Rasta Lesson: Archibald Dunkley, Joseph Hibbert, Robert Hinds

This post is a combined post of three early Rastafari leaders because there is not a great deal of literature out there about any one of them in particular. This post is just to cover the ground level of early rastafarian leaders. These three men, Dunkley, Hibbert and Hinds were along the same lines as the more prominent early rasta leader, Leonard Howell. All four began preaching independently of each other in the slums of West Kingston, Jamaica where they discovered each other and a movement was born. 

Dunkley was a Jamaican seaman who studied the Bible for 2 years before concluding that Selassie was the messiah about which Marcus Garvey had prophesied. They all subscribed to the Garvey ideas of Back to Africa and of an Ethiopianism philosophy. Dunkley had much prestige along with Howell and they were attributed with divine characteristics. They were arrested around the same time and Dunkley was also committed to an asylum later in life. Dunkley along with Hibbert may be responsible for some of the small strains of mysticism in rastafarianism. They had both spent time in the Masonic Lodge. More specifically the Ancient Mystic Order of Ethiopia. 

While Hinds began preaching with Howell it is said that after a time he went his own separate way. It's hard to find information on him specifically yet he is always lumped together with the other early rastafarian leaders.

In any case these men spread the message that Garvey started and Howell preached. They were a kind of group of 'apostles' for the early rastafarian church. 

In Defense of the Beautiful

This statement was written by Susan Mains and taken from www.susanmains.com

In Defense of the Beautiful

Contemporary Art is moved through a world-wide schedule of art fairs and biennales highly constructed by an establishment that designates its stars, who are rewarded by high price tags on works of questionable expression. These products may or may not stand the test of time when price and value would come into equilibrium.

 

The artists of the English-speaking Caribbean islands are largely ignored in the rarefied air of this art activity. Few of these artists have been able to step on to the stage of international recognition, to have their works seen or sold at these events. There are a host of reasons for this, but partially responsible is the very strong connection to and representation of the natural environment.

When a curator from North America or Europe looks at a landscape depicting the beauty of our islands, usually the work is dismissed as “kitsch” or art made as a souvenir for quick tourist sales. True, there is much that is sold that is not really art, but repetitive, stylized representation of easily identifiable icons—the palm trees, market ladies or beach scenes. However, for contemporary Caribbean artists to divorce themselves from the natural environment in favour of northern urban subjects, palettes and light is bowing to an establishment that resembles the colonial imperialism of our not too distant past.

 

High colour and contrast saturate our vision every moment that we look outside. While we live in relative peace, our human issues, our politics, our hopes and aspirations also are strong in contrast and dimension. The “identity search” that purportedly identifies Caribbean contemporary artist is perhaps an imposed ideology.

We know who we are. We are a rich island civilization framed by a synthesis of many peoples and cultures. We are those who have to dig deeply into our personal reserve of inner resources to deal with living in a part of the world where making art isn’t easy or convenient. Creativity springs from this inconvenience. We are not recognized within our own cultural milieu as being important contributors, yet we document our diverse and dynamic society within its achingly beautiful natural environment. And we are a people who faithfully rebuild after that same beauty turns on us in a violent hurricane or earthquake and destroys the work of a lifetime.

 

So when a Caribbean collector purchases a work of art from “home” he is not just buying something to decorate his walls. He is proclaiming with his dollars that this art work has great value. He is defying the deeply entrenched notion that whatever comes from “away” is intrinsically better than what is produced locally. He is casting his vote of confidence to the further building of this West Indian civilization that in terms of human development is a shining example to the rest of the world.

 

Therefore, I present this body of work of the beautiful Caribbean, with no apology

Rasta Lessons: Leonard Howell

Leonard Howell 1898-1981

Putatively founded the Rastafarian movement - he is considered the "First Rasta" and in some circles is considered as part of the Rasta Trinity along with Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie I. Howell started preaching in 1933 that the newly crowned Ras Tafari Makonnen as Emporer Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia was God come to earth. He was the first to make this claim. Howell wrote "The Promised Key"  which is a codification of his teachings and a foundation on which early Rastafarianism was founded.

Howell had 6 foundations of Rastafari that he preached.

1. Opposition to the wickedness (oppressive structures summed up in the term "Babylon")

2. Dignity of the Black race (along with Marcus Garvey)

3. God's revenge on the wicked for their wickedness

4. The negation, persecution and humiliation of the government and legal bodies of wicked world

5. Preparation to return to Africa (repatriation)

6. Acknowledgement of Emperor Haile Selassie I as the Supreme Being and the only ruler of the Black people.

Howell was obviously inspired by Garvey's "Africa for the Africans" as well as reading the Bible through African lenses. Howell was so set on repatriation and Selassie that he would sell pictures of Selassie and tell people that they were passports to Africa. Garvey looked down on this as a Methodist. 

Howell's philosophy was of self-reliance leading to self-responsibility. The solution to the Black problems needed to come from the Black people. Howell was arrested and imprisoned for his ideas. Charged with sedition (Jamaica was still under colonial rule) Howell was imprisoned for 2 years but his message was spread. Howell was relentless in his criticism of the government.

Once released Howell found recluse in the hills of Jamaica and founded a Rasta community called Pinnacle. There he lived in community with thousands of his followers. Pinnacle was a safe place from the oppression of the colonial society. Pinnacle was ransacked by the government in 1954 - they were tired of the large amounts of marijuana being cultivated there. The Rastafarians returned to the urban ghettos of Jamaica where their poverty helped strengthen their belief in the Rasta ideology. 

It's interesting to note by 1933 the trademark dreadlocks have still not developed in the rastafarian ideology. Howell was a 'dapper' gentleman wearing three piece suits and a beard like Haile Selassie I. Dreadlocks will start to form during the Italo-Ethiopian War starting in 1935. Dreadlocks and other elements of the Rasta lifestyle hadn't really caught on until the early 1950's during a reformation of Howell's ideas.

Howell most likely died a dissident's death in a mental institution.

YouTube Presentation

 This is the presentation per my last post. You can find more information on my website www.ashermains.com. Please let me know what you think!

No Woman No Cry

Soon you will be able to view a presentation of my new work on my site http://www.ashermains.com/.

The idea behind this painting is that music creates an environment - a soundscape - and then we can experience the environment through music.
Music entangles and embraces, intertwines and is repelled, music is the air and the ground. In "No Woman No Cry" the music is in the sky and bounces off the sides of the buildings.
Music drapes over the crying woman. Unintelligible calligraphy are the song's lyrics as it constructs the world we experience.
Music represents the power to experience through others.

Through these paintings I want to give visual reference to aural cues. I want to help the viewer experience. I want to change the way you view your music.

Rasta Lessons: Marcus Garvey

My goal here is to feature certain profiles of influential people that precipitated the rastafarian movement. Once we've talked about the different profiles we can tie it all together in the end.

Marcus Garvey: 1887 - 1940

Garvey was a Jamaican who was influential in advancing the idea of Pan-Africanism. Pan-Africanism is a philosophy based on the concept of the unity of the African race in Africa and the Diaspora. Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL). Garvey's intentions were noble in that he wanted the colonial powers to leave Africa, the Caribbean and other places where colonialism still existed at the expense of African descendants. He wanted African and Caribbean nations to rise up to the level of the first world countries and excel as nations. He conceived of a unifying of African countries into a United States of Africa, based on the same idea that governs the United States of America. His concept of unity was fierce, "Our unity must know no clime, boundary or nationality... let us hold together under all climes and in every country..." (taken from an editorial in the Negro World entitled "African fundamentalism").  Garvey was a bit of a mixed bag in that while he wanted independence from colonial systems where Africans are subservient to the colonizers, he wanted to adopt the structure once free because the systems have proven to work well. 

Marcus Garvey was raised as a Methodist Christian and later declared himself as non-denominational. He advocated a reading of scripture that challenged the Eurocentric interpretation of scripture say in effect, "we will read the scriptures through the lenses of Ethiopia". His philosophy was that just as God is white to the Europeans, necessarily God is Black to the Africans. 

Marcus Garvey did not accept the assertion that the newly coronated king of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I was the messiah. Selassie's divinity was asserted by Leonard Howell. Garvey was, however, inspired by the coronation because to him it represented a rising up of an African nation to the world stage. This was his dream coming to fruition and I'm sure as other African and Caribbean countries came to independence, self-rule and prosperity he would rally around their leader as well. In his Jamaican newspaper, The Blackman, Garvey asserts his support but is often taken out of context in declaring Selassie as the messiah with this phrase, "The Psalmist prophesied that Princes would come out of Egypt and Ethiopia would stretch forth her hands unto God. We no doubt that the time is now come. Ethiopia is now really stretching forth her hands. The great kingdom of the East has been hidden for many centuries, but gradually she is rising to take a leading place in the world and it is for us of the Negro race to assist in every way to hold up the hand of Emperor Ras Tafari."

My commentary on the full text and this last paragraph was that Garvey was simply excited about what Selassie represented and his potential. Ras Tafari was crowned king in 1930 and took on his name of Haile Selassie I

By 1937 the dream was over. Garvey was critical of Selassie all along but by this time as a result of the Italo-Ethiopian war. The Italo-Ethiopian war had begun in 1935 and was Mussolini's attempt at claiming more land for Italy to expand their empire. Italy controlled neighboring Eritrea and Somaliland and Ethiopia was one of the few independent African countries at the time and was ripe for imperialist invasion. Italy succeeded in defeating Ethiopia and it was annexed into the empire of Italian East Africa. Garvey was disgusted. His criticisms stabbed at Selassie that he was not prepared and that he resorted to fasting and praying instead of equipping his armies. Ethiopia would later be liberated by the East African Campaign in World War II. 

Garveyites protested the war in Ethiopia from the start and held demonstrations in Jamaica and the US. under the pan-africanist philosophy many Jamaicans wanted to go fight with Ethiopia against Italy. Jamaica was still an English colony at the time however and England looked down on the Jamaicans seeming willingness to serve two masters.

One of Garvey's crowning ambitions and disasters was the incorporation of the Black Star Line shipping company. Repatriation was a strong ideal for Garvey and he believed that just as Africans were plucked off the continent, some day all Africans will return to the continent to help build the empire. Black Star Line was repatriation in the most real sense and was incorporated to eventually take everyone back to Africa. (This is a different approach than some early Rastafarian leaders who after a rousing demonstration, marched to the sea expecting ships to materialize and take them back to Africa)

In short, the ships bought by the company were in poor condition and bought for more than they were worth. There was also corruption in the management and sabotage and infiltration by the US Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner to the FBI). 

Through all this - what Garvey contributed to what would become the Rastafarian movement was a philosophical and ideological approach to thinking of African and those in the diaspora as people who are overdue to become great. He advocated for Black Supremacy as well as the Back to Africa movement which were embraced by the Rastafarians who still consider Ethiopia as an ancestral and metaphorical home. He also contributed the concept of reading the Bible as an African and what it means to look at it through different lenses. As a person living during colonialism he advocated for decolonization which is still an active part of the Rastafarian mentality. 

At the same time Garvey differed from the Rastafarians, particularly on his loyalty to Christian beliefs and rejecting Selassie as the messiah. He also rejected the concept of using marijuana as a sacrament. He saw it as destructive and represented an ungluing of society. 

Nonetheless, Marcus Garvey is hailed as a prophet by the Rastafarians and is immortalized in reggae music especially by Burning Spear (a long time Garvey-ite). Garvey has been called "John the Baptist" because at one point he pointed to Africa for the messiah to come. I have also heard of an obscure rastafarian trinity that consists of Selassie, Marcus Garvey, and Leonard Howell. Garvey himself never identified with the Rastfarian movement but provided the ideological framework for its existence.

Garvey died in June 1940 of two strokes after putatively reading a mistaken and negative obituary of himself in the Chicago Defender. He was buried in London and was later exhumed and buried in Jamaica whereupon he was declared Jamaica's first national hero. 

Making a point to read

Following up on my last post I want to learn even more about Reggae specifically as a Caribbean artistic entity. Jamaica, through reggae, has exerted a force in global music only achieved by the UK and USA. Here are some books I'd like to make a point of reading in the future.

This of course is not an exhaustive list but a good starting point to reference. If you see any of these books, buy two and send me one :). Click the book covers to go to a more complete description of each title.

Tools of Decolonization

When I say "Decolonization" I do not mean a destruction of a place that was once colonized. Decolonization is the active reconfiguration of a society in the light of the debilitating effects of colonialism and now, neocolonialism. The extremely summed up version is that places that were colonized, specifically in this case the Caribbean, were not settled to be enriching centers of self advancement. All colonies were settled in order to benefit the country doing the colonizing. This ripple effect has produced a mentality that places like the Caribbean are second rate to places like the UK or USA. Once there was an agricultural bounty in the Caribbean and while that is still to some degree being taken advantage of - another problem is the intellectual harvest. Because systems had not been set up for intellectual advancement within the island, anything serious beyond secondary school needs to be done over seas. Once people have a university degree they begin a career path overseas that is non-existent back home. A lack thereof perpetuates a lack thereof. 

