POLITICAL, SOCIAL, RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF THE RASTA LIFE

`BEWARE of the imposta' Rasta.''

So warned Dave Simon, 25, who said it takes more than dreadlocks and ganja
to make a Rastafarian.

``You can grow your hair and not live the life of a Rastaman,'' said Simon,
sitting in the back yard of the Olive Branch, the West Indian restaurant in
Queens where he works.

``I'm bald and I'm a Rasta Rastaman,'' he said. ``It comes straight from the
heart.''

Since the 1960s, many Americans have been quick to adopt the trappings of
the Rasta life -- from the hair to the reggae -- while forgetting that for
hundreds of thousands of followers, it's more than a fashion. It's a
religion.

Now Rastafarians and the scholars who study them report a resurgence of
interest in both the music and the faith. From New York to Miami, people are
hailing the ``Lion of Judah,'' the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as
a living incarnation of God.

``He's the father,'' said Simon, ``He's the emperor. All the time he's in my
heart.''

Leonard E. Barrett, author of ``The Rastafarians,'' estimates that there are
800,000 Rastas worldwide, more than 2 million if one counts followers of the
lifestyle but not the faith. No one has tracked the growing number of
Rastafarians in the United States, he said. But reggae singers such as
Capleton and Sizzla have helped bring young men and women into the fold with
songs calling for racial harmony and a return to religion. And some of the
new Rastas are mixing a tradition of rebellion with decidedly traditional
Christian teachings.

Origins in Ethiopia

The movement began in the early 1930s when Prince Tafari Makonnen of
Ethiopia was crowned Emperor Haile Selassie I, a self-proclaimed descendant
of King Solomon of Judah and the Queen of Sheba.

Some Jamaicans, followers of Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, saw Selassie as
the messiah who would redeem all black people by bringing them back to
Africa. They formed a religion combining the word ``Ras,'' or prince, with
the emperor's first name, Tafari.

The early movement was particularly popular among the poor ``suffarahs,''
Jamaica's under- and unemployed, Barrett said. It was the second-generation
converts who instituted dreads and ganja and increased their opposition to
Western political and economic domination (``Babylon'') through street
marches and defiance of the police, said University of the West Indies
anthropologist Barry Chevannes. It wasn't long before the Caribbean
migration -- and reggae icon Bob Marley -- brought Rastafari to the United
States.

The movement appeals primarily to young Caribbean immigrants, writes
sociologist Randal L. Hepner in an essay published in the recently released
``Chanting Down Babylon: The Rastafari Reader.'' But it's also attracting,
he said, ``a growing number of Africans, African-Americans, Native Americans
and white Americans.''

``It's for everybody,'' said Paul David, 33, an owner of the Olive Branch,
who joined Simon and four other Rastas for a smoke behind his restaurant.

A veteran with waist-length dreads, David guides the younger Rastas, playing
devotional reggae on a boombox and showing videos on a television in the
stockroom. That afternoon he was showing documentaries about Haile
Selassie's life in honor of the emperor's July 23 birthday, which they would
be celebrating that evening.

There's no initiation for newcomers, David said, and no required reading
except the Bible. He tries to help instill in young people a sense of pride
in the African heritage and a desire to free themselves from racial and
economic oppression. He warns them to get their lives together ``before they
have to face the king himself,'' Haile Selassie, whom they view as a living
manifestation of God.

Rastas, said David, envision the coming of a golden age on Earth for the
pure of heart. The movement, Barrett said, sees Ethiopia as the promised
land where black people will be repatriated though an exodus from Western
countries. The timing, many believe, awaits the decision of Haile Selassie
and the details are secret.

Will anyone go to hell?

``I wouldn't know about that,'' said David. ``I think so positive. I think
about freedom.''

He gestured toward the boombox to bring the point home.

``Soon we will be free,'' the singer chanted while a young man lit another
joint.

``We smoke a lot of pot around the Twelve Tribes,'' said David Miller, 22,
referring to one of the most influential and mainly middle-class Rastafarian
sects, which has a local headquarters nearby.

Ganja (marijuana), said David, is not a drug; it's a religious sacrament.
``Drugs to me is cocaine, heroin. Herb is the healing of the nation. Herb
heals people from glaucoma and diabetes.''

The Rastas, said Barrett, ``have their men who pick up their ganja and sell
it in their cars.'' Still, Hepner reports that his research doesn't support
the common conception that Rastas are heavily involved in drug trafficking.
Rastas, he said, are adamantly opposed to the use of narcotics and alcohol.
Some don't smoke at all.

Weed and worship

Weed or no weed, any gathering that invokes Haile Selassie is worship, said
Simon, including their backyard meeting. Most American Rastas, Hepner said,
do not attend formal churches, gathering instead in homes, clubs and smoking
yards. Larger congregations hold Bible study, Sunday school classes and
courses in African history and the roots of the back-to-Africa movement.

Some Rastas, said University of North Carolina philosophy and religion
professor Nathaniel Samuel Murrell, have reinterpreted the idea of
repatriation to mean a voluntary relocation to Africa or a symbolic return
to cultural values.

Attitudes toward Christianity have also changed, said Barrett. The early
Rastas were hostile to Christians, who vilified Rastas in Jamaica. The
Twelve Tribes, however, believe that Jesus Christ is a manifestation of God
just like Haile Selassie.

Today that rebellious side of Rastafari religion in the United States is
expressed primarily through reggae, and in some cases a refusal to work in
mainstream jobs. But the rejection is often moot, noted Miller, given the
lack of good jobs available for young black men.

At 6 p.m., David and his friends gathered at the local Twelve Tribes
headquarters to celebrate Selassie's birthday. The only identification on
the building are two small lions on the front gate -- the Lions of Judah.
Otherwise, the church is a nondescript shingled house with a well-manicured
yard and the kind of church van that takes seniors to potlucks.

``We're a family,'' said a longtime Rasta who claims that police do not
bother Rastas who smoke at the church. ``Rastas are just Christians who seek
repatriation.''

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst