Fall of the Rastamen

Roy Kerridge

o you know any Rastas?' a friend wrote to ask me in a letter from America. The Caribbean diaspora had swept her from British Guiana to Harles- den, London, and from London to Den- ver, Colorado, with a GI husband. 'There are a few here, and they've really made me read the Bible. I would like to meet some if I come back to England.'

She had better hurry up and return, if so, for the Rasta cult seems to be dwindling away before my eyes. In this, as in most ways, it resembles the once proud hippie cult. I made a search through former Rasta haunts and former hippie haunts and drew a blank in both cases. Normal people are back. A Rhondda-like enthusiasm for choir-singing has sent a new generation of `English-born West Indians' back to the Pentecostal church. Other youngsters, who play in streets and parks in fashionable clothes and know all the latest slang, have nothing remotely Rastafarian about them. Teenage cult names, such as Casuals and now Yardies, come and go, fortunately ignored by the national press, and denied the publicity that built up Mods and Rockers. Reggae singers are no longer obliged to be Rastas. Current favourites, such as Eek-a-Mouse, stick to bawdy jokes and nonsense songs and leave Messianic prophecy to the Pentecostalists.

When I was last in Harlesden, a more solidly West Indian neighbourhood than Notting Hill or Brixton, I had a look at the street where my letter-writing friend used to live. There, leaning on a gate, was a tall man in a Bob Marley T-shirt, talking loudly about carnival organisation. He had a brown moustache and beard, and locks poking out of his bonnet. A white Rasta with a West Indian wife, he was the most happy and fulfilled-seeming man I had seen in a long while. For many white people, the decline of Rasta has proved a terrible blow. Reggae fans of Caribbean origin move cheerfully from fashion to fashion, but for the young white Left, pop music and socialism are inextricably en- twined, and they take trivia far more seriously.

`Marley was dead.' Charles Dickens's opening to A Christmas Carol now has a new and bitter meaning for fashionable rebels. Bob Marley, once the Voice of Rasta, is no more, a victim of excessive `herb' or `ganja' smoking. A tortured man, he was encouraged by gangster-like Rasta leaders into forsaking the American 'soul music' at which he excelled and setting himself up as a prophet of 'Armagideon'. As a source of drugged wisdom, he was often linked with Bob Dylan.

`I don't like Bob Dylan,' a coloured girl I know once remarked to a socialist friend. `Of course you don't, because he's white,' was the reply. 'I like Bob Dylan, and you like Bob Marley.'

`No, I don't like Bob Marley either.' `What! Are you a traitor to your race or something?'

For many of those who were young in the late Sixties, Art, Politics, Fashion and even Life itself have all been whittled down to Two Bobs. If you're white, your Bob is Dylan, and if black, your Bob is Marley, life has no more to offer, and bob's your uncle.

Trevor Phillips, a 'black spokesman', has accused me of ignoring Marley's message of 'love and peace'. Marley's idea of 'love and peace' was no worse than that of John Lennon, and far better than that of Charles Manson. Here are some of his lyrics, which I noted down while browsing in a record shop.

`We've got the herb, we've got the herb, we've got the herb.'

`Rastaman live up, Bongoman don't give up, Congoman live up, Bingyman don't give up.'

`I feel like bombing a church.'

The last lyric I quoted may have influ- enced youngsters at a community centre reggae dance near Harlesden, who threw a petrol bomb at the West Indian-run Mount Zionist church opposite. Walls and a door were badly scorched, but nobody was hurt. In Jamaica, Rastas look on Mount Zionists with great hostility, for this unsophisticated sect observe many real African customs. All of these point to a Nigerian Yoruba past rather than the make-believe Ethio- pian Eden of Rastas.

