From a respectful distance, it seems to us that the grassroots land cultivation movement at Mile 41 on the Western Highway and Nigel Petillo’s crime prevention effort in Belize City have elements of Real Rasta within their ranks.
In Belize City, and it appears to have been the case all over the Caribbean, Rastafarianism became mixed up with the cocaine business about two decades or so ago. Cocaine Rasta was not Real Rasta. Generally speaking, we would say Rasta began in the early 1930s in Jamaica as a religious expression of Garveyism. This often happens with weakening revolutionary movements, and we use the word “revolutionary” in a loose sense to describe Marcus Mosiah Garvey’s “philosophy and opinions,” because Garvey did not preach or practice violence. When revolutionary movements begin to disintegrate, they often give birth to prophets and religious groups.
In the 1920s, Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican operating from headquarters in Harlem, New York City, became the most powerful black man in the world. The racist United States government framed, convicted, and incarcerated Garvey, before deporting him home to Jamaica. All this took place before Haile Selassie I was crowned king of Ethiopia in 1930. Selassie I’s coronation appeared to fulfill Biblical prophecy where some deeply spiritual Jamaican Garveyites were concerned. Rastafarianism was born. From birth, marijuana was a sacred sacrament within the Rasta religion. Catholic priests drank wine: Rasta smoked herb.
But, wine was legal and weed was not. Rasta had to be underground and secretive in order to avoid arrest and prosecution by Her Majesty’s policemen. (Jamaica was a British colony.) The massive and growing strength of Rasta first became evident regionally when Haile Selassie I, the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, visited the Jamaican capital, Kingston, in 1966. Just a few years after that, Bob Marley and the Wailers began to make reggae and Rasta truly international phenomena.
The underground and secretive characteristics which Rasta had been forced to take on because of Her Majesty’s ganja laws, made it relatively easy for those elements of Rasta who wanted to go for the much faster and bigger profits of cocaine, to begin to operate under the guise of Rasta. Although a lot of people knew cocaine was bad karma, and that it would bring death, Cocaine Rasta argued that poor black people had to have money to improve their situation, and they had to have it now. In some respects, the Cocaine Rasta were the more militant, the more revolutionary Rastafarians.
There was an attempt to unify Belize Rasta in the summer of 1996. The unity attempt lasted only a month, and its failure really mystified us on Partridge Street. After all, UBAD, encompassing all religions and many philosophies, had lasted more than five years (1969-1974) at a time when Belizeans had been much less “conscious.” Why did Belize Rasta fail to unify in 1996? In retrospect, the answer must have been the Cocaine Rasta. They were vociferous, aggressive and powerful. The Real Rasta had to take a back seat in 1996.
Today, it may be that the Rasta from Belmopan and from the Belmopan-area villages are leading a movement of Real Rasta. This is good, and we applaud it. Only the people can save the people. In 1996, Cocaine Rasta were the Anti-Christ of the Book of Revelations. Cocaine Rasta confused the people. They misled themselves, and they misled the people. Their vision was flawed, and the people perished.
As a historical footnote, we would point out that religion was a significant aspect of the UBAD movement. Two of UBAD’s most important officers were the late Charles X “Justice” Eagan (later Ibrahim Abdullah), who had brought Islamic beliefs to British Honduras in 1962, and his first disciple, Ismail Omar Shabazz. It was after Charles X Eagan was imprisoned in 1971, and Shabazz resigned from UBAD to join Nuri Muhammad’s Nation of Islam in late 1972, that UBAD began to divide in early 1973.
This newspaper extends best wishes to the Mile 41 land cultivation movement and the related Belize City crime prevention effort.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.