Question for the Rastafarians and Reggae Aficionados
 

I have a bit of a thing for reggae and listen to it regularly, but I don't always understand the language used or common references.

For instance 'I & I', or 'InI', I think it can mean God and I, or the God in me, or the unity of all mankind with God, or maybe that all mankind are One. Am I on the right track?

Secondly, I always thought the word 'Babylon' was used to signify paradise, but it seems in reggae it's used to refer to government or oppression, even salvery. Is this correct?

Thirdly, what's with all the revered and joyous references to Haile Selassie? I know Ethiopia is considered the homeland for Rastafarians and that Haile Selassie was the emperor there, but history tells us he was as oppressive and totalitarian leader who commited human rights crimes; in other words Haile Selassie was responsible for the kind of things that Reggae music regulalry tackles and speaks out against. So why is he so revered? I don't get it. It seems hypocritical?

I&I just refers to me , myself and I. It's kind of like saying that you are only going to rely on yourself. It doesn't have anything to do with God.


Babylon isn't paradise, Zion is their paradise. Babylon is related to oppression. Whenever cops roll through they don't say 5-0 is coming. They say Babylon is coming.

For the third question I got this from wiki:

Cheers, appreciate it. :)

No problem. My uncle is heavy into the Rastafarian movement.

I do find it strange that they've adopted a repressive and totalitarian figure as their messiah, but maybe it's no stranger than the Christian, Jewish and Muslim God depicted in the holy texts and some of the things He gets up to/threatens to do.

Rastafari movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This section goes into detail about it.

I don't personally know why they picked him though only based off of what I skimmed through that section.

Good link, very interesting.

I & I is a confirmation of one's self and consciousness.

Babylon is a religious reference- the city of Babylon in the Bible was known as a wicked, evil, Godless place. Babylon in Rastafarian culture is used in reference to the wicked system of rule and government and basically refers to anything not originating from Jah who is the Supreme Being. When you here the word "God" it is actually referencing Gad. Gad is a prophet in Rastafarian religion. The religious text used in conjunction with the Bible is the Kebra Negast.

Haile Selassie is revered because it says in the Bible that the faithful's Savior will come through the line of David. Haile Selassie claimed to be a descendent of King David.

I'm no Rasta, but Babylon was indeed an evil place in the bible. Babylon was also a place of exile for the Isralites/ Hebrews. the theme of exile is how I have understood the use of "Babylon" in reggae music- in their case exile from Africa.

Babylon was located in Iraq on a stretch of desert just south of Baghdad. At the time he was deposed Sadam Hussein was attempting to rebuild the ruins of ancient Babylon as a historical restoration project. (see photo below).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...s_Marines.jpeg

Babylon was a highly evolved civilization under the rule of Hammurabi but devolved into decadence as gangsta tribes like the Assyrians, the Sumerians, the Amorites, the Hittites, and the Kassites overran the city state of Babylon and used it a a party town to rape, pillage, plunder and kill. Babylon was surrounded by militaristic city states and nearly every ambitious mercenary nomadic tribe was hell bent on plundering for profit and then burning it down to the ground. Babylon turned into a the ancient equivalent of Tombstone Arizona where every badass went to raise hell.

By the way the original location of the Garden of Eden is just up the road where the Tigris and Euprates Rivers converge. You'd never know it was a garden of eden because climate change has turned Eden into a barren desert wasteland.

A lot of Rastafarian teaching is based on the Old Testament. In fact many Rastafarians claim lineage to the Lemba tribe the legendary lost African tribe of Israel. This Bantu-speaking group claims Jewish ancestry and observes many Semitic traditions such as kosher-like dietary restrictions and slaughter practices, male circumcision rites, strict rules against intermarriage, and Semitic-sounding clan names.

A few years back some British scientists collected DNA samples from the Bantu tribles of Lemba descent and one out of every 10 Lemba tribe members had a particular Y chromosomal type that appears to be a signature of Jewish ancestry. It's a significant percentage considering that Lemba tribe members moved to Africa around 2000 B.C., and have been removed from that particular Jewish Y chromosomal gene pool for at least 3000 years.