55 Facts About Rastafari

Rastafari beliefs are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible.

Rastafari is Afrocentric and focuses attention on the African diaspora, which it believes is oppressed within Western society, or "Babylon".

Rastafari originated among impoverished and socially disenfranchised Afro-Jamaican communities in 1930s Jamaica.

Enthusiasm for Rastafari declined in the 1980s, following the deaths of Haile Selassie and Marley, but the movement survived and has a presence in many parts of the world.

Rastafari movement is decentralised and organised on a largely sectarian basis.

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Rastafari has been described as a religion, meeting many of the proposed definitions for what constitutes a religion, and is legally recognised as such in various countries.

The scholar Ennis B Edmonds suggested that Rastafari was "emerging" as a world religion, not because of the number of its adherents, but because of its global spread.

Rastafari has continuously changed and developed, with significant doctrinal variation existing among practitioners depending on the group to which they belong.

Term "Rastafari" derives from "Ras Tafari Makonnen", the pre-regnal title of the late Haile Selassie, the former Ethiopian emperor who occupies a central role in Rasta belief.

However, the term is disparaged by many Rastafari, who believe that the use of -ism implies religious doctrine and institutional organisation, things they wish to avoid.

Edmonds described Rastafari as having "a fairly cohesive worldview"; however, the scholar Ernest Cashmore thought that its beliefs were "fluid and open to interpretation".

The conviction that Rastafari has no dogma "is so strong that it has itself become something of a dogma", according to the sociologist of religion Peter B Clarke.

Rastafari is deeply influenced by Judeo-Christian religion, and shares many commonalities with Christianity.

Rastafari holds strongly to the immanence of this divinity; as well as regarding Jah as a deity, Rastas believe that Jah is inherent within each individual.

From its origins, Rastafari was intrinsically linked with Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974.

Rastafari remains the central figure in Rastafari ideology, and although all Rastas hold him in esteem, precise interpretations of his identity differ.

Critics of Rastafari have used this as evidence that Rasta theological beliefs are incorrect, although some Rastas take Selassie's denials as evidence that he was indeed the incarnation of God, based on their reading of the Gospel of Luke.

The Rastafari movement began among Afro-Jamaicans who wanted to reject the British colonial culture that dominated Jamaica and replace it with a new identity based on a reclamation of their African heritage.

Rastafari is therefore Afrocentric, equating blackness with the African continent, and endorsing a form of Pan-Africanism.

Practitioners of Rastafari identify themselves with the ancient Israelites—God's chosen people in the Old Testament—and believe that black Africans broadly or Rastas more specifically are either the descendants or the reincarnations of this ancient people.

Rastafari espouses the view that this, the true identity of black Africans, has been lost and needs to be reclaimed.

Rastafari's history has opened the religion to accusations of racism.

Rastafari teaches that the black African diaspora are exiles living in "Babylon", a term which it applies to Western society.

Rastafari is a millenarian movement, espousing the idea that the present age will come to an apocalyptic end.

Rastafari suggested that this attitude stemmed from the large numbers of young people that were then members of the movement, and who had thus seen only few Rastas die.

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Rastafari promotes the idea of "living naturally", in accordance with what Rastas regard as nature's laws.

Rastafari promotes what it regards as the restoration of black manhood, believing that men in the African diaspora have been emasculated by Babylon.

Rastafari typically rejects feminism, although since the 1970s growing numbers of Rasta women have called for greater gender equity in the movement.

Principal ritual of Rastafari is the smoking of ganja, known as marijuana or cannabis.

Rastafari music developed at reasoning sessions, where drumming, chanting, and dancing are all present.

Dreadlocks and Rastafari-inspired clothing have been worn for aesthetic reasons by non-Rastas.

Rastafari developed out of the legacy of the Atlantic slave trade, in which over ten million enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Rastafari owed much to intellectual frameworks arising in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Significant influence on Rastafari was the Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey, who spent much of his adult life in the US and Britain.

Rastafari's ideas faced opposition from civil rights activists like W E B Du Bois who supported racial integration, and as a mass movement, Garveyism declined in the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Garvey knew of Rastafari, but took a largely negative view of the religion; he became a critic of Haile Selassie, calling him "a great coward" who rules a "country where black men are chained and flogged".

Rastafari preached that black Africans were superior to white Europeans and that Afro-Jamaicans should owe their allegiance to Haile Selassie rather than to George V, King of Great Britain and Ireland.

For its first thirty years, Rastafari was in a conflictual relationship with the Jamaican authorities.

The decade saw Rastafari develop in increasingly complex ways, as it did when some Rastas began to reinterpret the idea that salvation required a physical return to Africa, instead interpreting salvation as coming through a process of mental decolonisation that embraced African approaches to life.

Whereas its membership had previously derived predominantly from poorer sectors of society, in the 1960s Rastafari began attracting support from more privileged groups like students and professional musicians.

Enthusiasm for Rastafari was likely dampened by the death of Haile Selassie in 1975 and that of Marley in 1981.

Mid-1990s saw a revival of Rastafari-focused reggae associated with musicians like Anthony B, Buju Banton, Luciano, Sizzla, and Capleton.

Rastafari is not a homogeneous movement and has no single administrative structure, nor any single leader.

The structure of most Rastafari groups is less like that of Christian denominations and is instead akin to the cellular structure of other African diasporic traditions like Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santeria, and Jamaica's Revival Zion.

Probably the largest Rastafari group, the House of Nyabinghi is an aggregate of more traditional and militant Rastas who seek to retain the movement close to the way in which it existed during the 1940s.

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The Fulfilled Rastafari group accept Haile Selassie's statements that he was a man and that he was a devout Christian, and so place emphasis on worshipping Jesus through the example set forth by Haile Selassie.

In valorising Africa and blackness, Rastafari provides a positive identity for youth in the African diaspora by allowing them to psychologically reject their social stigmatisation.

Some English ex-Rastas described disillusionment when the societal transformation promised by Rastafari failed to appear, while others felt that while Rastafari would be appropriate for agrarian communities in Africa and the Caribbean, it was not suited to industrialised British society.

Jamaica's Rastas were initially entirely from the Afro-Jamaican majority, and although Afro-Jamaicans are still the majority, Rastafari has gained members from the island's Chinese, Indian, Afro-Chinese, Afro-Jewish, mulatto, and white minorities.

Rastafari was introduced to the United States and Canada with the migration of Jamaicans to continental North America in the 1960s and 1970s.

Rastafari attracted converts from within several Native American communities and picked up some support from white members of the hippie subculture, which was then in decline.

In West Africa, Rastafari has spread largely through the popularity of reggae, gaining a larger presence in Anglophone areas than their Francophone counterparts.

Rastafari established itself in various continental European countries, among them the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, and France, gaining a particular foothold among black migrant populations but attracting white converts.

Rastafari attracted membership from within the Maori population of New Zealand, and the Aboriginal population of Australia.

Rastafari has established a presence in Japan, and in Israel, primarily among those highlighting similarities between Judaism and Rastafari.