Book Launch: Rastafari in the New Millennium

Rastafari in the New Millennium 

Thursday, November 20, 2014

6:00 p.m.

UC I-Lounge

University of Miami

1320 S Dixie Hwy, 

Coral Gables, FL 33124

Keep the Channel Open

“There is a vitality, a life force, 

a quickening that is translated through you into action, 

and there is only one of you in all time, 

this expression is unique, 

and if you block it, 

it will never exist through any other medium; 

and be lost.  

The world will not have it. 

It is not your business to determine how good it is, 

not how it compares with other expression.

It is your business to keep it yours

clearly and directly, 

to keep the channel open. 

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.

You have to keep open and aware directly to the  urges that motivate you. 

Keep the channel open."

Text: Martha Graham

Image of Rex Nettleford by Alma Mock Yen

***


If you enjoyed this post, check out my page on Amazon. I’d also be very grateful if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook.





Thank you!

The Future of Rastafari

At a recent symposium at Nova Southeastern University, The Rastafari Impact on the Culture of Jamaica and the World, what began as an assessment of the movement was transformed into a lively discussion about the future of Rastafari. This was hardly surprising. From the time I was a yute in Jamaica, I've been a part of and sometimes witnessed these deep reasonings. And this was a vitally important discussion. Nearly all of the panelists, Ras Don Rico Ricketts, Dr. Roy Augier, Nana Farika, Mama Iyaddis, Dr. Michael Barnett, Dr. Jahlani "Bongo" Niaah, and Dr. K'adamawe K'nife, seemed to be wrestling with the issue of "how to be in the world, but not of it." The significance of this issue lies in the genesis of Rastafari, which was labeled as a cult by the British government, and its growth into a movement that has had a profound impact on global cultures, especially in the area of music.

The presentation began with a pointed analysis by Ras Don Rico Ricketts, who moderated the symposium. He was followed by Sir Roy Augier, the only surviving author of the seminal Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica.

Dr. Augier began by noting the contributions of M. G. Smith and Rex Nettleford, whose influence was noted by nearly every panelist. After a brief summary of the report, Dr. Augier challenged Rastafari to become more engaged in their communities and pointed to several forms of denial that were prevalent in the Caribbean and Rastafari. While he acknowledged that the idea of repatriation was a central tenet of Rastafari, Dr. Augier suggested that repatriation among Rastafari was a form of denial of the "lives that made a culture on these shores."

If it was a rebuke, then it was a mild one. For Dr. Augier had nothing but praise for Rastafari when he introduced the concept of negotiation, which set the tone for the challenges, which he suggested that Rastafari and the Caribbean must confront:

"Negotiation is a metaphor for navigation of the African presence in ourselves… We see it in the mirror and we don't like it…We are not whole. We are bifurcated."

Dr. Augier then asked the rhetorical question, "How do we negotiate the African presence in the Americas?" Rastafari, Dr. Augier argued began as an interrogation of the African presence in the Americas and that the movement posited an alternative value system of capitalist systems. He also contended that the movement could have positive effects on governance and the dietary habits of the Caribbean--noting the deleterious effects of fast food chains of the health of Caribbean peoples: "We are not eating right."

The discussion shifted its focus when Nana Farika, a senior Rastafari elder, stressed the importance of restoring the Omega balance, expressed in of Empress Menen of Ethiopia and Mama Iyaddis mused about Rastafari losing its impact by the growing commercialization of the movement. Dr. Michael Barnett and Dr. Jahlani "Bongo" Niaah also highlighted the significance of The Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica.

But it was Dr. K'adamawe K'nife, a lecturer in the Department of Management Studies at the University of the West Indies, whose startling break with the program captured the imagination of the audience.

In his presentation, "A New Hope for Humanity," Dr. K'nife offered an elegant assessment of Rastafari's centrality in Jamaican culture and offered Rastafari as an alternative to the current social, political, and economic systems:

Emphasis on the human rather than capital

Rastafari: an ethic for sustainable development

Application of Rastafari in conjunction with the deep ecology

Movement away from reliance on texts such as the King James Version to intuitive and metaphysical livity

Itral: The Law of Life

"Rastafari, the ancient future. Man of the past, living in the present, walking into the future."

Following Dr. K'nife's lecture, Ras Don Rico Ricketts invited audience participation in a Q&;A session, which continued until the conclusion of the program.

Rastafari, in its current incarnation, which was born in slave ships, flourished in the hills of Jamaica, and blossomed in reggae, has had a profound influence on my generation. Drawing on its roots in Garveyism, which emphasized self-reliance and entrepreneurship, unity and nationhood, Rastafari informed our sense of identity. And because Rastafari did not separate the physical from the spiritual in all their manifestations, the movement offered an attractive alternative to the Cartesian models of the West. Like many Caribbean Boomers, Rastafari has been, to borrow Dr. Augier's metaphor, a way of honoring the African presence in our lives and negotiating between a system that values capital over the human and Dr. K'nife's expansive interpretation of the movement.

Image created by Ras Don Rico Ricketts.

