![]() ![]() But mainstream Jamaica rejected the Rastas, seeing them as long-haired, unwashed drug-taking outlaws and idlers. Rastafarians’ ability to quote from the Old Testament as if its events happened yesterday gave the religion a recognizable message and an immediacy for those raised as Christians. The faith’s rejection of what it saw as the remnants of slave society and its values, its adherents’ decision to “throw away the comb,” their devotion to ganja-fuelled meditation, and the hypnotic heavy hand-drumming that accompanied it, fascinated many Jamaicans. Such a huge turnout was a manifestation of the allure of Rastafarianism. His Imperial Majesty was met off the plane in Kingston by Mortimer Planno, the Rastafarian teacher and philosopher who was one of the key figures in the faith, and who was able to calm the devotees – 100,000 of them by some estimates – who had come to greet the Emperor. Now he was to land on the island where many held this belief. ![]() Emperor Selassie’s presence as a black African ruler from the Rastafarian homeland of Ethiopia was taken as a second coming for Rastas. Indeed, their very name was taken from “Ras,” meaning Lord, and “Tafari,” Selassie’s family surname. Jamaica’s Rastafarian community worshipped the Ethiopian leader as a living God, the savior who would one day appear in Africa as a liberator of the black consciousness. ![]()
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