The vast majority of us human beings are very afraid of death, the state which Shakespeare described as “that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.” In seeking to allay some of their fears, all peoples, it seems to me, subscribe to some form of religion, some set of beliefs which seek to explain what happens after our departure from our earthly sojourn.

It has been fifteen months since Hamas, the Palestinian group, attacked a concert being held somewhere in Israel, killed more than a thousand people, and took more than two hundred hostages. The much more powerful Israelis responded by bombing Gaza, the home of Hamas, to smithereens, killing more than 45,000, many women and children, and injuring more than 100,000.

At the root of the horrific violence in the so-called Middle East is differing religious beliefs. (Of course, there are also territorial, strategic, and political factors.) The Zionist Israelis are Jewish in religion, and the Palestinians are Muslim. But both these peoples who seem to hate each other so much, are considered to be Semitic peoples, and scholars who study such matters say that both peoples are descended from Abraham, and they are basically cousins.   

Religions give homage to a supreme being, who is described as God or Allah or Buddha or whatever. This supreme being is supposed to have created the universe, and created human beings to populate planet earth, earth being only a tiny speck in a universe of surpassing magnitude.

When a religion goes to war, the people of that religion believe they are doing so in the name of God, that their violence is blessed by their God, and that their religious wars will assist in their quest for eternal salvation.

In this world in which my generation has grown up, the dominant religions, which are Christianity and Islam, derive their set of beliefs from writers who their believers say were inspired by God. So, these dominant religions believe that it is God who is speaking to them through these writers in the Bible (Christianity) and the Koran (Islam).

Where those of us of African descent are concerned, the dominant religions, Christianity and Islam, do not consider that the system of beliefs to which our African ancestors adhered, before Christian Europe and Islamic Asia invaded Africa, enslaved our ancestors, and dictated what religious beliefs should be acceptable and what not acceptable, are of any consequence whatsoever.

The subject with which this column has been dealing is one which is overwhelming where history and depth are concerned. I began the column in this manner so as to lay the foundation for a tribute to a man born in Jamaica in 1887 by the name of Marcus Mosiah Garvey.

On Sunday morning, I saw on American cable television that outgoing United States president, Joe Biden, had issued a posthumous pardon for Garvey, who had been imprisoned in the Atlanta State Penitentiary for two years in the latter part of the 1920s. Garvey had been framed on mail fraud charges related to his raising money to establish a black-owned steamship line.

Garvey’s imprisonment had enabled charlatans to take over his organization — the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the most powerful post-slavery black organization the world has ever seen. A British Honduran millionaire, Isaiah Morter, who died in 1923, had left a will to help finance Garvey’s efforts at “African redemption.” But Morter did not indicate in the wording of his will that the funds/assets were to be transferred to Garvey personally. This turned out to be a mistake, because once Garvey went to jail, the charlatans took over his organization and gained control of Morter’s legacy (which included the fabulous Caye Chapel) in 1939.

That Morter business is a long story in itself. All my column will do today is remark on the fact that the legacy of Garvey himself includes a religion. It was Marcus Garvey who inspired the birth of Rastafarianism in the hills of Jamaica in the early 1930s.

The first spectacular international prophet of Rasta was Bob Marley. I would say that Bob was the Rasta equivalent of Christianity’s St. Paul. There are some of us suspicious ones who believe that Bob, who died in his prime at 36 of a mysterious toe cancer, was the victim of a conspiracy. (Years before, there had been an attempt to assassinate him by gunfire.) The world is not a safe place for the people’s prophets. (Remember, there were more than 600 attempts to kill Fidel.)

When I listen to Burning Spear’s music, and for many years he has been Marcus’ most famous disciple, sometimes his different songs sound the same, and yet each is unique. The spirituality of the man is almost religious. And always, always, Burning Spear tells us, “Marcus no dead.”

No, beloved, Marcus no dead. His spirit lives. The world, we all can see, is a world of war. The religion which inspires liberated black people today is Rasta. Jah lives. Respect Garvey.