And the Rastafarians are not an "enterprise" - there are few religious movements that are more disorganized and uncoordinated than Rastafarianism.
I hold no brief for Rastafarianism and I agree that large numbers of Rastafarians make their living growing and dealing marijuana and partaking in all the violence that such a lifestyle implies - but crime is not the sole purpose of Rastafarianism.
Basically, in the early 1900s Jamaica was a very poor colony of the UK that had an all-white government and a 0.5% white population. In Jamaica there had been a long tradition of social unrest from slavery times on down, and there was also a large number of rural Jamaicans living in the country's interior who were descended from slaves that had not yet really been fully Westernized before they were freed.
These were the ones who traditionally cultivated marijuana, who mixed African notions with the Bible taught to them by itinerant preachers and who did not really fit into the modernization of the British Commonwealth's economy. They were agricultural day laborers living in shanty camps etc.
Then three things happened to completely radicalize them between 1930-1955.
The first was the emigration of a Westernized, educated Jamaican named Marcus Garvey from Kingston to New York. Marcus Garvey organized the first serious black nationalist movement, the United Negro Improvement Association. Garvey created a personal empire on his doctrines of black self-sufficiency, rejection of white values and power and a triumphant return to Africa. Garvey became world famous, was prosecuted for mail fraud and disgraced and remade himself in the image of a wronged prophet crying in the wilderness.
In his prophetic mode he returned to Jamaica and founded the PPP - the first ideologically black nationalist political party. He foretold that a king would come from the East to save the black man the world over.
In 1930, Ras (Prince) Tafari Makonnen defeated the other rival Rases to the throne of Ethiopia and was crowned Negusa Negast (King of Kings) Haile Selassie ("Power of the Trinity").
In 1935, Ethiopia was attacked by fascist Italy and Selassie became internationally famous (like Garvey) for entering into the heart of the white man's world (in Garvey's case NYC, in Selassie's the League of Nations) to defend his people from oppression. Like Garvey also, he was initially defeated but made a comeback.
A lot of rural Jamaicans, including many who had moved to urban Kingston after WWII in search of opportunity, began to see themselves as Africans, to see Garvey as a prophet and Selassie as an African savior.
A fascination with Ethiopian culture led to the popularity of the Kebra Negast ("Book Of Kings") an ancient Ethiopian document which asserted that the first Negus Negast of Ethiopia, Menelik, was the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and that Solomon had given the Ark of the Covenant into Menelik's hands for safekeeping - making the Royal House of Ethiopia the true Davidic line.
Obscure black nationalist writings from Jamaica that referenced Garvey in a religious way came into vogue, like a book called "The Holy Piby" and "The Royal parchment Scroll Of Black Supremacy."
Then, in 1952 Jomo Kenyatta began making the Kingston papers with his "Mau Mau" group of Kikuyu guerilla warriors.
The traditional Kikuyu hairstyle of long, matted locks became known as "dreadlocks" and were adopted as a badge of African identity.
So, by 1960, there was a decent-sized underground movement in place in Jamaica that was unified by its love for marijuana as a mystical intoxicant associated with African religious practice, its affinity for traditional African drumming, its adoption of Garvey and Selassie as prophet and savior as well as mentors, and its identification with the worldwide pan-African movement, including through their new hairstyles and modes of dress. They called themselves followers of Ras Tafari or Rastafarians.
Musicians and artists always seem to like pot and radicalism, so many of the urban R&B musicians and singers in Kingston bought marijuana from Rastafarians and also bought into their beliefs. They even began incorporating Rastafarian percussion and chants into their music.
In 1962 Jamaica became independent. In 1966, Haile Selassie made a state visit to Jamaica and was mobbed by worshippers, and thousands and thousands of Jamaicans converted to Rastafarianism.
Over the next few years the movement grew in size and its signature music - reggae - became a worldwide smash due to the enormous international popularity of convert Bob Marley.
When Selassie died/was murdered in 1975, the movement split into various factions.
At the same time in the mid-70s, the national elections had become highly aggressive and Rastafarians and street gangs sided with Michael Manley's PNP. Many prominent gang members converted in order to increase the size of their crews.
It was at that point that recording industry money, drug money and Rastafarianism became inextricably intertwined.
Since then there are splinter Rastafarian groups (like the Bobo Ashanti) that do not believe in the morality of buying and selling "holy" marijuana but raise their own for community use.
But there are thousands and thousands of Rastafarians who are actively involved in the drug trade.
This does not mean that Rastafarianism is not a serious religion for many adherents.
Ironically, Marcus Garvey was a "right wing extremist" who sympathized with Hitler was hated by the left in his day. The fact that Black nationalism is today considered "left wing" (ie, Michael Manley) illustrates just how much the contemporary Third World left has moved from emulating the USSR to emulating WWII-era Japan.
It was my understanding that Bob Marley was not a real RT at all but an atheist political revolutionary.
I have long remarked that the attachment of poor Jamaican Blacks to Ethiopia is similar to the attachment of American Fundamentalist Protestants to Israel.
Much of what you say is factual, and is the sort of background information I quickly alluded to. Much of it is explains what the situation to be exploited. But it’s such a prepostrous white-wash, ignoring the absurd, embarassing and criminal.
What’s astounding about what you’ve written is you write as if you’ve accepted every ounce of spin some pot-headed Marxist university professor ever spun. You’ve even adopted the language, in spite of it being anathema to your own religious beliefs.
“In his prophetic mode... he foretold...”
He “foretold?” That word states that something TRUE happened which was told of beforehand. So, was Black Man saved the world over by King Selassie? Of course not, that’s why he can’t be dead. In his “prophetic mode?” That wording indicates he was prohetic! How about, “in his exiled mode?” Prophets may have been outcasts, but not every exiled convict is a prophet.
Yes, Marcus Garvey’s was the initial criminal enterprise to which I referred. Marcus Garvey wasn’t stupid; he just knew other people were. So he built his belief system on a profitable enterprise: drug runners would be his twelve apostles. Sure, drugs were exactly the last thing blacks neeeded, but he didn’t care. He didn’t even care that one day his “religion” would be exposed, since thats the concern a philosopher might have... but he’d have a new angle if he ever needed.
Selassie was worshipped as God incarnate, so when he died, there had to be a conspiracy born to explain it. Many “Rastas” today don’t even know that he ever was said to be the Second Coming. But like crackpot religions, the culture of the religion supplanted those initial core beliefs, which now seem secondary.
>> Musicians and artists always seem to like pot and radicalism, so many of the urban R&B musicians and singers in Kingston bought marijuana from Rastafarians and also bought into their beliefs. They even began incorporating Rastafarian percussion and chants into their music. <<
That’s the only reason Rasta survives. It’s the emotionalism of religion with the promise of marijuana.