So there needs to be decolonization to be free from certain mentalities about self as dictated by colonialism.

My brief thoughts are on the use of music and art as tools of decolonization. Reggae music is rooted in the heart of decolonization. From the roots reggae supernovas like Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, Bunny Wailer, Jimmy Cliff, and more we get music of resistance. Not accepting what colonialism has given the people. Reggae is intrinsically educative. A divergence from reggae in the Caribbean towards mainstream North American music would represent a loss of identity as an enriched Caribbean person. If I were an educator in the Caribbean I would consider making a survey of reggae, curriculum in schools.

Music in the Caribbean is all encompassing. Rhythm is ingrained and even speech patterns are musical. From the commentary style of Calypso, to which there is no real North American response, to the intense, percussive style of steel pan music, the Caribbean offers musically to the world something unique. Sometimes the things that are so pervasive are the things that escape your attention. Music needs to be taught in the Caribbean either explicitly or implicitly as a vehicle for mental emancipation. 

Art is another avenue where people from the Caribbean can show their colors. The beautiful scenes that flow from the brushes of Caribbean artists is seen by the international art community as shallow and kitsch; artistic panhandling to the aesthetic weaknesses of the unsophisticated tourist industry. One of the reasons however is that much of the art community has gone down the direction of a kind of deconstructionism. Art to them represents things that are dark and ugly and taboo - and to represent the beautiful scenes of the Caribbean is antithetical to what they perceive as art. 

It is more of a credit to the Caribbean artist that in spite of the centuries of oppression and the current neocolonialism structures that impede progress beauty is still pursued. Even more credit to the artists who love beauty because living in the Caribbean that is what you get! If Caribbean artists are to be criticized for not being cynical enough at the world around them then the Caribbean artists should be able to criticize the international art community for allowing their spirit to be broken. 

Music will rescue us. Art will rescue us. Jah will rescue us. 

This post is severely under-expounded, I will mostly likely bring up some of the topics again later. This is to serve as a cursory preface to my perception. 

Callosums

I have had a break through with thinking about the new work I am doing with my art. I have been trying to conceptualize portraying music visually and it's taken some mental somersaults to peg down a concept that works. My main problem is the conflict between left brain and right brain approaches to music and art. As an artist I have been surprised recently to discover that I have a lot of left brain tendencies. In the process of painting music my first attempts were little more than a new notation. The work was a description of the music based on different musical elements of the music. I realize that the left brain in me wants to 'describe' the music and switching over to the right brain allows me more freedom to 'portray' the music. I think my work from now will involve a balance between the two. Incorporating valid abstract imagery with aesthetic and accessible concrete subject. I'm calling these pieces 'Callosums" because the balance be between the left and right brain is possible because of the corpus callosum joining the two. More on this to come!

Impetus

My life has been injected with influence from many sources. This blog is a codification of my experiences - a kind of explanation for myself. 

I grew up in the Caribbean: I am a Grenadian - a West Indian. Culturally, ethnically, that is my reference point. With light skin growing up in Grenada I felt that nothing told less about me than the color of my skin or the texture of my hair. My identity has never been in sync with my racial heritage. As a Grenadian I felt the need to constantly assert my 'Grenadian-ness'. Now, living in the USA where my racial heritage is in the majority, my identity is never called into question - until I again assert my ethnic heritage as a West Indian. 

Race vs. Ethnicity. This has been a defining scenario in my life. Without going too in depth, here is my definition of each. Race is a socially constructed category composed of people who share biologically transmitted traits that members of a society consider important. We don't have a separation in race for example between red haired, green eyed, people from blonde haired, blue eyed, people. We do however make a racial separation between people with tightly curled hair and darker skin tone and straight haired people with lighter skin tone. The biological traits that separate races are subjective selections of a society and in this way are conceptual constructions.

Ethnicity has more to do with a shared cultural heritage. Because my cultural reference point is West Indian, and because Grenada is my home in this world, my ethnicity is Grenadian. Although being Grenadian is often times confused with being black I assert that even though my racial heritage is of European descent, my ethnic heritage is rooted in the West Indies. 

That having been said,  I can assert once again, I am not my skin.