As the Centenary Approaches - The State of Scholarship on Rastafari from a Global Perspective

 In the next four years, the Rastafari movement will have entered its 100th year. This is quite an achievement for a movement that has continued to survive despite the odds. To me, it speaks of the resilience of this oft-misunderstood movement.  It also speaks of how the Rastafari movement in my country Malawi has continued to survive despite the question that Margaret Nyondo Musyani  posed in the title of her 2006 thesis "Is Rastafari Going to Survive in Malawi?". I will speak about in depth in just a moment but for now it is imperative that I begin by providing my assessment on the state of Rastafari scholarship specifically in view of the upcoming 100th anniversary coming up in four years.

There is no doubt that a lot has been achieved in the last decades in so far as scholarship is concerned. This is significantly so as the movement has moved from being dismissed as a fringe spiritual-cultural expression to one that has gained recognition in academic, theological and sociopolitical discourse. I wish to add that this has significantly been the case in Jamaica whereby despite the coronation of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, it would take twenty years for serious scholarship to be undertaken on Rastafari. At that time, much of what was known regarding Rastafari often came from the newspaper articles albeit the fact that much of it was disparaging. One notable case was what took place in 1951 which involved the murder of Sidney Garrell and his girlfriend by someone who was said to be allegedly a Rasta. Getting back to the question into why it took long for serious scholarship to be undertaken on Rastafari particularly in Jamaica, it is worth noting that the period between the coronation of Haile Selassie in 1930 and the 1950s, much of the world had experienced a Great Depression and this would be followed by the Second World War which occurred for six years. In addition to this, it is worth noting that television at the time did not expose the world (particularly the western world) to faraway places like Jamaica. It was not until 1955 that an American sociologist named George Eaton Simpson undertook research on Rastafari. He has often been credited for pioneering research on the Rastafari movement, yet some have pointed to the fact that Simpson's analysis lacked the cultural sensitivity  that would have been needed to challenge the misconceptions surrounding Rastas.

Subsequently, Rastas found themselves continually facing stigmatization. Notable cases include the Claudius Henry affair of 1959 whereby Rastas were perceived as dangerous in the eyes of the Jamaican public at the time. This was due to the perception that Henry's messages of Black liberation were no different to that of Rastas making many to equate Henry with the Rastafari when the reality was not so. Indeed, Henry and Rastafari did advocate messages similar to that of Rastas and this was at a time when Jamaica was still under British colonial rule, but they were in themselves different. This would prompt the prominent Rasta leader at the time Mortimo Planno to persuade the then University College of West Indies (currently University of West Indies) principal Arthur Lewis to play a role in challenging the misconceptions surrounding Rastas further commissioning MG Smith,  Roy Augier and Rex Nettleford to come up with what became known as the University of West Indies (UWI) of 1960. What makes this report significant is that despite its shortcomings it redefined Rastafari as a movement rather than a "cult" as was the case during the time of George Eaton Simpson. More importantly, it challenged the public stereotypes that surrounded the Rastafari movement at the time. No doubt, since the inception of the report in 1960, scholarship on the Rastafari movement has continued to grow overtime.

                                                      Claudius Henry (Source: Active Voice)

                                       1960 Report on the Rastafari Movement (Source: Open Library)

With this in mind, it is imperative to reflect on the state of scholarship on Rastafari from what I would call a global perspective. As someone that has spent over ten years studying Rastafari particularly from a Malawian perspective, it saddens me to find that there is currently no centre, department or module that can be specifically devoted to the Rastafari especially now that the movement has no longer limited itself to Jamaica. Let me speak for now about the Rastafari movement in Malawi. Although the democratic elections made it possible for the Rastafari movement to make itself visible in Malawi, it would take until the 2000s for research to be undertaken on the Rastafari movement yet the development on the scholarship of the Rastafari remains slow at best in the Malawian context. It is only more recently that my colleague Dr. Paliani Chinguwo has just published a book titled The Rastafari Movement in Malawi. From One Party State Era and Beyond which discusses the history of the Rastafari movement. I feel that such a book is long overdue. Being said, however, more must be done to advance scholarship on Rastafari not just in Malawi but globally. This is especially in light of the fact that Rastafari is not monolithic. It is imperative for scholars to define Rastafari within the context of their respective societies as demonstrated in Chinguwo's published work as opposed to using Jamaica as a benchmark. Employing the words of Prof. Hailemariam Shawn Sobers "There should no longer be an excuse for the common popular misconception that Rastafari is a Jamaican-only phenomenon.  It is a force to be reckoned with".