation can now be seen in G ua de lou pe , an dM artinique where the influence of Rastafari h as cut across th e language b ar-riers of the region. 20 On the other hand Pan African leaders in the Carib-bean and Africa fear to raise the question of Puerto Rico and the Frenchcolonial territories in the U N Com mittee on Deco lonisation. They can speakof Namibian independence bu t not of the indep ende nce of P ue rto R ico .

ConclusionT he discussion on the Rastafari and Pan Africanism po inte d to forms of so-cial organisation and social movements among oppressed Africans at homeand abroad. Th e ideas of racial superiority circulated widely in th e twen tiethcentury had led to the wide-spread assertion by Africans tha t:

"So long as there me people who deny our humanity as blacks then for solong must weproclaim our humanity as blacks."21Rastafari have chosen the reggae form as their m ethod of proclaim ing thishumanity before the world. In th e process the R asta have ce m ente d the in-ternationalism which was always central to t he concept of Pan Africanism.However Rastafari sought to battle the question of race o n th e groun d rulesestablished by those w ho m ade race c entral to social relations. H en ce , th e

Rasta movement contained the dialectic of positive and negative tend encies.In South Africa the deformities of racism have taken its extreme form inthe barbarity of apartheid. Here the anti-racist struggle found that PanAfrican forms of consciousness w ere insufficient to m obilise hum anity on th esocial project of dismantling apartheid. The South African discussion raisedfundamental questions of the meaning of work, the conditions of t he labou rprocess and the forms of social organisa tion22 adeq uate for hum an develop-ment. These questions cam e together at the historical m om ent wh en th e allclass notions of Pan-Africanism had tu rned into their opp osite s. T hi s debilitywas demonstrated by the incapacity of the OAU to take a firm and dearstand of support for the liberation movements in South Africa and in inde-pen den t states. It was ironical that youths and university students in W este rnEurope and North America were more mobilised around the debate onSou th Africa than th e youths of Africa. Significantly th e de-po liticisation ofAfrican youths suited the needs of those in pow er.


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R A S T A F A R I A S P A N A F R I C A N IS M I N T H E C A R IB B E A N A N D A F R IC A 87This d e-po liticisation con tinues to affect the intellectual culture in Africaan d the Ca ribb ean . W ithout the m asses being drawn into politics the studieson Rastafari and Pan Africanism are still dominated by the modernisation

theories of which cultural pluralism was one variant. Because the Africanleaders and their Caribbean counterparts jealously guard and control theflow of inform ation an d cu ltural exchanges and partly because of the und er-development of the intellectual culture with respect to autonomous socialgro up s, th e exten t of the influence of Rastafari in contemporary Africa is notyet explored. Even the historical record on the Pan African links betweenforms of p ro tes t in the C aribbean and Africa ha s not yet been unearthed.Future Pan African reseachers will be able to illuminate the conditionswhich gave rise to Rastafari as well as the so-called syncretic movements ofthe Congo and Central Africa. Why did the anti-colonial struggle take theform of the Kimbango movement in the Congo and the John Chilembwem ovem ent in Cen tral Africa?

Pan Africanism and Rastafari became important reference points in theTw entieth C en tury centralising th e du Bois postulate that it was the centuryof the co lou r lin e. It is now possible to study the impact of these movementsin the consciousness of the oppressed in order to be able to grasp thestrengths and weaknesses. Cabral's contribution and guide to the study ofcu lture can b e a useful starting poin t.

R egg ae artists h ad em barked on a programm e of cultural assertion whichgalvanised th e yo uth internationally. It is now the task of committed scholarsto gra sp t h e positive asp ects of this assertion an d patiently outline the nega -tive cha racte ristics so th at the re-politicisation of the youth can be part of anew pr oc ess of African liberation an d hum an emancipation.

