By Alex Walker, Contributor 
Rastafarians marching at a rally. - File
OVER 50 years ago I broke into print when I penned an angry letter to The Gleaner's stable-mate, The Star, in an effort to defend the views of Jamaicans of African descent who were desirous of emigrating to the African continent. It was during an era of anti-Garveyism and anti-Africanism, when various editorial writers and columnists, in Jamaican idiom, continually 'tek set' on the fledgling Afro-centred group , the 'Africanists', were being pilloried in an effort to bolster the fading vestiges of British colonialism and plantation mores.
My immediate concern was entitled 'No Rasta Cult in Jamaica', and sought to address from my early study of Ethiopian history, while still a pupil of primary school years I studied the various volumes of J.A. Rogers' researches in African history. My father was an admirer of Marcus Garvey and a Pan-African, and received regular supplies of literature from friends abroad who kept him abreast of the Italo-Ethiopian war. Not surpri-singly, I was more interested in my father's library than in Britain's imperialist wars against the peoples of Africa and Asia, which were the major curriculum of the primary schools of that era.
It was also during the '30s I read the National Geographic bagazine's report of the coronation of the former Prince Regent Ras Tafari Makonnen, who was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I on November 2, 1930, Defender of the Faith by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Subsequent to his coronation, here in Jamaica, a full-blown cult began to develop around the person of Selassie from thousands of miles away, without his being aware of his devotees! Apparently, I was wasting my time, not realising that the cult was already here! Usually, the normal cults to which the world is accustomed worship a personal 'hands on' leader, or god, but in Jamaica, typically, things occur by remote turned upside down!
Now that Jamaica is swept up in the worldwide learning syndrome to acquire every Hons. degree available at a price up to doctorates, our local feminists now feel free to sound off to the media at will. Thus, The Gleaner (Septem-ber 9, 2003) had Dr. Carolyn Cooper exercising her right as a Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies, at the University of the West Indies, Mona, declaring, 'I'm a bald head Rasta'. It seems nowadays every time you turn around there's someone, and his or her dog, declaring some version of Rasta doctrine or philosophy. So I may as well declare that during the 1950s I was a member of the Ethiopian World Federation, after I was persuaded to join by a Charter Member, William Powell.
CONFUSED
After studying the Federation's constitution, I noted there was provision for a press and public relations officer, and an educational officer, who should do lectures on African history. So when I moved the motion for their implementation, I was landed with these posts, since I was studying journalism. And like Ms. Cooper, I was also a member of the North Street Seventh-Day Adventist Church as a youth. But my radicalism showed in hopping tram-cars with other young radicals heading toward Sabbath school football matches.
But the Professor's so-called radicalism, or deviance from convention seems to be the cause of some confusion as she confesses, "I have difficulties with Selassie as God." Join the club. Although she doubts if "Jesus Christ was a historical figure", and her confusion is further compounded in her declaration, "My feeling is that if Jesus is God, Selassie is God too!" She now strays from the sublime into the ridiculous in her belief that, 'God is bisexual'. Okay, that's granted, but she continued, "My God can't be a man and I'm a woman." What's wrong with that arrangement?
It's no wonder an apostle after Jesus' ascension said that many, thinking themselves wise, become fools. By what criteria can Ms. Cooper equate the documentary testaments of eyewitnesses to Jesus Christ's mission, or even compare historical figures of any stature who raised the dead, opened the eyes of the blind and cured the diseases? When Selassie allowed one or two thousands of his subjects in southern Ethiopia to starve in 1973, Jonathan Dimbleby screened a film entitled 'Ethiopia: The Unknown Famine' on London TV.
In 1950 when Ms. Cooper was born, the international chairman of the Ethiopian World Federation, Bishop Lawson, came from New York with the news of a land grant from the Emperor at Shashamane to compensate the people of African descent from the New World who had supported Ethiopia during the Italian invasion, and promptly arranged with the Bishop to meet at his hotel at Old South Camp Road with my long-time friend Roy Jeffries. There, the three of us discussed Ethiopia, African history, as well as prophecies relating to Africa and the world. Eventually, we came to the question of Haile Selassie's divinity, a subject that was rife in Jamaica.