NDTC returns to South Florida for Black History Month Tribute to Rex Nettleford

The internationally acclaimed National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica (NDTC) will return to South Florida to perform for a special one-night performance on Sunday, February 13, at the Coral Springs Center for the Performing Arts in Coral Springs.

The performance will be staged by the Jamaica Awareness Incorporated, a Florida based cultural marketing group, in collaboration with the Jamaican Diaspora Southern USA, and the University Alumni Association, South Florida chapter, under the patronage of Jamaica’s Consul General, Sandra Grant Griffiths.

The NDTC group returns to South Florida following a sold-out performance during Black History Month in February 2007 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale.

This time, the special performance takes the form of a tribute to the late Professor Rex Nettleford, O.M., co-founder and Artistic Director of the NDTC who died last February at age 76, following a brief illness in Washington, D.C.

In keeping his legacy alive, Sydney Roberts, Director of Jamaica Awareness, said that the programme will include excerpts from Nettleford’s highly acclaimed works, and is symbolic of the celebrations observing Black History Month (February) in the South Florida community, especially for nationals of the Jamaican Diaspora.

The late Professor Nettleford was a co-founder and Artistic Director of the nearly 50-member company comprising dancers, singers, and musicians who continue to explore the intricacies of Jamaican culture through their outstanding performances. The NDTC was founded in 1962 at the time of Jamaica’s Independence from Great Britain.

Proceeds from the performance will benefit the Rex Nettleford Foundation, University of the West Indies (UWI).

***

Related articles

• Fourth Annual Louise Bennett-Coverley Reading Festival (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• Tributes pour in for Chevannes (repeatingislands.com)
• Black History Month: Miami Syle (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)

Rex Speaks

On the weekend of Sept.4-7, 2003, Prof. Rex Nettleford, Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies was a guest speaker at First Annual Arts Festival at Broward Community College.

Known for his deeply insightful ruminations on just about every aspect of Caribbean life, Prof. Nettleford this time around spoke on cultural diversity and its impact on the political and economic development in the Caribbean basin. – Recorded and edited by Olivier Stephenson.

New Statue

I wasn’t quite sure what I as getting into when I was asked to be [a] part of this exercise, the Consul General has just informed me.

I was very pleased to hear [the Consul General, Ricardo Allicock’s] reference to the bit of sculpture, The Ancestors, it happens to be one of my favorite pieces and a part of recent work that was done by a sculptor … You’re quite right, I like your interpretation of it. I’d love to hear [your interpretation] of the two new statues [Redemption Song] which are now causing so much trouble in Jamaica.

Well, that, of course, is itself a signal of many things. For one thing people cared enough to bother about it. I myself, who was part of the selection committee, gave the edge to that particular work. Naturally, I have to be responsible for the furor. But, like you, my own interpretation of the monument I think it will hold up to muster. And, in fact, in due course, history will absolve us all.

It’s interesting, though, that there was such a furor. You can interpret it in many ways – certainly in one way: I think we need to be emancipated from the mental slavery Victorian hypocrisy, particularly among our men, and feminine prudery among some of our women.
 

And, the other thing, interestingly enough, which has come out very strongly is the criticism or comments on that monument, is that it is very strongly feminist in a particular kind of way. You have two people emerging from the healing stream, two people in their own right, not somebody who has been made out of the rib of somebody else. You see, I’m my mother’s son. My grandmother and my mother never made me forget that. And the thing of looking up, of course, is very important.

The university has been very, very central to this whole thing of the development of culture and the whole project of self-discovery and cultural definition, which I think is so important to the making of a people.

We remember the great artists – musicians, sculptors, painters or whatever – but we don’t often remember the politicians who are in power at the time, because it is what they produce, what comes out of the creative intellect and the creative imagination, which, finally, defines a people. And, while the people like us – not only in the African Diaspora – but wherever Africa met what other culture on whatever soil this has been going on for a very long time.

Cross-fertilization

Because from ancient times, the antiquity which Europe has hijacked on to itself as its own – I refer to ancient Greece, ancient Rome – the presence of Africa was very important to the development of that particular culture.

And this is something that we have learnt: the Caribbean is a cradle of [our] own culture, not because we are so special, but because we have been the beneficiaries of certain things with special things that have happened to humankind time out of mind. We have time within mind, because I’ve referred to ancient Greece and Rome where old civilizations met – a great many civilizations met – and all great civilizations are the result of cross-fertilization. That’s the secret of the greatness of the Caribbean, it’s a cross-fertilized culture, one which is at the crossroads. It’s a crossroads culture.

The problem, of course, with Africa and its presence in it is because of the developments over the past 400 years, every African has been made to deny the existence of Africa in all of this, in the shaping of human culture. And, therefore, one has to spend time on bringing it back to the center where it belongs because it’s an iconic participant in the shaping of human civilization anywhere in the Western World over the past 500 years.

