Letters from Grenada

This is one of my header images. The gentleman in the middle is Emperor Haile Selassie and to his right is Marcus Garvey. “Haile Selassie” is not the name he was given at birth, but rather a name that he adopted when he assumed the throne of Ethiopia. It means “Power of the Trinity”. His complete title was “”His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and Elect of God”. (And here I thought “Maria Alisa Santiago” had a lot of syllables.)

Haile Selassie is fascinating. So is Rastafari Movement, the religious ideology in which he’s a holy figure. Contrary to popular misconception, being a Rasta is not all about smoking ganja and listening to Bob Marley. It is also not merely a “culture”, and not exactly a religion either. It is an ideological movement. I don’t know enough about it to describe it in detail (yet), but the more I read the more I am struck by the realization that in many ways – dietary restrictions and emphasis on Messianism, for example – it resembles Orthodox Judaism.

You’ll never catch a Rasta uttering the word “Rastafarianism”. Isms are for Babylon.

(Photograph taken in Woburn, Grenada. Click here for larger image.)

Posted on February 1st, 2010 under Grenada • Tags: bob marley, ethiopia, Grenada, haile selassie, PHOTOS, rastafari, rastafarianism. •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback