Gender & Rastafari: A Personal Perspective

[Bantu_Kelani]

It is my observation that most Rastafarians locate their roots in the Bible, which they erroneously interpret as the Book of and by ancient Africans. Rastafarians male therefore expects to exercise power and authority in the family by virtue of being the male since they learned it in the European patriarchy books. The Brahmins (the priests of the lighter Indo-Aryans), the murder cult Societies whether Islam, Christianity, Hebrew or Judaism all teach the supremacy of the culture of the patriarchal male worshipping as opposed to the more female oriented culture Goddess worshipped by our ancient ancestors from the very creation of man.

Misogyny reigns supreme throughout the world today, it is true and understandable for since the time of Moses (4000 years) we have followed the way of life taught to us by the white race. We have the history on their attitude towards women who they see as inferior, being representatives of Eve the temptress who conspired with the serpent of mortal knowledge to cause Adam (the male) to sink into the doom of the inferior world. This bigoted legend was not written when the Original people (the Blacks) inhabited the earth before the making of white men. African patriarchy appeared when we the Black people all followed what the white race offered to us in the way of male-female relationship.

THERE CAN BE NO PERFECT HARMONY WITHOUT PERFECT EQUALITY for our ancient ancestors knew perfectly well that the Infinite One was the embodiment of plural (Cosmic) forces that produce and accomplish things Divine. The ancient priests and sages made it understandable to the layman by symbolizing the marriage, the combining action of two or several gods in their sacred books, writings, inscriptions and legends. Thus for instance we find the god Osiris married the goddess Isis and produced Horus. Horus represented the Sun. The Sun was the ruler of the whole world, its laws governed all people of the ancient world, and when its egalitarian laws and symbols were shunned or usurped the whole world became chaotic.

In the Rastafarian culture no change has occurred as the male role in the relation to the female still appears to be one of empowerment. Our loss of knowledge of how to cope with the family unit was due to the fact that we live under the rule of the white race whose Nature was not like ours. Taking them for a guide is the mistake that we the lost Black people have made and continue to make. They intend not to follow the course of our God, the God of Equality, Truth, Justice and Freedom. It just shows how wicked they are. They only preach theologies and bigotry.

Bantu-Kelani.

[Tyehimba]

THERE CAN BE NO PERFECT HARMONY WITHOUT PERFECT EQUALITY for our ancient ancestors knew perfectly well that the Infinite One was the embodiment of plural (Cosmic) forces that produce and accomplish things Divine.

Yes Kelani, the Patriarchal nature of Western Civilization is a mindset that has to be overcome in righting the injustices and imbalances that are so pervasive. Mainstream culture and religion including Islam, Christianity and Judaism all perpetuate this imblance that is imbedded in their teachings and 'texts'. The conditioning is so total that it is not even realised as a problem, and it is a problem that many has become acustomed to and therefore accepts.

It is just as hard for males to overcome this conditioning of male arrogance as it is for whites to overcome the reality of their priveleges and role within the scheme of things.
Even with those that call themselves Rastafarians, gender discrimination is rife in spite of all the fancy names given to females. e.g Queen, Royal Princess etc. Women must define themselves, and in doing this they will contribute towards righting the current imbalance in this physical world. The feminine princicple is extremely important in overcome the ills caused by male ego/arrogance.

[Rootsie]

It is also difficult for females not to buy into this conditioning. I realize a pattern in my own life of 'blowing off' females for the sake of males, of using my female friends to either get advice about males or complain about males. I have seen other females as my enemies, as competitors for the attention of males. I have been arrogant in my assessment of other females, assuming superiority because of my 'male' intellect.  I have assessed my own worth according to my 'having' of a male, or my knowledge that males want me.  So I have participated in my own oppression.

To undo these years of ignorance based upon false teachings, we must be willing to be mercilessly honest with our own selves, and see how we, even as 'victims' have contributed to the ongoing imbalance.