And, even so, that credit is being denied it. Hence the importance of efforts by people like us to insure the centrality of that particular catalytic impact of that particular presence is never forgotten. So I make the exaggerated claim for us in the Caribbean, I don’t even make exaggerated claims for Africa – qua Africa – but I do make claims and valid claims for the tremendously important role that the presence of African civilization or civilizations has played in the shaping of humankind over the past 500 years.

The next place where you have that kind of cross-cultural fertilization was in the Iberian peninsula from the Middle Ages up to 1492, with the fall of Granada, when the Spaniards and the Portuguese expelled the Jews and the Moors. And as someone put it rather quaintly, once they did that the Spaniards and the Portuguese lost their imagination and their intellect. And they tried to reshape that and restructure that in the Americas and that’s why the Americas – at least the Caribbean, is one part; and this culture, the United States, is only one part of the Americas. In fact, in a very scientific … and historical sense, we’re all Americans – we who live on this side of the Atlantic and have been the result of that cross-fertilization.

I’ve often said to my American friends of Caucasian stock, that when they can come to terms with the notion that they are as negrisized as I am Europeanized then everything will be … [laughter]. I know to think oneself to be negrisized for some people is a fate worse than death. It isn’t, rather, it is a marvelous strengthening. Again, trust the West Indians to think this way. Why, you know, in Trinidad, they cross the hybrid, biological result of an East Indian – as we refer to Indians – and a black African, is a “Dougla.” In Jamaica it is “Coolie royal” or Chinie royal.”

But the important thing is that people like us live in a crossroads culture, a crossroads civilization where movement, motion, dynamism are the order of the day. And that there is a kind of creative chaos which other people are discovering now which defines and determines how we live, how we have our being, how we move, and what have you. As a result of that, we are constantly negotiating our position in society, in life and, therefore, we are constantly like this … we’re switching all the time and we’re in constant motion.

Those parts are made while we are walking them and therefore we are resistant to anything which seems to be an imposition because we want to do the walking. We don’t want necessarily for somebody else to come and give us their aluminum and we trot along while they run [and] leave us behind. And this is very strong.

Silence

I could give you the problem of metaphors, the other one which certainly will be the theme of my next work is the theme of silence. People like us have been relegated to a position of silence. … [like] children [to be] seen and not heard. And it’s interesting, we in turn have used the silence in very interesting ways as people. It’s not peculiarly black, it’s not peculiar to the Caribbean, and anybody who is forced into a position of silence will find ways of using that silence. You can call it contemplation, you can call it revolution plotting, and, of course, you know we know in the Caribbean how to make things not work.

We have had three or 400 years of apprenticeship in sabotage. And we can burn down bridges without setting fire. We know how to use that silence. A good deal of that can be self-defeating and at this time of our history we have to be sorting these things out: What is good for us and what is bad; what occasion warrants this kind of solution and what doesn’t. A better solution for this occasion might not be right for the next occasion. We have to keep on thinking our way through renegotiating our space, constantly it’s a battle for space. Happily, the entire world now is becoming a crossroads and Creole.

Cultural Assertion

I’m just coming from London, and it’s fascinating to see how London has changed demographically. It’s a multiracial, multicultural, multi-whatever-it-is, city. It’s no longer a lily white, pure whatever – if ever it was – and they are very conscious of this, and the whole world is conscious of this. With the thing of globalization, the greatest threat to the negative aspects of globalization is cultural assertion.

And what is happening now, what is happening to the powerful North Atlantic is it’s pushing everybody into a homogenized whole and people are resisting. And how do you resist? You fall back, you retreat into areas over which you have total control. Religion is one of them, the Iraq situation, and what have you. Let’s not underestimate them; the terrorism which is supposed to be coming from elsewhere is part of a response. It didn’t start with [Osama] bin Laden, it’s something that has been going for a long time.

Ever since then Arabs were thrown out of the Iberian peninsula they have been fighting back. And at times they will come up – even Saddam himself. I heard him give an interview many, many years ago, before the first Gulf War, which I have never seen referred to, but I think it was on the BBC television, where he was reminding the West that the West is not the only civilization – valid civilization. After all, his civilization was – for whatever, even – had given to the West learning and branches of knowledge which are to their advantage.

And, you know, there is a kind of mutual Jihad from the time of the first Gulf War, I felt Mr. Bush, the elder, was a Christian fundamentalist touting the Islamic fundamentalist, because the notion that God is on my side and on nobody else’s – which is a very, very dangerous position to be at. And I find it on both sides, I find it in this country on the Right Wing of this country and I find it among the so-called terrorists. Those two polar divisions will never be reconciled. Somebody has to give and one to remember even quoting from Christian-based civilization: “In God’s House there are many mansions.” And God is on everybody’s side.

Now if you are able to come to terms with that then you will be able to realize that you are less than the angels and do not believe that everything that you do is right and everything that everybody else does is wrong. It’s the same kind of attitude that informed the old globalization which is imperialism and racism which came out of that. The notion that somebody is born looking a particular way, he or she is imperial to somebody else born looking a particular way. It just doesn’t make sense. And time and time again, it is proven that this doesn’t make sense, we never seem to learn from our history.