Footnotes:1. V 3 . Thompson, Afrit* *mi Unit* tk* Swi*ti* / Pad Afrifiutm, Loagmaaa,London 1960.3 . "Report of the R aitafar i M ovement ia Kingston." See the ve n io a reprodaced fat

0*rM*** Q**rttri9 Sept. 1967; 8M M.G. Smith, Ptttl SteMf tk* B rititkWat Iniin, Berkley 1965.3. Walter Rodney, Tk* Gr*tUi*t WHk my Bttthtrt, Boglt L'Ovwtare - LoadoaI960.4. W.E.B. da Bob, On tk* Imf*H*nc* / Afrit* * WtU Buttrg reprinted byBlack Liberation Praia New York, 197j See alao Tk* WT U **i Afrit* , Inter-national Pa bB shc n, N .Y . 19 65. For ue fa l aaaJyib of Da B olt' work on AfricaMe Bar! Smith, "Da Bob and Africa" Vf*k*m VoL Vul NoJ 1978.fi. History ia thle tea ie k aaed in the M M C that Oabral aw d the notion of therecovery of the prodacthre force*. See Ajnflcar Cabral, Mn*i*ti* m Guint* and


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88 H O R A C E C A M P B E L Lstretch Forth her hand*: The Origins of EthiopianUm in A fro -A m eric an thought1767-1896" - Umtjt Sprint 1978.7. J.V. OWMM, "Literature on Rastafari" JVw Ctmmnnitt Journal of the Commissionof Racial Equality, London VoL VI Nos.l k 2 Winter 1977-1978. This review ita useful and sympathetic treatment of most of the literature on the Rastafarimorement np to that date.8. Ken Port, Aritt Y* St*n*Uni$ Tkt Jtmtict **#r RtkeUiax / 1938 *ni illtfttrmttk, Martinni NijhoS The Hague 1978. See especially Chapter VI. "EthiopiaStretches forth her hands."9. Horace Campbell, RttU *ni RtriiUn.ee (, Tanxania Pnblishins House, Dar esSalaam 1985.10. W. Rodney "Towards the Sixth Pan African Congress: Aspects of the Interna-tional Class Straggle in Africa, the Caribbean and America, in P Afrietnitm(ed.) Horace Campbell 1976.11. Jeremy Tanstall, Tkt ittiU trt Amtrittn A*jL Am nie** meii* in tkt W trli,Constable Books, London 1977.12 . This refsreace was made by the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in a Speech toUniversity students in Zimbabwe, April 1986. See the Zimbabwe H*T*U 7 / 4 / 8 6 .13. David Lan, Gnnt *ni M*in, GntrHUt *ni Sririt Medium* in ZimMwe, ZPH,1985.14. The levels of self organisation is documented in the publication W*rk in Prt/TttiNo.41 April 1986. See "Beyond the Cannon of Mameiodt* Creating Mass Power".This article explored the popular organs of power in Mamelodi after the massacresof November 1985. See also the 1986 New Years Message of OJR. Tambo of theANC, "From Ungovernability t Peoples Power" Jan. 1986.15. Communication from a Rastafari group in the Western Cape showed that therewere whites in this group. The group was called the Universal M ovem ent of R a s -tafari. This group had assigned itself the task of organising the Rastafari in SouthAfrica.16. See H. Campbell - Rasta and Resistance - chapter on "The R ast a in theEastern Caribbean"; See also Hugh O*Shaughnessy, Grtmd* RtmluiU*, Inwttitn.**d Afttrmmtk, Sphere Books London 1984. For the cultural impact of theGreaadian Revolution see Chris Searle, Wm rit Uuektnti L**t**ft tuU Rn*l*ti%M GrmtU, Zed Press London 1984.17. A small island such as Jamaica provided as much as 10-15% of the needs of theAmerican ganja market. See US Sdict Cm mm itite Nircttict Ahut **d C -(ret 98 Congress - 1984. Government Printers US A; See also Ver a Rubin andLambros Comitas,

rastafari as pan afrikanism

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