In Birmingham and the Midlands, Ras- tas are younger and more flourishing than in London. Even so, they are losing ground to the churches. The last time I went to my favourite coffee bar in Handsworth, Birm- ingham, I found the local drug peddler to be a white man among young Rastas. A tough snooker-playing hippie with long hair and a walrus moustache, he calmly rolled up his reefers on a table in broad daylight. Nobody seemed very interested. In Rasta mythology, `ganja', or Jamaican marijuana, grows wild for all to smoke in the lush jungles of the Ethiopian home- land. The word `ganja', however, seems to be a corruption of 'Ganges weed', for hemp-smoking was introduced to the Caribbean by indentured Indian labourers. `Weed-smoking' continues to be a feature of reggae concerts, even though the perfor- mers may no longer be Rastas. `When Eek-a-Mouse came to Liverpool Eight, all the lads were throwing ganja- spliffs on the stage at Jamaica House!' a friend in Toxteth told me. 'Of course, he didn't dare to pick them up. They went mad over him there, you've never seen anything like it! It was done as a kind of tribute. After he'd gone there was a mad scramble as everyone tried to get their spliffs back.' Even at the height of Rastadom, more marijuana was probably sold and smoked in a day at any English university town than Harlesden and Handsworth would see in a fortnight.

In a fruitless quest for my colleague Colin Welch's stolen briefcase, I paid a visit to Railton Road in Brixton not long ago, I had long been intrigued by a boarded-up shop there with Rastas hang- ing around the door. Once when a pair of them laughingly carried a crate of beer inside, I had caught a glimpse of an enchanting tropical landscape with palm trees, painted on one of the walls. So on this occasion I decided to knock and announce myself.

splendid sign above the door, in large ,Gothic lettering, declared the place to be the Grand Lodge of the 'Ancient Order of Melchiseder Speculative Mechanics'. I edged through the crowd, but to my disappointment, when the door was opened the place proved to be a pool hall! Not a Bingyman or a Speculative Mechanic was in sight, only a pool table and a bar at the rear of the battered room. The palm tree painting had gone, but another in- ferior mural remained. Two of the pool players in the crowded room had Rasta hair and bonnets, but none seemed to be serious members of anything more than a snooker club. My entrance was greeted with great alarm, and strong men flew to bar my way. Fear turned to relief when I said I was a writer looking for a Rasta temple.

`It's all changed here since there was a fire,' a young man told me in polite, helpful tones. 'That's when the picture got spoilt. You might find some Rastas at the Temple of the Twelve Tribes just up the road. There's a sign on the door, you can't miss it.'

However, when I found the address, it seemed to be empty, and locked up. Where had the Rastas gone? Would the cry `A right man, I sight you again' be no longer heard in the land? A door opened in a church hall and a dignified West Indian woman in a hat emerged and looked down on me from a railing above some steps.

`Excuse me, do you know of a Rasta temple round here?' I asked her.

`No. Are you a Rasta?'

`Do I look like one?'

`No, but that means nothing. You might be one inside.'

`Well, are you one, then?'

`I am a Christian.'

Silently, I reached up and shook her hand. 'There were some Rastas round the corner, but they've moved away,' she told me. 'I know the true Lord is Jesus Christ, but if them wants to die in their sins believing in Haile Selassie, I cannot stop them. All I can do is tell them what I believe.'

At the top of Coldharbour Lane nearby, I met Carlton, a reggae musician of faintly Rasta-like appearance. His expressive face was a study of humorous woe, and he was not remotely interested in the Rastafarian creed.

`Me and these three guys got a group together, we made a record, but when it was time to be paid royalties the other guys Collected my money from the manager and said they'd give it to me. But instead they spent the lot on buying herb to sell at a Profit and get rich. Only they made a mistake an' fled with the police after them, so I've lost all my pay!' he complained loudly.

Just then his bus came, so he borrowed the fare from his primly respectable girl- friend and sailed away. When my own bus came, I sat upstairs and listened to what may have been one of the last of the Rastas asking a girl to go out with him.

'Have you ever been to a Twelve Tribe dance?' he asked her. 'They're organised by Rastas who say we are the twelve Lost Tribes of Israelites. The dance lasts from seven at night till seven in the morning; no violence, trouble or nothing.'

She was still hesitating as I reached my stop. Pockets of organised Rastafarianism Obviously remain, and in North London a Selassie birthday celebration was held by Jah Bones. In Birmingham a reggae dance was presided over by his colleague, Jah Beetroot. However, Rasta is growing mid- dle-aged; where it survives, it does so under- mined by its pretence of fierce opposition to white people. The myth of the noble savage whose destiny is to destroy a cor- rupt civilisation is so powerful that Rastas have a magnetic attraction for many white People, who emulate them if male and marry them if female. More popular among the English middle class than among West Indians, Rastas are re- enacting the drama of angry young men of the Fifties, whose anger ceased when they Married upper-class girls and settled down to a life of enviable domesticity. Despite their strange doctrine, Rastas often make good fathers, and are then seen no more in Pubs and ganja-clubs. In this they resemble the better sort of hippie.