Because the Indo-Aryan invaders brought with them their male god of war and storm, they found it neccessary to overthrow the matrilineal goddess-loving cultures they conquered. Everyone wants to talk about the Bible as real history. Well one thing the Bible is a history of FOR SURE is the history of these invaders tearing down the female in favor of the male, starting with the Adam and Eve story. In their daily prayers to this day, Jews thank God they were not born female.

Rootsie

[Kebo]

When new religions come into the world they are snatched up by the prevailing powers. And the prevailing authority wears the religion like a mask to attract citizens to obey its command. Citizens are lured by the promise of the religion only to be duped and chewed up and spit out. The prevailing authorities of this age are male-dominated systems.

The rise of male authority in the world is synonomous with the rise of the animalistic instincts of humanity. Fear, ignorance, strength, violence. These characteristics of humanity when unleashed naturally rule over the human qualities summed up by the female. Temperance, rationality, caring, giving. How do these peaceful qualities symbolized by the woman get the other qualities moderated? For one, I think that the female gender can do like the Africans are doing, and revive their history. Resurrect the powers and wonders of the Woman for the world to see. Perhaps if more men and women could see what the qualities that the Woman is really made of, both genders would praise these qualities within themselves instead of suppress them.

It must be ignorance that holds one half of humanity captive and so holds the whole of humanity captive and threatens it with destruction. Once again history and education and spreading the message may be the key to the restoration of justice and the cultivation of the grounds of human prosperity.

Kebo

[Tyehimba]

"Many discouraging hours will arise before the rainbow of accomplished goals will appear on the horizon.  African civilization in its potential magnitude must be able to command fortitude, patience, tolerance and diligence.  To sustain us in all our tasks we count on the women of Africa.  Without their relentless vigilance, no aspect of our responsibilities can be attained."
Emperor Haile Selassie

[Bantu_Kelani]

The enemies of our people have consistently omitted and rewritten OURstory to justify their oppression of African women. As conscious people we must work to emancipate African women, it should be the PRIME objective of all Africanists and Pan-Africanists!

" By her active and courageous role in the struggle to win national sovereignty, African women have earned the unwritten right to play a full part in the national reconstruction and in the historical rehabilitation of our people. " Sekou Ture.

Bantu-Kelani.

[Ras Mandingo]

This macho mentality is sick. Most of this men have no idea of what the hole of a man is in creation. I hear a lot of man wanting to be the decisive voice in a family just ebcause they are man. I see a big difficulty of this machos to realize and utilize their feminine aspects o fpersonality to learn how to relate with the most sensitive feminine aspect. We all have masciline and feminine aspects inside of us as we all are the result of the union of a man and a women. Until we learn how to identify with that and learn how to utilize it to have a nice communication and balance between man and woman we won't be able to develop.

Majority of "machos" are really insecure people and a lot of them are also homosexuals, which is a reason why they are so agressive to women.

A lot of machos have difficulty to express themselves openly and dislike listening to the heart.

I see man x woman relation like this:

as they have diferent functions, one complement the perspective of the other abd tha't why I feel man and woman are opposite complementaries.

Women are more related to the results of the past in the present, they naturally have an hability to revise what's going on and reason with the man about that.

Man is more related to future realization and is always stimulating the woman to move forward also.

I see this as a natural consequence of the natural laws. Women is a receptive earthly force and man is a creative celestial force. Women is the earth and man is the sky. When one touch the other there's life... and one can't live without the other.

About this macho perception, people tend to talk only about God and forget Godess, but God can't create alone, and that's why he called his Godess when he said in Genesis: Come let's make man/woman our image and semilarity. Because people think only about God, one the worst consequences is the disrespect with the nature and with mother earth.

Also insane is the tradition of catholic prists that can't get marrried and have to go in celibacy for political reasons, and then after abusing some child will go to celebrate a marriage and even give marital advices with no experience about it. One of the most terrible thoughts they put in people's minds is the idea that pleasure is a sin and this creates perverted minds who see a "genital hug" as fu** and then seeing woman as a sexual object.

One thing I know, if a man don't listen to what his woman has to tell him he will be in trouble no doubt, sooner or later.