Bishop Lawson said the Emperor's titles were awarded on his coronation by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as the Defender of the Faith, and as further embellishment to his position and status without any implication of divinity. The Bishop clarified Selassie's status for Ms. Cooper as well, because she is not as radical as she would have us to believe, judging from her dated concept of someone who was exposed by his own subjects as a fraud and then dethroned. I cannot believe the Professor, as a member of UWI academia, is unaware of the two books on the Ethiopian Revolution, one written in 1981 by Fred Halliday and Maxine Molyneux, the other by Ryszard Kapuscinski in 1978.
Halliday was born in Dublin, Ireland, and studied at Queen's College, Oxford, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, author of numerous books on Asia and the Middle East. Ms. Molyneux was born in Karachi and studied at Essex University, England, is a lecturer in sociology in Essex, and author of books on the Middle East, and specialises on gender problems. Kapuscinski was Poland's top foreign correspondent and went to Ethiopia shortly after the Emperor's dethronement to gather first-hand information on the revolution. After his book, The Fall of an Autocrat, a play based on the book was dramatised at the Royal Chelsea Theatre in London.
For those who were deprived of the opportunity to savour the downfall of the dying breed of dinosaurs, we can recapture Kapuscinski's account: "At 6 o'clock, military trucks pulled up in front of the palace. Three officers in combat uniforms made their way to the chamber where the Emperor had been since dawn. After a preliminary bow, one of them read the Act of dethronement. The text, published later in the press and read over the radio, went as follows: 'Even though people treated the throne in good faith as a symbol of unity, Haile Selassie I, took advantage of its authority, dignity, and honour for his own integration. Moreover, an 82-year-old monarch, because of his age, is incapable of meeting his responsibilities. Therefore, His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I is being deposed as of September 12, 1974, and power assumed by the Provisional Military Committee. Ethiopia above all!' (pp. 158-164)
BLOTTING OUT REALITY
When the news reached the crowd, marching through the streets of Addis Ababa, were cursing the Emperor, calling him a thief, shouting, "Crook! Give back our money! Hang the Emperor!" But thousands of miles away in Jamaica, his admirers among the Rastas were still bowing to his photographs and chanting 'Selassie I'. On August 28, 1975, the 'Ethiopian Herald' in Addis Ababa, reported that Haile Selassie I, the former Emperor of Ethiopia, died. The cause of death was circulatory failure, but then the local Rastas went into denial and after 37 years are still declaring on stages, concerts, 'Selassie Lives'. That's merely braggadocio, in an effort to blot out reality.
Every Sunday morning between 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., Radio Irie FM broadcasts an African-oriented programme called 'The Running African', presented by Andrea Williams-Green, and presides over a book club that encourages readers to read selected books and offer comments. But during the years I've listened there was no mention of the two books cited on the revolution. Again, there are certain booksellers offering African books but none has stocked on the Ethiopian Revolution, for the simple reason there is a tacit conspiracy among these booksellers and media presenters to keep the facts of Selassie's downfall and death from the deluded Rastas.
LULLED INTO OVERCONFIDENCE
For years, Rastas have leaned heavily on the Solomonic connection with Selassie despite, over the centuries, the supposed wisdom of Solomon has long been attenuated. But kept alive by the Orthodox Church through priest craft, the vast real estate holdings, and with the traditional landlords who comprised the feudal oligarchy of the status quo before the revolution. Because of Ethiopia's vast accumulation of myth, legends and religious traditions extending into antiquity, the Rastas have been lulled into a state of overconfidence because they mistake popularity with the style and fads that are transient.
Thus they have neglected to keep abreast of researches on the latter years of Solomon when he fell from grace with God because he took numerous wives and concubines and 'burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods'. In 1954 on the eve of the project to build Garvey's statue I wrote a letter to The Gleaner suggesting that we use the funds to establish an Institute for African Affairs where history, languages, etc., would be taught. After 37 years of trying to revive the Rasta cult of Selassie we have had enough religion in Jamaica, let's now concentrate on building an African Cultural Institute where Ms. Cooper and other talented African people should use their opportunities to uplift the less fortunate in some other worthy endeavour.
