Category: Culture
Get Up, Stand Up
Sightings 12/16/2010
Rastafari Theology, Reggae Music, and the Postcolonial Legacy of Bob Marley
– Juan M. Floyd-Thomas
In the legendary song, “Get Up, Stand Up,” it is virtually impossible to forget the chorus:
Get up, stand up—stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up—don’t give up the fight!
In these lyrics Bob Marley offers a resounding critique of traditional modes of Western Christianity which had served as a means of domination and oppression in Jamaica. In many ways, this pivotal song serves not only as a call to action, but offers a more confrontational and militant tone than previous records either by The Wailers, Marley’s band, or other reggae bands of the era. The song is also a wake-up call to those who might miss the prophetic message of reggae music illustrated in the following lyrics:
Most people think
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth…
Serving as the signature anthem for The Wailers, the band often made this the last song they played at each of their concerts. In fact, “Get Up, Stand Up” was the last song Marley performed live on stage at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 23, 1980. By May 1981, this prophet and poet of the postcolonial era lost his own epic fight with cancer that prematurely ended his life at the age of thirty six. For these and other reasons, “Get Up, Stand Up” is the quintessential Bob Marley song insofar as it epitomizes the three movements—the three “Rs”, if you will—with which he will be identified forever: reggae music, Rastafari movement, and revolutionary action.
To date, no performer in reggae music has matched the level of notoriety and success achieved by Bob Marley. That being the case, Marley’s musical legacy is exemplary because it provides insights into the vagaries of postcolonial realities through an examination of how reggae music, Rastafari movement, and revolutionary action played out not only in Marley’s life but also beyond. Marley’s legions of fans worldwide are often unaware that reggae was a revolutionary music that emerged from the suffering of Jamaica’s poor masses in the island’s “concrete jungles.” Meanwhile, the Rastafari community was the target of police harassment and public alienation for decades, both during and after British colonial rule.
Dating back to its origins in the 1930s as a direct outgrowth of the intermixture of Christian millennialism and the pan-African ideology of Marcus Garvey, the nascent Rastafari movement believed that the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I (1892-1974), a direct descendent of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, was God incarnate. In fact, the movement’s name, Rastafari, is derived from Selassie’s Amharic title and birth name—Ras Tafari Makonnen—prior to his ascendancy to the imperial throne in 1930. Since the late 1950s, reggae became the reigning musical genre within Jamaica’s popular music scene, and was increasingly identified with the burgeoning Rasta population working in allegiance with the country’s poor blacks in order to galvanize themselves into a full-blown social movement. In response to this upstart challenge, the postcolonial Jamaican government banned reggae from the nation’s airwaves for being politically controversial and even jailed or deported Rasta leaders considered threats to the status quo.
Once reggae became internationally popular in the early 1970s, however, internecine tensions among the Rastas grew volatile and effectively spawned countless quasi-Rastafari followers who embraced the most obvious symbols and trappings of the faith—dreadlocks, ganja (marijuana), and reggae music—without fully embracing the substance of the religion. Exploiting this situation as a prime political opportunity to mobilize the island’s disinherited populace for partisan gain, Michael Manley, the Jamaican Prime Minister, brought Rastafari political imagery, sacred rhetoric, and sociopolitical themes from the margins into the social mainstream.
In 1978, Marley, his family, and The Wailers returned to Jamaica from London after several years of self-imposed exile and subsequently performed at the “One Love” Peace Concert in the hopes of calming the strife between the island’s two warring political parties despite multiple threats against Marley’s life. Towards the end of the evening’s performance, Manley of the liberal People’s National Party and his political rival Edward Seaga of the conservative Jamaica Labour Party shook hands on stage at Marley’s behest. This marked a political sea change by the 1980s in which the Manley regime was displaced by the ultra-conservative Seaga interregnum, setting Jamaica on a decidedly troubling path away from progressive politics. In the decades that followed, heightened levels of desperate violence, illicit drugs, and pervasive poverty had besieged the political culture of Jamaica.
Reggae music is no longer heard as a mystical musical outcry against oppression. Instead it is often the commercialized soundtrack for a marketing campaign depicting Jamaica as a postcolonial playground. Likewise the Rastafari tradition is no longer a radical African-centered counterculture but an important symbolic trope utilized by Jamaican elites in order to maximize the nation’s marketability as a tropical vacation hotspot. In tracing the conjoined history of Rastafari theology and reggae music, the emerging postcolonial nation of Jamaica hijacked the musical and spiritual legacy of its reigning superstar in order to literally capitalize on its mythical image as an island paradise for tourists, most evident in the use of Marley’s songs “One Love” and “Three Little Birds” in a long-running advertising campaign by the Jamaican Tourism Board.
When did Bob Marley and The Wailers’ hymns to peace, love, and human harmony become appropriate fodder for state-sanctioned advertising jingles? Moreover, how did the spiritual warfare of Rastas as soul rebels railing against the amassed system of white colonial domination (commonly referred to as “Babylon” within Rastafari rhetoric) morph into the smiling and servile “Rastaman” pouring cocktails and handing out beach towels for tourists from around the globe? Given what has transpired since his untimely death more than thirty years ago, one can only wonder what Marley would think about the twin fates of both the music and the faith he represented so loudly and proudly. In order to avoid such a downward spiral, songs such as Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” should be heard anew in ways that will restore reggae music and Rasta spirituality to their original sacred as well as social significance in this post-everything era.