In chinese carachteres the one that represents the human beeing is a symbol that is the union between man and woman, which means that only man or only woman won't represent the totality of the human beeing. There's the representation of a human beeing when there's man and woman together...and then there's life!!!

I love the womans and I give all the respect to them. I love working with womans!!!! They are usually more organize, open to personal points, lovelly, affective and very attentive.

I learn a lot from women as they always a perspective that complements and wides my own.

Man has tended to use phisical force to try to submit woman as he knows that they usually have more argumetns then them, and as their arguments and when they are rude man, they will go for violence. So, mas has tried to submit woman for centuries with fear of beeing submited himself. Nowadays men in general is in a crisis trying to find his male function in this modern world.

One wrong perspective in my view is when people talk about equality between man and woman, they are different and that's why one complement the other...what we need is equal rights.

If we don't learn that women are the ones who control (and the matriarcal societies are the msot evolutive and natural ones) we won't be long in this planet.

One thing that makes me scared is when I see how women is loosing the originality. Brasil is the country whith the biggest number of cesarium births in teh world. A natural birht is not so comom anymore. women are loosing the capacity of giving natural birht and even the ones who could do so are usually brainwashed by doctors who just want the fastest and most lucrative way of doing things. One thing that should be so natural now women get ill when is going to give birth. aslo, a lot of woman are beeing sterelized (specially black woman) without their knowledge and/or aproval wich sound to me like a conspiracy to stop (back) people from coming to life.

Other thing is the different prejudice between a black and a white woman.

I'm married with a black woman and I learn everyday by observation of the things she tells me daily of street experiences. People have the tendency to think that a black woman is always availible as a sex object and they aprroach black woman in a totally different way they would do with a white woman. Last week I went to the police station to denounce a case of racism and gender prejudice because my wife's ex-boss wanted to offer her money to have sex (as he feels she must be a prostitute if she is a young and beautiful black woman. Now this case is moving. She didn't want to go there but I told her she deserves a reparation for moral agression and she went there with me.

I have so much to say on this topic but I don't want to get people bored because of a too long post.

Give thanks for the reasoning,

Mandingo.

[Kingston]

Yes...

Talib Kweli has a lyric that I think fits into place here.

He states..."Women thrive on emotions that men refuse to acknowledge so when we argue nobody wins."

To me this states all that we need to know in order to successfully relate to eachother.  I believe that when in a relationship we must realize that we are two different people working together towards one goal.  We each have our areas of specialty making us stronger than any one person and we must look at it as such.  There is no competition between the two rather it is acknowledged that there is more strength in two working together in harmony.

I have been in a relationship since I was 19, I am now 25 and this, although a problem at first, is what I attribute our success too.  

It is my feeling that the man has a bigger problem in working as a unit and has a more difficult time adjusting their thought.

Can this be linked to something as early as childhood?  Girls play with fashion dolls whereas boys are playing with firefighter action figures.  

Thanks for the topic.

..Kingston..

[Bantu_Kelani]

It was in the latter civilizations of the white race that we see the destruction of sacred female icons. The Hyskos, Aryan Hebrews or Jews, Mohammedans and Christians became the persecutors of the early female Deities oriented civilizations and all their idols and temples. They persecuted and destroyed our female rulers, priestesses and scholars to impose their male Deity and patriarchy orders of society. This disappointment and practice crept into Rastafari and its beliefs into controlling women really bothers me.. Misogyny is the foundation of racism, blasphemy, arrogance and actually the sole aspirations of thieves.

The African people were the only group of humans on this planet who honored matrilineal and matriarchal societies. When Africa was at her Zenith, women held all the rights. It well-known that African women played an important role in encouraging useful institution and discoveries and their moral and political influences was in favor of advancement of civil liberty. Consequently Africans were much more spiritual and had much more integrity.

It is a shame Rastafari is still a patriarchal movement. In many instances in their household the female is still guided by the male despite the hard work of BOTH males and females. Recognizing that Babylon is hostile to what Rastafari is or stand for without fighting its ill-intentioned patriarchal structure in the family is utter hypocrisy! The outcome of their discussions is aloof to me.


