Happy Birthday, Bob Marley
to Africa. His demand for his people to move out of Babylon was to be released from mental and emotional bondage. He sings:
Open your eyes and look within Are you satisfied with the life you're living? We know where we're going; we know where we're from We're leaving Babylon, we're going to the fatherland.
This freeing of the mind from the bondages of slavery and colonialism is an important first step for freedom, something that many African and African-American writers have also recognized. The problem with neo-colonialism in many African countries is a result, in part, of the fact that despite Liberation, many African leaders have mindsets imbued with the taint of colonialism. Further, they have allowed western nations to continue to control their countries through economic enslavement. This, according to Marley, must be solved through emancipation of the mind.
Another connection Bob Marley had with the African continent was his commitment to the religion of Rastafarianism. To understand Rastafarianism, one has to understand the spiritual importance of Marcus Garvey, especially to Jamaica. This black prophet preached repatriation to Africa for black peoples, believing that they could never achieve equality as long as they were a minority (Davis, 5). During one sermon in Kingston in 1927, Garvey uttered the statement that would become the foundation for Rastafarianism: "Look to Africa, where a black king will be crowned. For the day of deliverance is here" (Davis, 6.)
When the Ethiopian warlord Ras Tafari Makonnen was crowned emperor of Ethiopia in 1930, he took the title Haile Selassie I ("Power of the Trinity"), King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He was recognized immediately by many Jamaicans as the black king of Marcus Garvey's prophecy and hailed as the black Messiah. Thus was born Rastafarianism, a religion that looked to Haile Selassie I as a savior, the second coming of Jesus Christ. The religion had several tenets. For one thing, followers abstained from alcohol, salt, and meat. They refuse to cut or comb their hair, resulting in the recognizable "dreadlocks." They also see marijuana (ganja) as a path to meditation and spiritual enlightenment.
Bob became a Rastafarian after his wife Rita claimed that she had seen the nail prints of Jesus in Haile Selassie I's hands during his visit to Jamaica in 1966, a visit that Bob Marley missed because he was living in the United States with his mother. In early 1967,
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