When Haile Selassie visited Jamaica, and had been greeted by many Rastas as God, he decided that the best remedy for the island would be the establishment there of Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox churches. Priests were sent over, and by this master- stroke Rastas were able to find an accept- able form of Christianity, one very diffe- rent from the Protestantism they had known. The biggest hurdle to be overcome was that of the Messiah — Christ or Selassie? As Selassie himself appeared to be the patron of the new Church, that sufficed, and Christ reigned supreme once more.

Ethiopian churches have now appeared in Britain, and play an important part in the defusing of Rastafarianism. Dread- locks, ganja and reggae have no place in their liturgy, and through them Rastas are being reformed into model citizens. St Thomas's in Acton Vale is now an Ethio- pian Orthodox Church, and when I turned up rather late one Sunday morning, I asked a girl in the doorway if I would be welcome to attend the service.

'Of course!' she replied in a London accent, sounding rather hurt at my doubts.

Evidently no trace of Rasta attitudes re- mained.

Entranc:xl, I entered a mystic world of half-light, and took my place among the Jamaican-looking congregation. No Rasta plaits could be seen and informal clothes were worn. Some of the women had their hair covered by white wraps or shawls as Rastas do, and they all sat in the opposite aisle to the hatless men. Latecomers pros- trated themselves on the floor before sitting. Everyone seemed enormously ear- nest, if a little puzzled, and they all looked reverently to the front. A tall dark youth named Hughie whispered a welcome to me and told me how to behave.

Priests, deacons and altar boys, beauti- fully dressed in pale green robes spangled with gold, carried out solemn rituals around an altar shaped rather like a Punch and Judy stand. Instead of a puppet, a goblet stood between pink looped-back curtains. The tall priests, with their grace- ful slender features, were obviously Ethio- pians, as were a few of the stately women in the congregation.

The altar boys seemed to be London Jamaicans, very awed and honoured to be allowed to take part in the service. Their silent presence made me think of well-trained page boys in the court of an Oriental king. Candles burned and a wide- eyed boy in a green robe stood by with a sacred spear or crosier. Occasionally he bowed, as the priests chanted in a strange tongue, Gzeeze, the priestly language of Ethiopia. A man with aquiline features delivered a long sermon in Amharic, the everyday Ethiopian language, which none of the Jamaican congregation could under- stand. No wonder they looked yearning and a little sad. As in the mediaeval Christian Church, the language of the priest gained mystery by the congregation's total incomprehension. I thought I caught the name of Selassie on one or two occasions, and sometimes the priest smiled and crack- ed a baffling joke. The prayer book that Hughie and I shared appeared to have no connection with the service. A Jamaican gave out the announcements in English, standing humbly below the altar. Lessons in Amharic would be given to the many children in the church, and a class for adults was to be considered. We sang `Stand up, stand up for Jesus', and then Ethiopia returned. Two young men behind me still had traces of their Rasta past in their raffish demeanour, but they seemed to be doing their best to be Orthodox.

The bowing altar boy reappeared hold- ing a bright multi-coloured umbrella, a very African touch. Everybody lined up to be blessed by the priest and to sip water from the Grail-like goblet now proffered by another solemn child. On the walls, bright barbaric Coptic pictures, one depict- ing a saint with a severed leg, stood side by side with plaques and paintings from the church's Anglo-Catholic days. When the service was over, the priests and deacons vanished into a back room. They seemed to keep themselves aloof from the friendly congregation. Hughie urged me to return.

Sad to say, the decline of Rastafarianism has seemingly led to an increase in colour prejudice among white people, the very prejudice which forced so many youths into dreadlocks in the first place. The make- believe barbarity of Rastas titillates and entertains the white English, and gives the latter a comforting feeling that West Indi- ans want no part of our way of life. Many youngsters of Caribbean descent who pre- sume to think they are English, footballers, Olympic athletes and entertainers such as the brilliant impresSionist Beverley Nais- bett, are treated with scant courtesy and some irritability by the press and the BBC. At carnival-time the public demands crime statistics, not descriptions of the parades. It would be a tragedy if these attitudes were to lead to a Rasta revival.