This is the kind of world in which we now live and I feel there ones of us within the United States of America and certainly in the Caribbean who are to understand and position ourselves that we don’t get caught up in other people’s battles. Because they are other people’s battles.

Many of these considerations are cultural, and by cultural, I’m referring to the only thing which really gives the human being power and that is the capacity to make decisions, definitions about oneself on one’s own term and be able to follow through with action on the basis of those definitions. This is what the artist understands. The creative person can be a creative intellect and a creative plumber, can be a creative carpenter. As long as he or she is creative, prepared to explore spaces beyond what one is able to see, one finds that one is in control of self which is the beginning of that emancipation or liberation for everybody.

That’s why, of course, culture, in terms of the artistic manifestations has been so important to the Caribbean. Of course, when I speak of culture it’s not a crying sin to a little bit of dance and little bit of music though these of course are clear manifestations of something which is much more complex and much deeper.

What you will see here tonight is largely music from The Mighty Sparrow – who, incidentally, is Dr. Sparrow, the University of the West Indies was wise enough – in fact many of our honorary graduates are people of the creative mind, because they are the ones who have said the most important things about our society and about humanity, generally.

The University Singers have been encouraged by the university because we feel very strongly that that side of our graduates have got to be encouraged. We have got to turn out people for the kind of world in which we live, people with the capacity to in fact cope with all the chaos, all the diversity, and what have we, out there, as they do in their ordinary lives.

For many people, a lot of them go to school and they turn fool. Some of our wisest people have been those who have not been formally schooled. A lot of formally schooled people have been made into fools. It’s very important for the educational system and certainly the university be part and parcel of escaping that particular trap.

Creole languages and religion

It’s not by mistake that the Caribbean is a living laboratory of Creole languages, native-born, native-bred languages. Jamaica Talk, the language in which I’m speaking to you now is not the language that most Jamaicans speak most of the time. There is Serantonga in Suriname, which is part of the Papiamento in Curacao; Creole in all the French-speaking territories from Haiti right through to St. Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, all of these places. And there are variations of course, of standard English of many kinds.

The religion, old people want to know where they come from, they invent their Gods, their Creators, and what have you, and we in the Caribbean have opened more churches than – there are variations on the received orthodoxies, largely Christianity, but in fact, it’s very strongly African influenced. Santeria in Cuba, and I’m sure in Little Havana there’s a lot of Santeria right in this town. Voodoo in Haiti, Cumina, Pocomania in Jamaica, Zion Revivalism, Shango in Trinidad, Candomble in Brazil – which is Caribbean in terms of Africa meeting Europe on foreign soil.

Of course, we have ladies of quality, now, in their silk-pleated skirts rolling on the carpet at the Pegasus [Hotel in New Kingston], because they are into some New Age spirituality. People searching for things because the orthodox expression has not provided them with the answers to cope with the kind of world in which we live. We have a tremendous facility for finding our own God or worshipping two or three at the same time.

I had absolutely no difficulty going from Baptist Christian with my grandmother to Pocomania where she could grunt and jump like anybody else, although she was a pillar of the Baptist church.

Family, legitimacy and illegitimacy

The kinship patterns which is another important cultural index – very important. We have created interesting families who – politicians talk about family life – but it depends on which life or of the family your talking about. Jamaica, for example, certainly in 1976 – an idea that the percentage has gone up now – when we passed the Status of Children’s Act which has been replicated in all the English-speaking countries now. We could say there are no more bastards in Jamaica. Because up to that time, 70 percent of the people were considered illegitimate.

You know, it’s interesting, we have been very self-righteous about racial discrimination, say, in South Africa, but certainly people of my generation who are illegitimate, had to walk around [this] country with what was called a Declaration of Identity. Now, a lot of the younger people don’t know about this, but all official transactions became official only if you were able to show the Declaration of Identity where some JP or notary public had to sign it that you were born, because your father’s name was not on the birth certificate. Now this is nonsense, your father was not the one who carried the child for nine months, your mother’s name is on it but she doesn’t matter.

You see, all these things which we inherited which were definitely anti-feminine and the women, of course, suffered greatly because of this. All of these are cultural factors which had a tremendous effect, because our young men have grown up very confused. Very confused. A strongly patriarchal society where the woman really in fact rules.

So we love our mothers and our grandmothers, but we beat our sweethearts and our wives. The contradictions are fantastic. You get all this kind of cultural confusion because we were a numerical majority forced to function as a cultural minority and this has a terrible effect on us in Jamaica and the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean.

Less so in the Catholic countries, of course, they’re much stricter on the altar blessed minions. It didn’t by any means mean that if you were not born into a duly married family that you would necessarily come out any worse. Because that didn’t guarantee and still doesn’t guarantee the child the caring, compassion and the affection which is needed. This of course has led to lots of things … particularly in Jamaica and with the coming of drugs in all of the islands to some really serious problems that we are now having, particularly among the young male population.

