In the video on Rastafari some of the symbols I found were the signs posted around the village, the houses, the fire on top of the mountain, and the turban/dreadlocks. My interpretation of these symbols is not solely based on the video. I am applying the reading to video to assist in the understanding of the symbols. The signs with R/X placed around the village are I think perhaps the most symbolic of the Rastafari outlook on society, right over wrong and black over white. All of the houses being painted red, green, yellow, and black I also feel is symbolic of their homeland Africa. The fire on the mountain top that remain continually lit could represent the ever present divinity within everything and that connects everything. The video didn't say a whole lot about the significance of the turban that I could understand, but it did mention dreadlocks. The symbolism of the dreads in the video supports all that the book said about them but in the video you can see the dreadlocks are treated with a sort of reverence that show the importance of the dreads and what they stand for.
The rastafari life portrayed in the video is different than the way of life discussed in the book, but both are different than what I had envisioned. All I knew before this class was Bob Marley and pot smoking, but I never had a great understanding of how they fit together. From Marley's music I associated Rastafarian ideals with "one love" and equality and freedom. I was very surprised at the emphasis placed on violence, I expected something like Gandhi's peaceful resistance. I also didn't realize how strongly the rastafians felt about race. I knew it was a black power sort of thing, but I don't know how closed of it is to white people. Reading some of the comments on the video we watched I see that people have different opinions of whether or not white people can be rastafari. I've never before thought of rastafari as a religion probably because as the book says it is very individualized. Because of the "one love" idea I think that all races should be accepted, but if you look at the major ideas outlined in the book it becomes difficult to see these beliefs being adopted completely be whites. I think this race issue will have to be addressed in the rastafarian culture, because I think the younger generations are less likely to view whites as bad. However, I could see this issue being left up to the individual to decide and the elders not changing any ideology for it, but I do think the ideology takes a pretty clear stance on the race issue by associating all whites with Babylon.
Also just to leave thing on an interesting note... one of the mental images I have of Bob Marley is of him shaking his hair like he is in the picture to the left. Now after reading this book I have to wonder if this is Bob Marley caught up in the moment on stage or intentionally releasing the earthforce built up in his dreads to destroy Babylon.
I was thinking the same thing about Bob Marley shaking his dreads as a possible communication with the spirits. To me, being able to grow dreadlocks in itself is Strongly spiritual in a Rasta sense. So, being onstage and dancing to the music (which also has religious references in the power of the words sung) with dreadlocks is a spiritual gesture. But, I think that he does intentionally shake his dreads, even though the shaking is to the beat of the music. There is a 2-part spiritual expression.
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