RASTAFARIANISM: Rastafari survives 'Bad Friday'
Each year, at a time when the nation as a whole has a holiday and the Christian community in particular marks the crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, there is a gathering of Rastafari in Montego Bay, St James. The ‘elders’ who are the focal point have gradually declined in number over the years, but their testimonies have not lost intensity or effect.
They are the remainder of those personally experienced state repression in what is mildly termed the Coral Gardens Incident in some quarters, more definitively named the Coral Gardens Uprising in some and the Coral Gardens Massacre by Rastafari. No matter the perspective which the terminology reflects, ‘Bad Friday’ 1963 - as Rastafari invert ‘Good Friday’ - is a landmark moment for Rastafari which, numerically, is in lockstep with Jamaica’s independence.
Rastafarianism has come a very long way since a confrontation at Coral Gardens left a gas station incinerated, two policemen, and three Rastafari dead, leading to the beating, forcible trimming, incarceration and other actions against Rastafari across Jamaica, but especially in the western end of the island. However, to reduce Rastafari to its most visible image - a dreadlocked singer or musician - is to do a disservice to a movement based upon belief that HIS Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie of Ethiopia is God. Marcus Garvey, Jamaica’s first National Hero, is held in high esteem, with mansions - or sub-groups - such as the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the Boboshanti distinguishing themselves.
It is a movement started among the Jamaican underclass in the 1930s, after Haile Selassie’s coronation in Addis Ababa on November 2, 1930, which has spread worldwide. This is despite state opposition from the very outset, early Rastafari leader Archibald Dunkley was arrested on of charges of disorderly conduct in 1934 and sent to the asylum in 1935. In 1934, Leonard Howell was sentenced to two years imprisonment for sedition. Joseph Hibbert was arrested thrice in 1935, arrested on a charge of lunacy and fined for disorderly conduct. In 1941- three years before Universal Adult Suffrage - the police raided Leonard Howell’s Rastafari commune at Pinnacle, Sligoville, St Catherine. Twenty-eight persons were sentenced on charges of violence and growing marijuana and Howell sentenced to two years in prison for assaulting people. Howell returned to Pinnacle in 1943 and in 1954 a police raid resulted in the settlement’s break-up.
By the late 1960s to 1970s Rastafari gained significant traction in Jamaica, coinciding with the Black Power movement and Jamaica’s attempt at democratic socialism. And in April this year, ahead of yet another Coral Gardens anniversary, the Jamaican government officially apologised to Rastafari and the matter of compensation is the natural next step.
The Rastafari movement, with its distinctive red, gold and green colours and highly vocal membership, still faces discrimination - but it is a long way from April 1963.
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