We have no gunmen in Jamaica, it’s gunboys. If they pass age 24 they are lucky. They’ve either given it up by that time or they are dead. This is a very serious matter. Again, we don’t have nay gungirls or gunwomen, though we hear that some of the women – what we have them doing now is being mules to carry the drugs. Because they will tell you they have to work some quick money for their children.

In England, now, somebody has suggested that the British should build a prison in Jamaica for the Jamaican prisoners in England. It is that bad.

The creative imagination and the arts

One thing which has been a saving grace for us has been the retreat into an area where we can be free to create. We have produced more artists on the square inch in the Caribbean than is probably good for us. But it’s better that we have done this because the alternative is something else.

So the exercise of the creative imagination and the apparent thing of the creative imagination have been very strong. We have produced world class people undoubtedly. We need not be ashamed on that score. In my own view, it’s time that we get into the mainstream of it.

Do you know that up till recently, in the annual national economic report the arts and education were listed as non-productive? But [Bob] Marley has probably brought in more foreign exchange into Jamaica in the ‘70s than many entrepreneurs. And he did help a number of people and many of these artists are working the kind of money that nobody in here can ever dream of working because of the exercise of their imagination.

In the ‘80s they forbade – it was Government policy not to play reggae in the advertisement for the tourist industry. In the ‘70s there was a Rasta fellow who held a nice little white baby and one hotelier said, “What will the people in the mid-West think, this orangutan holding the child?” That’s the kind of problem we had in Jamaica, to a certain extent we still have some of that … That self-contempt and that self-doubt which has plagued us as a result of our history has been greatly countered by the exercise of the imagination and we have done a great deal with that.

I’m trying to give you the context of that, why this is so important to us. Because that’s all we really had. And we are now entering the knowledge economy which is how they describe the 21st century, and that is what you have in your head that’s going to matter.

Of course, a lot of people think being able to manipulate the computer and the Internet is the answer. I don’t think that that is it, what you put in to the Internet and the computer is really what matters.

In a knowledge economy the intellectual power of the arts has to be recognized, among other things, and the artistic power of the Internet has to be recognized. And people like us have to bring these things together, it is critical.

The artist – whether you see a bit of sculpture or a painting that is the result of serious research in terms of observation, distillation, selection and, finally, representation. That is exactly what the intellectual has to do when he or she produces a thesis or a book, or what have you. Their activities are a different kind, but going toward the same end. And we have to be very much part and parcel of this.

Lastly, we mustn’t get ourselves in the position where we feel because we are good dancers, good singers, that we are minstrels, that we are mainly there to entertain our betters. And there is, of course, the feeling which is still too strong among us and that real serious thinking cannot be done by people like ourselves. We have to put the lie to die. But, in fact, it is still very strong.

Norman Manley said “all human acts are acts of intelligence.” That’s where the future lies with the intelligent and the arts in the sense are no different. Some of us artists are partly responsible for that myth. We talk about enjoying privileged despair and not getting down to the business. I myself do not feel that arts academies and arts schools should be run by our own artists, but the artist must learn how to run these things.

Similarly, the intellectuals, too. They too have to do it.

Appropriate institutional frameworks

One of the things we are now urgently are trying to do is to insure that we deepen, heighten, strengthen the appropriate institutional frameworks which would in fact allow us full membership in the human family. This is critical and we have to think this way. We cannot allow ourselves to be eaten by inner rage. And that’s why the Mandela spirit is so important at this time, that the Gandhi spirit was at a particular time; and Martin Luther King fighting for the American. But that spirit that Mandela has brought into the spirit of the consciousness of the world about forgiveness: Fill them with kindness.

He did a thing recently, which, of course, has been quite controversial: He allowed his name to be attached to [Cecil] Rhodes. Now, Rhodes was a 19th century imperialist – robber baron. And this spirit of the 20th century and 21st century, Mandela said “let us close the circle.” Yet, Rhodes, a highly flawed character, did something which anticipated what the 20th century discovered, that the future really lies in the investment in the human resource, in the human intellect and imagination, and he left behind some money for that.

Now, interestingly enough, why Jamaica’s name was put on the list – he probably thought that Jamaica was an independent country – from way back, Jamaica was a brand name, and I think that’s probably why we got on that list.

With the recent development of the Mandela-Rhodes Foundation, I have to share this with you: The American Rhodes scholars have written a petition against the Rhodes Trust warden, who is a moving spirit behind that initiative, blaming him for taking too much of their money to South Africa. Can you imagine, where the money was made and they are putting back some money into that and the Americans Rhodes scholars – which is a real danger for a spirit in this country that many of us are worried about – want to rule the world and determine all the rules of representation and the rules of engagement. If you try to get a monopoly in that you’re in trouble, because people are going to fight against it.

When we had to fight colonialism we regarded ourselves as Freedom Fighters, when you have people fighting that kind of thing they are regarded as terrorists. Well, whatever is the thing, I think we have to understand – and I have discovered – that the cultural dimension is critical. Everybody is going that route now, the Inter-American Bank, I had discussions with them only recently. All the other initiatives that they have tried have not quite worked, they are now going to establish a cultural foundation because they feel that it would invest in the human being’s ability to imagine, to create [that] they are likely to build a better society.

So when you go and see Sparrow or you hear the University Singers and you enjoy a little titillation for an hour, regard it as a serious matter.

Quarrel over statues you don’t like. If their penises are too big, quarrel. If the breasts are too big, quarrel. The artist will love this because at least somebody is thinking.

But in this sense, despite the problems we have in the Caribbean with all the violence, and what have you, and the quote-end-quote, “poverty,” and the coarsening of sensibility, there is that thing which we can fall back on, the creative spirit is not dead. In fact, if we only get our act together, continue to create, and what have you, there is tremendous hope.

Our history has been one of struggle and to tremendous success, that’s why we’re here and hope is something we must never give up, and in the arts and in culture that is a tremendous source of meditation for us.

***
Photo: Douglas DaCosta

Sir Ronald Sanders: An Appreciation of the life of Rex Nettleford.

“The texture of character and the sophistication of sense and sensibility engaging the Planet’s systemic contradictions were ironically colonialism’s benefits for a couple of generations in the West Indies.

In dealing with the dilemma of difference manifested in the ability to assert without rancor, to draw on a sense of rightness without hubris, to remain human (e) in the face of persistent obscenities that plague the human condition, all such attributes in turn served to endow the Caribbean man with the conviction that Planet Earth is, in the end, one world to share”.

[More...  Sir Ronald Sanders: An Appreciation of the life of Rex Nettleford.]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Rex Nettleford, 1933-2010 (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• Mark Your Calendar: Rex Speaks (2/17/2010) (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• "Kumina King" by Malachi Smith (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• Jamaican scholar, choreographer dies in US at 76 (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

"Kumina King" by Malachi Smith

Kumina King
For Prof. Rex Nettleford, O.M.

Kumina King
On a blue moon stage
Garvey, Nanny, Miss Lou in front row
Marley, Trevor and the ancestors
Enjoy your majesty’s grand entrance

Silence, silence
Tear drop dead silence
A kete drum speaks an African dialect
You answer in Jamaican steps
Movement to the right
Movement to the left
But always center stage

Your brilliant blackness, white hair
Illuminating Caribbean space
For all to see
The Kumina King dancing

And a one and a two and a three
And a four and turn
And a one and a two and a three
And a four and spin spin
Turn, turn
Feet firm in tradition leaping
Through and above theatre sky
To sky god’s heaven
For he too is watching

As a whole nation joins in
Discovering the beauty of culture
Beaten and woven from African traditions
Europeans, Spanish, Tainos, Siboneys
Jews, Lebanese, Chinese, Indians
Out of many one

Dancing, dancing, dancing
Movement from dance to intellect
Speaking in tongues
Lecturing the world


Dancing across space
Into I-story
Telling my story
Telling our stories
Of slavery
Of beat down, batter down
Of rape, of starvation
Morant Bay, Sam Sharpe rebellion

Of free peoples and indentured servants
Of betrayal and forgiveness
Of hell fire and finding the cross
Of dying and surviving
Of damnation and salvation
Of peoples breaking apart and uniting
Singing songs of redemption

Kumina King
Making us proud
From dance to tongue
Lifting us higher
With every movement
Defying time and space
Dancing in our face
Dancing in our space

Silence, silence
Tear drop dead silence
The kete drum speaks
Your name

Kumina king

Malachi Smith, 02/03/2010

***

An alumnus of Florida International University, Miami-Dade College and Jamaica School of Drama, Malachi was one of the founding members of Poets In Unity, a critically acclaimed ensemble that brought dub-poetry to the forefront of reggae music in the late 70s and carried it forward for a decade.  Malachi has also performed as an actor and poet, and is an accomplished writer, publishing and performing his own plays and poetry. He has also become known for his performances in other theatrical productions and on radio, television, and live theatre.

Malachi has won many medals and awards for his writing. In 2005, he appeared in New York and several venues in Florida. He headlined the International Dub-Poetry Festival in Toronto and he performed at the Love-In Festival in Miami with Richie Heavens and other greats. He also made three appearances in New York. 

In 2003, Malachi was a featured performer in Baltimore at that city’s Black History Month tribute to Bob Marley, and at the Manhattan Center in New York. For 2003, Malachi has also performed at the prestigious Broward Center of the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is scheduled for the African-Can-Do Festival in Miami on July 26, and he is booked to appear in the city of Tampa on August 1.  Malachi toured St. Kitts and Nevis in the summer of 2000 to rave reviews.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Mark Your Calendar: Rex Speaks (2/17/2010) (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• Jamaican scholar, choreographer dies in US at 76 (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Rex Nettleford, 1933-2010 (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)

Mark Your Calendar: Rex Speaks (2/17/2010)

Many outside the Caribbean may not understand the impact of Prof. Rex Nettleford's scholarship on Jamaican/Caribbean culture. Therefore, on February 17, 2010, I will be publishing a speech that Professor Nettleford gave on the First Annual Arts Festival at Broward Community College (2003).

