Rastafari Quotes

Emperor Haile Selassie was certainly a defining figure in both Ethiopian and African history, and as Rastafarians revere Haile Selassie as the returned messiah, it’s possible that the routes of Rastafarianism are deep-seated in the Queen of Sheba. Trip on that! A queen who was part Genie, or Djinn, is possibly the focus of Rastafarianism

Rastafarianism is bringing black people back to the so-called promised land. The bodies live in Africa, but the mentalities are somewhere in the Middle East.

Cualquier idiota que hoy en día se hace rastafari al cabo de una semana ya está soltando profecías. Y tampoco le hará falta ser demasiado agudo, basta con saberse un par de versos de la Biblia que hablen de fuego y de azufre.

Trip on this! Haile Selassie, who Rastafari regard as God, was possibly greatly influenced by a French poet who although he gave up writing at the age of 20 (which at first glance appears like a huge waste) must certainly have still held an esoteric, otherworldly mind. It can’t have just deserted him, can it? Rimbaud had a bewitching and at times ghoulish psyche which managed to explode out of long-established poetic forms while still in his teens. He did it with more rhythm and beauty than almost anyone you care to name. It’s extremely likely that ten years later this man had incredible influence on the child who Rastafari were to later think of as God. An intriguing thought.

Know this, that lions who trod don't worry bout reaching Zion. In time is Zion that reach to the lions.

Something new is blowing. On a downtown Kingston wall: IMF—Is Manley Fault. General election called for October 30, 1980. Somebody is driving you through Bavaria, near the Austrian border. A hospital sprouting out of the forest like magic. Hills in the background tipped with snow like cake icing. You meet the tall and frosty Bavarian, the man who helps the hopeless. He smiles but his eyes are set too far back and they vanish in the shadow of his brow. Cancer is a red alert that the whole body is in danger, he says. Thank God the food he forbids, Rastafari had forbidden long time. A sunrise is a promise. Something new is blowing. November 1980. A new party wins the general election and the man who killed me steps up to the podium with his brothers to take over the country. He has been waiting for so long he leaps up the stairs and trips.

One day in the future, the meaning of *irie* will move on, and it will become just another word with a long list of archaic or obsolete definitions. *Is everything irie?* someone will ask you in a perfect American accent. *Everything's irie,* you will respond, meaning everything's just okay, but you really don't feel like talking about it. Neither of you will know about Abraham or the Rastafari religion or the Jamaican dialect. The word will be devoid of any history at all.

For a man like Bob Marley, life and Jah were one and the same. Marley saw Jah as being the gift of existence; that is, he believed that he, Bob Marley, was in some way eternal, and that he would never be duplicated. He believed that the singularity of every man and woman is Jah's gift. What we struggle to make of it is our sole gift to Jah. He believed the process of that struggle becomes, in time, the truth.

Africans in the Diaspora are parodying Western notions of gender relations that are based on the racist and sexist myth of man as the breadwinner (a central tenet of capitalism) and, by extension, head of the household. When this presumption fails to materialize, the authority that that positionality should have provided the man is contrived by assuming psychological and emotional control, which may result in abuse and its discontents.

a continuum of beliefs and lifestyles, ranging from religious fundamentalists on one end to antireligious individualists on the other.

to `educate' us, to keep us mentally enslaved.

Catholic colonizers showed greater tolerance of African cultural arts, especially the visual arts. In Jamaica, colonized by Anglicans, African cultural practices were not tolerated to the same degree that they were in Brazil. Even though the assumption behind the policy was "divide and rule," Catholic colonial governments in Brazil fostered brotherhoods segregated according to African ethnic affiliation. These islands of African space-where the bonds of oppression were temporarily loosened-were inhabited by people with similar languages and worldviews. Thus, they became areas where African language, customs, and ideas could legally be perpetuated.

the Rastafari of Pelourinho already live spiritually in the midst of Africa and Jamaica. Thus, their goal is not to abandon where they live but to transform its Babylonian elements.

Because Afro-Bahians have refused to give up their heritage, cultural and religious pluralism has managed to prevail over acculturation to European norms.

transformed through Jah and the Holy Ghost the segments of Babylon that were inside of me.

Rastafari is the spirit of light; that I'm in the light of God.

Capitalism was taken away from my life. To maintain this hair, I cannot invest in the system. Not a cent. I live from the powers, like Daniel, like Joshua. I live like Jesus Christ. I live spirit, because I am spirit. If I live in spirit, I have to walk in spirit.

