Africa

RASTA HOMELAND

Sect Members Tolerate Ethiopia's Poverty To Be `Close To God'

The voluminous plumes of marijuana smoke that stream from Isaiah Kelly's
mouth obscure the creases and wrinkles of a face aged prematurely by
hardship.

Two years ago, the 69-year-old furniture maker fulfilled a lifetime dream
and doctrine of his Rastafarian faith -- to leave the modern culture sect
members call "Babylon" and return to Ethiopia, or the "Holy Land."

"In my mind, I have lived my (previous) life like a refugee in a foreign
land," he said while unleashing dreadlocks that tumbled well below his
waist. "But now, as my death approaches, I have come home."

There are growing signs, however, that the enthusiasm of a "Back to Africa"
movement that enticed Kelly to leave his Jamaica home for a town of 250,000
called Shashemene is waning.

Two years ago, 200 Rastafarians were in Shashemene, which is located 150
miles south of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. Today, fewer than 40
remain.

The expatriates are struggling to make a livelihood in one of the world's
poorest nations. Few Rastafarians have meaningful work, and most depend on
money transfers from relatives abroad and on food that they grow on small
plots of land. Shashemene has no drainage system, most residents drink
contaminated water, and human and animal feces are spread over the
landscape.

In this landlocked nation of 62 million, almost half the children are
malnourished, and its citizens earn an average of only $106 a year. Its per
capita gross domestic product is one of the world's lowest.

"I won't pretend that life here is easy," Kelly said. "But show me a place
anywhere in the world where life is easy. We choose to live here because
here we are close to God."

Rastafarians are members of a Christian Orthodox sect that considers former
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie to be a black Messiah. Selassie, who was a
Christian, ruled from 1930 to 1974. When he visited Jamaica in 1966, he was
said to be puzzled by Rastafarians who tried to worship him. He died in
1975 at age 83 while under house arrest following the military coup that
ushered in the repressive rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam.

Shashemene's Rastafarians live simply, spending their days farming their
plots, attending daily church services and smoking considerable amounts of
marijuana. Rastafarians consider "herb" to be holy. According to Kelly, God
commands them to smoke as a way to achieve closeness to him.

"If you are meditating and doing good, the herb will develop that goodness
within you. It will help you develop your relationship with God," he said.

Although marijuana smoking is associated with criminality throughout
Ethiopia, many town residents are used to Rasta culture and are uncritical
of the foreigners.

"We Ethiopians don't believe that Haile Selassie was a God," said Sammy
Tadesse, "but we are proud that black people in the West look at Ethiopia
as an important country."

The community's history goes back to 1955, when Selassie granted a group of
Rastafarians a small area of fertile land in southern Ethiopia. At the same
time, another group set out on a mission to Africa with the assistance of
the government of Jamaica. There are no records of how many actually came
to Ethiopia, but no great migration followed. In fact, most Rastafarians
today say they are more interested in African spirituality than in actually
living in Africa.

Kelly, however, says poverty and red tape are the major reasons
Rastafarians have not migrated en masse to Ethiopia.

"We were taken from Africa without money, passports or visas," he said as
he took a deep drag from an enormous joint that clung to his bottom lip.
"Why should we need these things to come back again?"

Jamaican Adolphus Sewell, Kelly's neighbor, lives in a small two-room shack
that is painted red, yellow and green. Wandering around his perfectly kept
garden scored by neat rows of budding fruits and vegetables, Sewell, or
"Dread" as he is known locally, came to Shashemene for a short holiday
three years ago and never left.

"As a black man, this is the only place that I have ever felt free," he
said. "That is what drew me to this place. That is why I stayed."

Sewell, 59, concedes that life in this desperately poor country has not
lived up to his expectations. Since moving to Ethiopia, he has been robbed
six times, and he readily concedes that he has considered returning to
London, where he worked for 22 years as a carpenter and baker.

But he is also eager to show visitors that he is happy to be in Ethiopia.
He supplements his meager income by baking buns and selling them in the
local market.

"I was taught in school that we are not European and that we are not
Jamaican -- that we were slaves from Africa. That is why I came back," he
said.

Another who came back is an African American in his late 20s who gave his
name only as Tree. A recent arrival, the young American is looking to buy
land.

"America makes no sense to me," said Tree, who is a native of Washington,
D. C., and previously worked in a supermarket. "The only thing it has to
offer is luxury, and that offers nothing for the spirit."

But Tree is facing the difficult question of how to earn a living now that
he has made the move. Although he is optimistic, he admits that he did not
find the town all that he had hoped.

"I didn't expect there would be so much poverty here," he said. "The
promised land? Let's wait and see."

~~~ Sidebar: ~~~

RELIGIOUS ROOTS

Rastafarians are members of a religious and political movement that began
on the Caribbean island of Jamaica in the late 1920s. Followers are
sometimes called Rastas or Dreads.They are perhaps best known as the
originators of reggae music; for their use of "ganja," or marijuana, as a
sacred rite; and for wearing their hair in ropelike braids called
dreadlocks.

Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican-born U.S. civil rights leader, first voiced in
Jamaica the ideas that grew into the Rastafarian movement. In the early
1920s, Garvey helped build a "Back to Africa" movement among black
Jamaicans.

Garvey spoke of the redemption of his people coming from a future black
African king, and his followers seized on the 1930 coronation of Ethiopian
Emperor Haile Selassie as the fulfillment of that prophecy. They proclaimed
Selassie as "Jah," or God, and Ethiopia as the "Holy Land." The name
Rastafarian comes from Ras Tafari, a title held by Selassie, who ruled
Ethiopia until 1974.

Today, Rastafarianism has split into several factions, but the deification
of Selassie remains central to the religion. It is a worldwide religious
movement, whose worshipers mainly live on Caribbean islands, Western
Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and some African nations. The
membership of what has been called the most dynamic religious movement in
Jamaica may be as large as 100,000.