Known for his deeply insightful ruminations on just about every aspect of Caribbean life, Prof. Nettleford spoke on cultural diversity and its impact on the political and economic development in the Caribbean basin.

The speech was recorded and edited by Olivier Stephenson.

***

That's the official statement. Rex Nettleford was a scholar, trade unionist, dancer--and much more. He embodied an elegance that always urged his audience to reach beyond the world of the senses toward an aesthetic that was grounded in in the mind, body, and spirit of our people.

Rex Nettleford understood and revealed our deepest contradictions: our bravado and our modesty; savagery and gentleness; the expansiveness of our hearts and mean-spirited-ness of our minds.

He challenged us to love ourselves, our artists, our religions--everything about us that made us beautiful, even as we shed those parts of ourselves that were deformed and disfigured by slavery and colonialism. And we believed him.

For whenever he appeared in public, he was always an image of dignity, of compassion, of strength, who as a guardian of our mythologies and ways of the folk,  encouraged us to discover individually that terrifying space between tradition and the unknown--whose body guided by his remarkable intellect became a metaphor of our creative genius.

***

Here are a few of the books written by Rex Nettleford:

Mirror Mirror: Identity, Race, and Protest in Jamaica (1970), Caribbean Cultural Identity (1978), Dance Jamaica: Cultural Definition and Artistic Discovery (1985), Inward Stretch, Outward Reach: A Voice from the Caribbean (1993), and (with Philip Sherlock) The University of the West Indies: A Caribbean Response to the Challenge of Change (1990); and editor of Manley and the New Jamaica (1971), Jamaica In Independence: Essays on the Early Years (1989), and Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas (1995), as well as of Caribbean Quarterly, the University of the West Indies journal of cultural studies.

Source: Active Voice

Related articles by Zemanta

• Rex Nettleford, 1933-2010 (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• Active Voice 
• National Gallery of Jamaica Blog.
• Jamaican scholar, choreographer dies in US at 76 (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

A Tribute to Rex Nettleford @ Wordle

Created with Wordle: http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1630170/Rex_Nettleford

Based on Active Voice &  National Gallery of Jamaica Blog.

***

Related articles by Zemanta

• Rex Nettleford, 1933-2010 (geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com)
• Jamaican scholar, choreographer dies in US at 76 (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• BBC: Dania Bogle (BBC.com)

Rex Nettleford, 1933-2010

PROFESSOR REX NETTLEFORD, Vice Chancellor Emeritus of the Unversity of the Wset Indies, died at 8 o'clock tonight in a Washington hospital. He was one day short of his 77th birthday

May he rest in Peace.

~John Maxwell

***

Mr. Nettleford’s death is a tremendous loss for Jamaica and the Caribbean. As a social critic, his insights have had a profound impact on the political and social development of Jamaica, and it should be remembered that Mr. Nettleford was one of the first to recognize the importance and impact of Rastafari in Jamaica and the Caribbean.

But it is in the arts that he will be missed.  As a founder on the NDTC, Mr. Nettleford was instrumental in demonstrating the connection between the spiritual practices of the folk and the aspirations of Jamaicans. At the recent Caribbean American Book and Art Fair in Miami, Derek Walcott described Mr. Nettleford as the “ideal reader” of his work and lauded him for his contribution to the arts, especially in the field of dance.

***

Related Posts:

Backyard Labrish
National Gallery of Jamaica
Blogworld

Carib World News

Global Reggae: Jamaican Popular Music A Yard and Abroad.

The Institute of Caribbean Studies and the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of the West Indies, Mona announce an international conference on “Global Reggae: Jamaican Popular Music A Yard and Abroad.” The conference, to be held February 18-24, 2008, at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica and other venues on the island, is the third in a series focusing on Caribbean culture. The first, held in 1996, honoured the distinguished legacy of Professor the Hon. Rex Nettleford, Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies. The second, held in 2002, celebrated the work of the Barbadian griot/historian, Professor Kamau Brathwaite. This third conference, to be held in association with the Recording Industry Association of Jamaica (RIAJam), the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission, the Bob Marley Foundation, and the Jamaica Tourist Board, pays tribute to the generation of musicians who have created reggae – Jamaica’s distinctive contribution to world culture. Icons such as: Count Matchuki, Don Drummond, Count Ossie, Mrs. Pottinger, and Prince Buster.

For more information, please follow this link: Global Reggae Conference

***

A Terrible Beauty is Born: Jamaica in the Seventies

Ten years after Jamaica gained independence, the island seemed poised for success. A newly elected Prime Minister, Michael Manley, (nicknamed “Joshua,” but more like Xango) was increasing opportunities and ownership among the formerly disenfranchised, largely black, populace. We were talking loud, “bigging up” ourselves, and walking with a swagger, like Ivan incarnate. 