Bantu-Kelani.

[Kebo]

Bantu Kelani:
"The African people were the only group of humans on this planet who honored matrilineal and matriarchal societies. When Africa was at her Zenith, women held all the rights."

This may be true but ancient socities outside of Africa also held women in high regard and worshipped the Goddess, according to Riane Eisler's research in the Chalice and the Blade. This was the case until the disruption by the nomadic invasions of the Kurgans who brought the blade and male domination.

Kebo

[Rootsie]

See that's what bothers me about The Chalice and the Blade:she talks about 'old Europe' without mentioning Ancient Africa at all, which was the source of all those cultures.

The book Dawn Voyage by Michael Bradley is good to read about this.

Also Bernal spends much of Black Athena vol. I proving that Minoan Crete, which Eisler examines in detail, is straight-up Egyptian.

Rootsie

[Kebo]

It is curious and disappointing that Eisler didn't cover Africa in the Chalice and the Blade. But, even if Europe was born from Africa it may have had a peaceful root before the corruption.

[Rootsie]

Well I think it did, but only in Southern Europe and along the Atlantic Coast. The point is that the features of those cultures which Eisler celebrates were African in origin. This is history that has been distorted and suppressed, so it's always important to point it out.

[Kebo]

I agree and say that its essential to point out the origin, but its also essential to stand up for the truth of every man's origin, even the Europeans. Contrary to the vibe that goes around that Europe is corrupt to the bone, history may be showing that Europe isn't so corrupt in its origin, and that information if its true will be essential for the development of Europeans. And that also goes for the white race.

As whites and Europeans discover the negativity in their history, so too they have the right to discover the positive, and it makes sense to me that the roots of whites and Europeans are positive. As whites we don't have the biological right to draw our pride from Africa, we've got to draw it from Europe.

Kebo

[Bantu_Kelani]

This may be true but ancient socities outside of Africa also held women in high regard and worshipped the Goddess, according to Riane Eisler's research in the Chalice and the Blade. This was the case until the disruption by the nomadic invasions of the Kurgans who brought the blade and male domination.

Kebo

Indeed, check out ancient India, China, Native Central and North America they also practiced integrity and were advanced Civilizations.  

I agree and say that its essential to point out the origin, but its also essential to stand up for the truth of every man's origin, even the Europeans. Contrary to the vibe that goes around that Europe is corrupt to the bone, history may be showing that Europe isn't so corrupt in its origin, and that information if its true will be essential for the development of Europeans. And that also goes for the white race.

As whites and Europeans discover the negativity in their history, so too they have the right to discover the positive, and it makes sense to me that the roots of whites and Europeans are positive. As whites we don't have the biological right to draw our pride from Africa, we've got to draw it from Europe.

Kebo

You Europeans, European-Americans, whites receive a steady diet of your greatness as a people. Your homes display the symbols of your European art, accomplishment and dignity. The media provides you with constant parade of white beauty excellence in all spheres. Even your mistakes are shown to be accomplishments.  It's no wonder you Caucasians are convinced of you superior intellect. When we Blacks do the same and discuss our history that will not result in mis-education we meet condemnation and are being called radicals or RACISTS.

But don't kid yourself whether you like it or not African people of the ancient world were the FIRST group of humans who actually practiced integrity and their political influence was in favor of the most advanced Civilizations and civil liberty. Their temples were supreme among the temples of the Mysteries. Our ancients ancestors were wise and thoughtful for those who were to come after them so they taught the Babylonians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Brahmins, Chinese and Olmecs the skills and knowledge of religion, literature, geometry, music, astronomy, biology etc..We are the genesis of academy, diplomacy, science, priesthood and history! No only this can be found on the oldest records of man but this can be found in archeology. I know that there are many that hate and despise us for who we are and our position as FIRST AND LEADER in the genesis of man, and want to attempt to hide our history, but no matter where you dig YOU'LL FIND US! Again, let us go back to the ancient records of the indigenous people of the earth and you will see!

Bantu-Kelani