"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too, can become great."
Mark Twain
Just the other day my usual meditations were interrupted by a startling remark by a very close friend. It was revealed to me that my almost quarter century trod in Rastafari was by all observations a complete waste of time and of my energies. While I truly applaud their forthrightness, it disturbed me that the sacrifices and uncompromising fortitude against adversity, big and small, goes largely unnoticed or worse unrecognized as qualities that were once held in such high esteem.
From the outside, I guess the Rastafari movement seems to have lost some of it's oomph. The agitation has long since removed itself from the foreground and these days chooses to work in quiet isolation. I mean to say that for ones who look not, it is quite understandable that they see not. Throughout the medium of Reggae music, which at one time was infused with the revolutionary spirit of Rastafari livity, the deficiency of upright wordsound and the further tasteless descent into what I could safely call the bastard child, dancehall has left the outward face of the movement bereft of many real stewards.
The few artists who still champion roots reggae music and dutifully and faithfully call to the higher self of the listener to challenge colonialism and imperialism, even under their new guises, are less likely to chart here in the States and I gather much the same elsewhere in the world. As we can still clearly see in North Africa and West Asia, the powers that be do not take kindly to the outright challenge of their power.
But then, reggae was never really the only tool or face of agitation for Rastafari. In fact, as a tool, it was chiefly used to spread the message of Rastafari, but I'm not exactly certain how much actual political agitation was accomplished through reggae alone. Art may awaken the better senses of the individual or the larger group, but on it's own, it cannot write the letters and push the buttons that change the laws. In response to that truth, the Nation and movement, had to then and must still to this day, learned to adapt.
As the Nation has grown and matured, Rastafari have made their way into all walks of life: law, medicine, the arts, social sciences, human rights agitation to name a few. Currently there have been many inroads made to fulfill the aspirations of African freedom, redemption and the international repatriation of the children of the bonds men and women taking into custody and brutalized during the vile wickedness of the plantation chattel slave system. Rastafari youth today are rising up across the globe, African youth who with the networking tools available to us today, are able to dialogue and inspire each other to our calling and challenge each other to not drop the mantle handed over by Elders who to their great credit, bore the lash and dread of society so that we can stand here today.
Rastafari still agitates for indigenous rights of all peoples, even as Africa is our champion cause. It is the courage and strength to endure through all the hardships: all the job rejections; all the relationships lost or disrupted; all the political setbacks; all the sacrifices made in anticipation of the day when Africa is truly free from the onslaught and Rastafari people are returned home, welcomed home, that people do not see. Greater in the world than I, walks the Rastafari youth who will make the final push to see the fulfillment of the last 100+ years of agitation. I, like the Elders before, push on to see that day.
So to my friend, this thing is bigger than me. For all my human flaws and failings, the fight to liberate the African Diaspora is not now, or ever will be a waste of time and energy. Rastafari has awakened the people to fight for their own liberation, to fight for their own salvation. The trappings of the western powers mean little in that scope. Align yourself with like minded and spirited people and you will understand how much strength it truly takes to endure through the misery and strife for the good of the greater cause.
The race is not for the swift, but for those who can and will endure. Remove from your gaze those who would want you to not see your own incredible strength and courage. They are not friend, but foe. Challenge yourself to the devotion of causes greater than your own self interest. Above all, love yourself as you love God. Till we meet....
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”
Haile Selassie
Follow me on Twitter @JahKwasiAbahu
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