When we stood still, we realized that we were standing at the crossroads of the Caribbean with our arms akimbo. We had every reason to be optimistic. There was so much happening:

• We were witnessing before our very eyes the birth of Reggae—from ghetto music to World music. And there were always performances by Big Youth, U-Roy, I-Roy, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, Bob Andy, Judy Mowatt, Lloyd Parks, Rita Marley, Cynthia Schloss, Marcia Griffiths, and Jacob "Killer" Miller.
• Bob Marley had grown from a local star to an international superstar.
• Perry Henzell’s, The Harder They Come, had opened to popular and critical acclaim.
• Rastafari and the Twelve Tribes of Israel, proponents of Black dignity/pride and the Caribbean connection to Africa, were changing the Jamaican story by questioning identity and introducing a new vocabulary, Rasta speak, with its emphasis on the individual and his/her connection to the indwelling God with the use of I-man and InI.
• Radio DJs were giving up their American accents, and trying to sound more Jamaican every day. They all wanted to be Errol “ET” Thompson.
• Trevor Rhone, Dennis Scott, Norman Rae, Buddy Pouyatt, Paul Metheun, Trevor Nairne, Louis Marriott, Tony Gambrill, and Alwin Bully were opening plays at The Barn, Little Theatre, Creative Arts Centre, Garden Theatre, and Centre Stage.
• Poets in Unity were in full swing all over Kingston.
• Honor Ford-Smith and Sistren were performing in Jamaica and abroad.
• Third World was not only creating great music, but they were also staging Explanitations.
• Attendance at Reggae Sunsplash proved that Reggae could be marketed successfully.
• Rex Nettleford and NDTC staged Court of Jah and other visually stunning and complex choreography.
• Karl Parboosingh, besides creating great art, was making trouble at the Olympia.
• Jamaica School of Drama students such as Stafford Harrison, Noel “Godfather” Walcott, and Malachi Smith were growing from students into directors, actors, and performers.
• Inspired by Kamau Brathwaite, writers such as Mutabaruka, Mikey Smith, and Oku Onuora started a new genre of writing: dub poetry. I remember going to the first reading that Oku Onuora gave at the Tom Redcam Library after he had been released from jail due to the intervention of Mervyn Morris and PEN.
• John Hearne was at the Extra Mural and publishing Creative Arts Review.
• Dennis Scott had won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Uncle Time.
• On any given day, you could see Kamau Brathwaite loping across the UWI Mona Campus, Mervyn Morris driving his white Peugeot, or Eddie Baugh strolling across the Mona Commons.
• Add yours, Dear Reader, to the Comments section.

And then, Manley playing on the theme of exploitation and control of our destiny, tried to levy a bauxite tax. He also said the word, the totally unnecessary word, that no Caribbean leader should ever say in a post-McCarthy era: socialism.

Did he have the right? Yes, he had every right.

Should he have had the right? Yes, he should have had the right.

Should he have known better? Yes, he should have known better.

Manley knew the US history in Haiti, Chile, and Cuba.

And with all of that, with all that he knew, he said the word.

Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State, did not like that word. Henry Kissinger hated that word. That word made Henry Kissinger stay awake at night. That word gave Henry Kissinger hives.

Henry Kissinger, who knew how to use the CIA to destabilize even far more stable economies than ours, merely glanced at Jamaica, and we started to crumble. And, of course, there was also internal resistance.

Every Jamaican is born a Maroon.

And Manley should have known that too. He should have known that sometimes a leader, especially a Caribbean leader, needs more Anancy and less Xango.

Then, the bangarang started.

The politicians who had been in bed with the gunmen turned their boys loose and they’ve never been able to control them.

We lived through Orange Lane, Green Bay and other horrors.

The violence crept from downtown over Torrington Bridge and came uptown.

“Everywhere was war.”

The only solution was escape. We were back at the harbor with the slave ships and we weren’t waiting for the Black Star Liners. We began leaving to the Cayman Islands, New York, London, and Miami, and another diaspora began. We left for Miami on the famous “five flights,” and we left a hole in the economy and in the life of the country. A few of us have gone back, but most of us are still leaving.

“Everywhere is war.”

We’ve never really recovered from the war. It’s still going on. It was a blow to our minds, hearts, and bodies and we’re still staggering.

It’s like we were being punished in the slavedom days, and old habits die hard.

We started doing what we did during the colonial past. We’ve put social promotion and economic interests ahead of authenticity and questioning anything because on national level, we’re afraid to promote anything that will assert our collective identity.

“We don’t need no trouble.”

We’ve stopped talking. We’ve become voluntary mutes.

We’re afraid of saying anything that will upset the Big Massa because if he comes back, who knows what he’ll do this time?

***

Related Posts:
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/01/caribbean-and-its-cultural-arts-when.html
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/01/dear-mikey-jiggs-greetings-mikey-on.html
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/01/half-thats-never-been-told-fractured.html
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/01/funny-thing-happened-on-way-to.html
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/01/terrible-beauty-is-born-jamaica-in.html
http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/01/dear-mikey-in-last-few-posts-i-have.html

***

Tags: Americas Caribbean Jamaica Culture Writing Caribbean literature Caribbean books Caribbean writers Jamaican writers