When we ascend we have to give people what they deserve: dignity. What I understand by dignity is that man is an instrument for love,

Let's start this feeling, this mental posture, fraternity, to see in each human being a brother.

the way to fight Babylon was through music.

I'm a living fire, a living stone foundation, a tool to annihilate the system of lies. I want freedom, fraternity, sharing.

money brings confusion.

Carnaval is "the festival of the devil blessed by God

Philosophy ... is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge-so I should contend-belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy.

The investigator is an interpreter (second order) of the interpretations people have already given to their lives (first order).

Belief in the Divinity of Haile Selassie Chevannes (1998a) observed that the most important belief of the Rastafari is that Haile Selassie, the late Emperor of Ethiopia, is God, thus leading to the Rastafari claim that God is Black. In the same vein, Henry observed that the foundation of Rastafari theology is the mystical knowledge of the divinity of Haile Selassie (1997, 160). However, there appears to be divergent views among Rastafari regarding the divinity of Haile Selassie. Thus, Barnett (2005) claims that the original Twelve Tribes of Israel teachings hold that Jesus Christ was manifested in his second coming in the person of Haile Selassie; the Bobo Shanti hold that Haile Selassie is the father of Jesus Christ (who is Prince Emmanuel, the founder of the house, so far as the Bobo Shanti are concerned); and the Nyahbinghi Order holds that Haile Selaisse is the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church (a mansion that occupies a marginal status in the movement) does not accept the divinity of Haile Selassie I, although they still believe that he is of the Solomonic dynasty, thereby linking him with King David and therefore to Christ (Barnett 2005).

Must someone be in some sense a member of a human community, trained in its practices and beholden to its norms, in order to have a "self"? Responses to this issue have divided scholars into the individualist school and the collectivist school.

walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit....

honorific pronoun.

by insisting on repatriation, the Rastafarian is liable to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

repatriation should "start in the minds and hearts of our people; in our words, actions and deeds we must go back to Africa. We may never set foot on the continent in our time, but we can live and represent our heritage each day we live in the world

neocolonization.

spiritual and mental decolonization.

reeducating and "re-righting" history

he was/is God in the same way that they themselves were God, with the difference between themselves and the emperor lying in the degree of inspiration by, or in the dwelling of, the Holy Spirit.

Haile Selassie I." One said that when he used the term, he literally meant "the power of the holy trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Rastafari is the King with the Holy Spirit. I am a King with the Holy Spirit.

born Rastafari," but had "assumed the posture" in the late seventies or early eighties after being exposed to reggae music.

It is not necessary to undergo the experience of Rastafari, nor of any organized religion, to become enlightened.

Rastafari teachings vigorously advocated self-sufficiency through self-awareness and provided an alternative source of meaning and identity to lives that were frequently mired in hopelessness, alienation, and despair.

king of peace;

Not every Rasta knows who he is, but eventually he will have no choice but to know. Once he realizes who he is and what he has been assigned to do, he has no choice but to embrace this divine gift. This is why to some it may appear a person has "become a Rasta" and that they are entering a "phase" of life. The truth of the matter is, natural-born Rasta has always been and will always be Rastafari. Born Rasta is here to share the love of Jah, and to share the light so that those who seek spiritual truth can also follow this way of life.

Ik bleef staan bij een goed gevuld boekenschap. ‘Nice library,’ zei ik. ‘Truebrary,’ corrigeerde mama Desta me. ‘Zo noemen rastafari’s een bibliotheek. We houden niet van de leugen, de lie, in het woord library.

Risk is part of the game.

They were kicked out of their homes, abandoned by their families, turned away at every door. So, when Rastas read the biblical accounts of Jewish persecution and strife, they recognized a similar suffering in their own tribulation. From those psalms of Jewish exile came the Rastafari’s name for the systemically racist state and imperial forces that had hounded, hunted, and downpressed them: Babylon. Babylon was the government that had outlawed them, the police that had pummeled and killed them.

And the ras says it's all a Babylon conspiracy de bloodclawt immappancy of dis world— maps which throughout time have gripped like girdles to make his people smaller than they were.

Y cuando una nube aparezca en el cielo, para que ellos no teman que un Diluvio se aproxime, Yo haré descender de mi morada en Zión, un Arco símbolo de Mi Alianza, que es el arco iris, que coronará con sus colores el Tabernáculo de Mi Ley.

