2009
01.31
01.31
Some Rastas maintain that a white racist patriarchy (“Babylon”) controls the world in order to oppress the African race. They believe that Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia did not die when it was reported in 1975, and that the racist, white media (again, “Babylon”) propagated that rumour in order to squash the Rastafari Movement and its message of overthrowing Babylon.
Other Rastafarians, however, believe in peace and unity, and interpret Babylon as a metaphor for the established “system” that oppresses (or “downpresses,” in Rasta terminology) groups such as Africans and the world’s poor.