Rastafarianism

Rastafarianism

RASTAFARIANISM. Rastafari (the preferred name for Rastafarianism) was once categorized simply as a syncretic Afro-Caribbean religio-political cult. The reality is much more complex. It might be meaningfully described as a Jamaica-spawned global spiritual movement that is rooted in returning to, retrieving, or reinventing African heritage and identity (and occasionally other historically disparaged or submerged identities). Rastafari includes a variety of specific manifestations, traversing a broad spectrum of religious, political, and cultural forms. The name Rastafari derives from the title and given name (Ras, translated as "prince," and Tafari, "he who must be feared," from the Amharic language of Ethiopia) of Haile Selassie (Amharic for "power of the Trinity"; 1892–1975), the former Ethiopian emperor, whom most Rastafari worship as a god-king or messiah. Yet Rastafari as a whole cannot be defined simply by reference to beliefs about the messiah, common practices, or common organizational forms. Instead, one should approach Rastafari holistically.

Rastafari as a Spiritual Movement

Rastafari can be considered foremost an expression of retrieved African spirituality. If all concerns about the sacred can be seen as ranging along a continuum between the ideal-typical poles of "religion" and "spirituality," then Rastafari tends toward the latter. Indeed it is important to note that most Rastas (individual participants in the movement) typically eschew the category religion because of what they consider to be the term's colonial, imperialistic, and organizational connotations.

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