By Jenny Vaughan (AFP)
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| Jamaican Rastafarians believe Ethiopia is their promised land |
SHASHEMENE, Ethiopia — A ceremonial fire burns as dreadlocked
Rastafarians sway to drum beats, chanting "Haile I! Selassie I!" in
praise of the former Ethiopian emperor whom they uphold as God
incarnate.
Marijuana smoke rises from the crowd, decked out in
their trademark red, gold and green -- also the colours as the Ethiopian
flag -- as they celebrate the 46th anniversary this month of Haile
Selassie's visit to Jamaica.
That trip prompted an influx of Jamaican Rastafarians to the Horn of Africa state, which they believe is their promised land.
But some feel Ethiopia has not measured up -- and now want change.
"After
the visit of Haile Selassie in 1966 in the Caribbean, the Jamaican
Rastafarians started to pour in" to Ethiopia, said researcher Giulia
Bonacci at the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in the capital Addis
Ababa.
When the movement emerged in the 1930s among descendants of
African slaves in Jamaica, it adopted Haile Selassie as the messiah, at
a time when he stood out as the only independent black monarch in
Africa.
They even took their name from his pre-regnal title -- "Ras" for "head" and his birth name "Tafari".
A
supporter of decolonization and cooperation among African states when
they were still largely under European control, Haile Selassie set aside
land south of the capital in the 1950s to welcome back the African
diaspora.
The 500-hectare (1,200-acre) plot in Shashemene, 250
kilometres (155 miles) from Addis Ababa, was offered to descendents of
slaves who wanted to return "home".
It is one of Africa's few
Rastafarian communities and residents hold fast to their cultural
mainstays: dreadlocks, vegetarian diets, reggae music and marijuana
smoking.
But life changed in 1974 when Haile Selassie was
overthrown in a coup led by Mengistu Haile Mariam whose Marxist-Leninist
regime confiscated the Shashemene plot, prompting most Rastas to flee
its authoritarian rule.
Though 40 hectares have been returned to
the community since Meles Zenawi, now prime minister, took power in
1991, the 600 or so Rastas from the Caribbean, North America and Europe
living there today are "tolerated" by the government, holding neither
citizenship nor any legal right to the land.
"There is an absence
of a clear policy of the Ethiopian government towards the community,
which leaves a lot of its members in limbo and facing difficult legal
issues," said Bonacci, who has written a book about Rastafarians
settling in Ethiopia.
Kestekle Ab, 82, who moved from Jamaica 11
years ago, said authorities recently told him to relocate to make room
for construction of a new road.
He arrived when Shashemene was a
sparsely populated rural area. Today it is a bustling city of about
120,000. Donkey carts are outnumbered by three-wheeled motorised
rickshaws that flit about streets lined with crooked wooden stalls
selling single cigarettes, warm juice and biscuits.
"I won't have a
home, my home is in the middle of the road. So where am I going to
stay?" he asked, sitting in his cramped, airless clay hut decorated with
a fading portrait of Haile Selassie and a Rasta flag peeling from the
wall.
"We have a right to the land," he said.
"It's not
threatened, it's being taken away," Ras Kabena, 58, said angrily as he
poked kernels from corn cobs to plant ahead of the rainy season.
Kabena,
who moved from the Dominican Republic two decades ago, runs a natural
health clinic on the grounds of a Rasta church but said authorities are
encroaching on the fields where he grows food and medicinal herbs.
Rastafarians
say it was the "divinity" of the land that drew them to Ethiopia, which
is mentioned in the Bible more than 30 times and is believed to be the
birthplace of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
"This is the promised land, this is where God is born," said Ab.
Yet the Rastas' vague status makes it difficult to set up business and access services open to nationals.
"I'm
in Africa and I'm illegal in regards to status. I don't feel illegal
because I'm returning home, but when you're talking about the letter of
the law, yes, in fact, it's reality," said Carol Rocke, 56, who runs a
Caribbean restaurant.
When she was "ordained by God" to come to
Ethiopia from Trinidad six years ago, she applied for a business licence
but was only allowed to operate as a foreign investor, limiting her
business to the region around Shashemene.
Paul Phang, 55, a
Jamaican-born Rasta priest who sits on Shashemene city council, insists
the government has been increasingly supportive.
In 2006, the
regional president "said the land that had been given to the black
people of the West -- no more of it should be molested, it should be
honoured as a historical heritage for the diaspora community," Phang
said.
But Rocke feels authorities are dragging their heels. "They
have not been active enough, it's like they don't know how to deal with
us," she said.
The Rastafarians now want clarification, and sent a
petition to parliament three months ago urging the government to grant
them legal status and legal title to their land. As yet they have not
heard back.
"We have been here over 50 years. That means we have
been integrated into the Ethiopian society, into the Ethiopian culture.
Some of us have Ethiopian husbands, some of us have Ethiopian wives,"
Rocke said.
But "our roots have been stanched, we have not been able to develop as a people."