Prueba de esto es la similitud: el divino Zión en efecto tiene que ser mirado como anagogía de la Madre del Redentor, Maria. Ya que en el Zión construido, están guardados los Diez Mandamientos de la Ley, escritos por Sus manos. Y Él mismo, el Creador, vivió en el vientre de Maria, y gracias a Él todo fue generado.

rebel soldiers. Whereas only 250 “new” slaves, most of them Igbo, participated in the rebellion of 1815, already in 1824, 1,200 slaves from plantations took part in an uprising. By Christmas of 1831, this number had risen to 20,000, and the rebellion included creoles. Ideologically, it prefigured the rise of a culturally complex “nationalism” in Jamaica, whose more recent manifestations include the Rastafari movement, based on Ethiopian traditions but with completely modern cultural components including reggae. Despite its defeat, then, the rebellion sealed the fate of slaveholders in Jamaica, and paved the way for eventual abolition.

Now I’m no art critic, but in a time seen as a bridge between the late middle ages and the early renaissance, where the church played such a substantial part in the day to day running of people's lives, Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, which is painted on oak with a square middle panel flanked by two doors that close over the centre like shutters, is rather racy. When the outer shutters are folded over they show a grisaille painting of the earth during creation. But it’s the three scenes of the inner triptych that fascinate me. If you’re unfamiliar with the painting, I’ll do my best to describe it for you. Apologies in advance if I miss anything out. It’s regular sort of stuff, you know, naked women being fondled by demons, a bloke being kissed by a pig dressed as a nun, another bloke being eaten by some kind of story book character while loads of blackbirds fly out of his arse, a couple locked in a glass sphere and – let’s not beat about the Bosch here – locked in each other’s embrace as well. There are loads of people feeding each other fruit, doing handstands, hatching out of eggs, climbing up ladders to get inside the bodies of other people and looking at demon’s arses. There’s a couple getting caught shagging by giant birds, and a white bloke and a black Rastafarian with ‘locks (400 years before the Rastafari movement was founded) about to have a snog. You’ve got God giving Eve to a very puny-looking, limp-dicked Adam, and there’s a bunch of people sitting around a table inside the body of another bloke while an old woman fills up on wine from a decent-sized barrel while a kind of giant metal face pukes out loads of naked blokes who go running into a trumpet and another bloke being fed a cherry by a giant bird while a white bloke shows a black lady something in the sky. It’s all going on! There's loads of those ‘living dead’ mateys walking about, and a bloke carrying giant grapes past a topless girl with, it has to be said, pretty decent tits. She’s balancing a giant dice on her head while doing something strange to another bloke’s arse while a rabbit in clothes walks past. You can’t see what she’s doing because there’s a table in the way but beside them is a serpent-type creature with just one massive boob and a pretty pert nipple. One huge tit the size of his chest! Of all things, he’s holding a backgammon board up in the air. I’d say Bosch was a tit man, wouldn’t you? But there’s more. There’s a crowd of naked girls – black & white - in a water pool, all balancing cherries on their heads; read into that what you will. There are just LOADS of naked women in this water pool, including one of the black girls who’s balancing a peacock on her head. There are dozens of nudists riding horses around them in a circle. Some are sharing the same horse, so I must admit that in places it appears to be a little intimate. And now what have we got! There’s a couple cavorting inside a giant shell which is being carried on the back of another bloke. Why doesn’t he just put it down and climb in and have a threes-up? There are people with wings, creatures reading books and just more and more nudists. There’s a naked woman lying back, and this other bloke with his face extremely close to her nether regions! What on earth does the blighter think he’s playing at? There’s loads of grey half men-half fish, some balancing red balls on their heads like seals, and another fellow doing a handstand underwater while holding onto his nuts. You’ve got a ball in a river with people climbing all over it, while a bloke inside the ball is touching a lady in what appears to be a very inappropriate manner! There’s a kind of platypus-type fish reading a book underground and Theresa May triggering Article 50 of Brexit (just kidding about the Theresa May bit).

Don’t be a “Hypocrite” and think you can “pick and choose” which black individuals you have love for, and which ones you don’t. Rastafari is about love and unity with and for the black community. Completely… truly.

conscious of your own contributions concerning your nation,

If within the pantheon of African diasporan activists there is a loudest voice it would be that of the Rastafari as a collective, Bob Marley as an individual, and reggae music as the medium.

Rastafarl should not deal with sex merely for pleasure but should incorporate it into their divine communication and cause a union which should produce children.

The culturally normalized so-called beauty practices of hair straightening and skin bleaching are indicators of this intergenerational syndrome of identity trauma

constantly loving the Black woman, always defending the ghetto youths, and giving Rastafari praise.

Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there are no longer first – and second-class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance that the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are guaranteed to all without regard to race; until that day, the dream of everlasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued but never attained. And