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Rasta
and Resistance a study of the Rastafarian Movement in all its
manifestations, from the evolution in the hills of Jamaica to its
present manifestations in the streets or Birmingham and the Shashamane
Settlement in Ethiopia. It traces the cultural, political and spiritual
sources of this movement of resistance, highlighting the quest for
change among an oppressed people. This book serves to break the
intellectual traditions which placed the stamp of millenarianism on
Rasta.
Absence of a political enquiry into the Rastafari of the Caribbean has
always been an uncomfortable gap in the record of the Caribbean
revolution. Now Horace Campbell has made a big step towards the filling
of that gap. This is not to suggest that Caribbean writers and thinkers
(we should not confuse the two groups) have not done much investigation
of the Rastafari way of life with all the clarity and depth which their
areas of investigation permitted them; some have also ventured into the
political dominion.
Campbell has many of the
qualifications for the task he has undertaken. He has been struggling
for some years to apply the scientific theory of society to the reality
of the African and Caribbean politics, and the process has avoided the
creation of false gods.
-Eusi Kwayana
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