Emerging in Jamaica during the 1930s, Rastafari championed African liberation and resistance to colonial oppression. Through Caribbean migration, it became a powerful influence on Black British culture, identity and political resistance.
Yet the movement faced contradictions around gender. While women were celebrated as “Queens” and “Empresses”, they often faced restrictions on their participation in political and religious life.
Between the 2011 and 2021 censuses, the number of people identifying as Rastafari in England and Wales fell by almost a quarter.
In a new opinion piece, @tiannathewriter, whose family has deep roots in Rastafari, explores whether patriarchal traditions contributed to this decline, alongside tensions around repatriation and the movement’s enduring influence on Black British identity and political language.
Read more via Black Current News - 🔗 in bio.
a day agoiamgoldinde
Righteousness is a real earned value and it nuh heasy fi earn it ask any rastaman in the UK and he could point to maybe one😂
a day agoraggozulurebel
Oh gosh 😅 the scholarly debate a pop off in the comments section. Come like religious hard talk, tpc! Where’s Ian Bowing when u need him
a day agoseriousstreetfood
I called it out at the time she first published this essay that @tiannathewriter was incorrect in many of her assertions that the Rastafari movement is in decline in Britain based on census data alone, that Rastafari women do not play a leading role today and on the fact that she failed to do any significant field work with the Rastafari community in Britain before publishing her essay based on very limited and mostly outdated sources from the 1970s. Her one contemporary source was a Rastafari academic I know personally. I showed him the essay and he was as surprised as I was at her assertion that Rastafari is in decline. I even invited her to do field work in my community at Emperor Haile Selassie's former home in exile at Fairfield House in Bath, that she had written about without ever having visited, and recieved very rude refusal to engage with that offer to extend her research in a direction that might contradict her conclusions, which were a misrepresentation of the reality of Rastafari in the UK today.
a day agorealsereenaalnoor
Because, nothing is sustainable through essentialising skon colour and divesting your own ethnity. www.winnation.org.uk
2 days agoraggozulurebel
I ain’t never filled out no consensus so there’s that. I know nuff more Ras who ain’t got time for Babylon survey so that might affect numbers. Regardless no matter what the crisis is ini still stand firm ✊🏿
2 days agomelloveswisdom
We are driving the decline, our memory fotgotten about Rasta Rise, strength and shine, feel as though we reach where we fi guh. Lose consciousness, and we love fi one anofher, we ebb n we flow. Babylon rhetoric, nuff tek up fi follow. Africa fi Africans nuh longer to saturate wi glow. Trade hope fi material gain of tomorrow, without embracing love, gathering more division and sorrow!!!©️🎤
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