Juan M. Floyd-Thomas is Associate Professor of Black Church Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. He is author of The Origins of Black Humanism: Reverend Ethelred Brown and the Unitarian Church (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) and co-author of Black Church Studies: An Introduction (Abingdon Press, 2007).
Get Up, Stand Up
Bob Marley & the Wailers, 1973
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight!
Preacher man, don’t tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don’t know
What life is really worth.
It’s not all that glitters is gold;
‘Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. come on!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight!
Most people think,
Great god will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. jah!
Get up, stand up! (jah, jah! )
Stand up for your rights! (oh-hoo! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Don’t give up the fight! (life is your right! )
Get up, stand up! (so we can’t give up the fight! )
Stand up for your rights! (lord, lord! )
Get up, stand up! (keep on struggling on! )
Don’t give up the fight! (yeah! )
We sick an’ tired of-a your ism-skism game –
Dyin’ ‘n’ goin’ to heaven in-a Jesus’ name, lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty god is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can’t fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (yeah, yeah, yeah! )
So you better:
Get up, stand up! (in the morning! git it up! )
Stand up for your rights! (stand up for our rights! )
Get up, stand up!
Don’t give up the fight! (don’t give it up, don’t give it up! )
Get up, stand up! (get up, stand up! )
Stand up for your rights! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (… )
Don’t give up the fight! (get up, stand up! )
Get up, stand up! (… )
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don’t give up the fight!
And Now, Plutocracy
I’ve begun using the word plutocracy to describe the state of our nation. It has not always been a plutocracy. It didn’t begin with Reagan, but he certainly enabled it. The recent Supreme Court decision that gave corporations “personhood” in elections moved the plutocrats farther down the time line to ensuring their “hostile takeover” of our representative republic promoting democracy to plutocracy: wealthy elite that own government and take from the working and working poor. It has not always been this way during my lifetime nor of this nation. The robber barons were dismissed once and it appears that will have to happen again. The marketing machines are better equipped to convince the working and working poor to vote against their own interests in the name of freedom. It is interesting that the “activists” label does not apply to conservative judges as well.
Bill Moyers is a problem for some, but I find his search for truth refreshing. He is a reporter, curious and tough, but polite and respectful where respect is warranted. I was looking over McLaren’s website and found a few of Moyers words. Brian McLaren noted, “One of the best and disturbing things I’ve read in quite a while . . .” I followed the link and have spent the last hour reading, nodding in agreement as well as feeling anger and sadness.
I cannot read words like these and not wondered how western Christianity has aided the worship of prosperity in our culture. If salvation is only an individual experience then what happens to the community is of no concern. “I’ve got my Jesus and I’m right with God.” Accepting Christ is the beginning of a journey not the end. Youth ministry is missional. Some think that means “evangelism”. It does not, for me, mean making more Christians. Youth ministry is missional as a balance to the plutocracy into which youth are being raised with the teachings of Jesus based in “love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” It is planting mustard seeds that I may never see provide shelter, leadership, preach a sermon, or serve in youth ministry. This may not create more Christians, but it might raise ethical people that will reclaim the social balance that is at the heart of the message of Jesus of Nazareth about the kingdom of God. It is why the parables still confuse, confront, and teach.
Moyers makes the case for my use of the word plutocracy. It is apparently becoming the “new normal”. Here are a few paragraphs of his words from a speech in honor of his friend, Howard Zinn. McLaren was right. It is disturbing and one of the best explanations of the change from democracy to plutocracy during my lifetime.
Howard Zinn Taught Us That It’s OK If We Face Mission Impossible
Bill Moyers: The following text by Bill Moyers was prepared for for a speech delivered October 29, 2010 as part of the Howard Zinn Lecture Series at Boston UniversityNow, most people know what plutocracy is: the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy. Plutocracy is not an American word and wasn’t meant to become an American phenomenon – some of our founders deplored what they called “the veneration of wealth.” But plutocracy is here, and a pumped up Citigroup even boasted of coining a variation on the word- “plutonomy”, which describes an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer and that government helps them do it. Five years ago Citigroup decided the time had come to “bang the drum on plutonomy.”
But let’s be clear: Even with most Americans on our side, the odds are long. We learned long ago that power and privilege never give up anything without a struggle. Money fights hard, and it fights dirty. Think Rove. The Chamber. The Kochs. We may lose. It all may be impossible. But it’s OK if it’s impossible. Hear the former farmworker and labor organizer Baldema Valesquez on this. The members of his Farm Labor Organizing Committee are a long way from the world of K Street lobbyists. But they took on the Campbell Soup Company – and won. They took on North Carolina growers – and won, using transnational organizing tacts that helped win Valasquez a “genius” award from the MacArthur Foundation. And now they’re taking on no less than R. J. Reynolds Tobacco and one of its principal financial sponsors, JPMorgan-Chase. Some people question the wisdom of taking on such powerful interests, but here’s what Valasquez says: “It’s OK if it’s impossible; it’s OK! Now I’m going to speak to you as organizers. Listen carefully. The object is not to win. That’s not the objective. The object is to do the right and good thing. If you decide not to do anything, because it’s too hard or too impossible, then nothing will be done, and when you’re on your death bed, you’re gonna say, “I wish I had done something. But if you go and do the right thing NOW, and you do it long enough “good things will happen-something’s gonna happen.”