The Rastafarian movement began in Jamaica in the 1920s and is heavily influenced by the work and writings of Marcus Garvey. One of the key beliefs of Rastafarians is the hope that one day black people will return to Africa.There are around 700,000 Rastafarians spread throughout the world including communities in the USA, Canada, Africa, Australia, South America, UK and throughout the Caribbean.
Rastafarians believe that every individual must discover truth for him or herself. Rastafarians believe God, Jah (a shortened version of Jehovah) is within each and everyone and that the former Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, is the living, immortal God known as Rastafari.
Ethiopia for Rastafarians is the Promised Land, while Babylon or white society is hell. The Emperor Haile Selassie, Rastafarians believe will return around the year 2000 and lead them back to their promised land of Ethiopia. Rastafarians believe that Moses to Jesus to Haile Selassie are essentially the same person.
The Rastafarian faith teaches peace and love and that salvation lies in the liberation of blacks. It acknowledges that their religion is the blending of the purist forms of both Judaism and Christianity. Rastafarians believe black people are the descendants of the early Israelites who were sent into exile. They reject the Babylonian hypocrisy of the modern church especially the Roman Catholic Church.
During the time of King Solomon, Queen Makeba ruled over the Empire of Sheba, which was made up from the countries today called Ethiopia and Egypt.
Queen Makeba visited Solomon in Jerusalem and converted to the God of Abraham. When she returned to her land she changed its religion to Judaism. King Solomon and Queen Makeba were lovers and he made her pregnant. Queen Makeba promised Solomon that if she bore a son she would allow him to raise it. Queen Makeba did have a son who was sent to Jerusalem to be raised by his father.
The son Menelik did however promise his mother that he would return when she dies to succeed her. When the Queen eventually died her son fulfilled his promise and returned to rule. His father, King Solomon made sure that his son brought all the sons of his priests with him in order for the religion of Abraham to continue in Sheba.
Ethiopia was later converted to Christianity when Paul the Apostle converted an Ethiopian high rabbi of Orthodox Judaism.
Marcus Garvey:
Marcus Garvey was born in Jamaica in 1887 and by the early 1920s was a very influential black spokesman. He claimed that his people would be saved by a future African King. He also founded the United Negro Improvement Association and spent most of his life fighting for the rights of black people in predominately white cultures.
In the hills of Eastern Jamaica, Rastafarian encampments sprang up as the Rastafarian clergy took the message to the people that Haile Selassie the Emperor of Ethiopia, Ras Tafari, was the god whom Garvey had foretold of.
Leonard Howell, one of the island’s chief propagators of the religion had a Rasta Bible composed, which spoke of the distortion of God’s message by whites who had changed the prophets into their colour.
Haile Selassie created the Ethiopian World Federation in 1937 after being exiled from Ethiopia by the Italian invasion of his country in 1935. This federation gave impetus to the Rastafarian movement. When Haile Selassie fled Ethiopia his followers interpreted this as the first battle of the end where the King of Kings and Lord of Lords would destroy Babylon. This belief was further strengthened in 1955 when the New York branch of the EWF reported that Haille Selassie had set aside land in Ethiopia for black people in the West.
In 1966 Haile Selassie visited Jamaica to great joy from the Rastafarians on the island. He died in 1975 a year after he was dethroned. Many still do not believe he is dead.
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