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  3. Vol. 35 No. 1-2 (2010): Africa Development: Special Issue on Language, Literature and Power in the Public Sphere
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Vol. 35 No. 1-2 (2010): Africa Development: Special Issue on Language, Literature and Power in the Public Sphere

Issue Published : May 6, 2011

7 - Towards a New Map of Africa through Rastafari ‘Works’

https://doi.org/10.4314/ad.v35i1-2.70203
Jahlani A. H. Niaah

Corresponding Author(s) : Jahlani A. H. Niaah

bongoniah@yahoo.com

Africa Development, Vol. 35 No. 1-2 (2010): Africa Development: Special Issue on Language, Literature and Power in the Public Sphere
Article Published : September 30, 2021

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Abstract

This paper seeks to broaden the notion of the African Public sphere to include the historical Diaspora by highlighting the works of Mortimo Planno, cultural historian – Rastafari luminary and plenipotentiary – in closing the void between Africa and its Diaspora, through examining Planno’s definition of the African public sphere, as articulated in his general writings and main text: ‘The Earth Most Strangest Man’, as well as travelogues articulating his discourse on Back-to-Africa. Mortimo Planno is credited as having tutored reggae icon Bob Marley and many others in the faith of Rastafari which was to emerge as a new world religion and way of life out of Jamaica. Planno, an outstanding pan- African scholar and activist, travelled to the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom and some fifteen African states, lecturing on the Movement developed in Jamaica, celebrating the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I as God incarnate. For more than fifty years, this elder was seen as the de facto leader of the Rastafari movement of Kingston. The study applies Paulo Freire’s theory of a ‘pedagogy of liberation’ to assess whether Rastafari thinkers such as Planno can be seen as facilitating a trans-Atlantic conscientisation towards remedial African national development and liberation from what Garvey (1927) described as ‘mental slavery’.

Keywords

African Sphere Rastafari Planno Bob Marley

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Niaah, J.A.H. 2021. 7 - Towards a New Map of Africa through Rastafari ‘Works’. Africa Development. 35, 1-2 (Sep. 2021). DOI:https://doi.org/10.4314/ad.v35i1-2.70203.
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References
  1. Bankie, B.F., 2003, ‘Mortimo “Bro Cummie” Planno: The Pan African Nationalist I Know’, unpublished paper, made available by author.
  2. Bayen, M.E., 1937, The Ethiopian World Federation Incorporated, Constitution & By-Laws, August 25, 1937, New York.
  3. Boyce, D.C., ‘Deportable Subjects: US Immigration Laws and the Criminalizing of Communism’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 100: 4 (2001).
  4. Boyce, D.C. & M’Bow, B., 2007, ‘Towards African Diaspora Citizenship: politicizing an Existing Global Geography’, Black Geographies and the Politics of Place, McKittrick and Woods, eds., pp. 14-45, Cambridge, Mass., Between the Lines
  5. & South End Press.
  6. Brodber, E., 1996, ‘Re-engineering Black Space’, Plenary presentation at the Conference on Caribbean Culture, UWI, Mona.
  7. Campbell, H., 1987, Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney, Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.
  8. Chamberlin, J.E., 1999, ‘A Map of the World’, Index on Censorship (4), 110-111. Chevannes, B., 1998, Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews, First Edition, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
  9. Chevannes, B., 1999, ‘Between the Living and the Dead: the Apotheosis of Rastafari Hero’, in J. Pulis, ed., Religion, Diaspora and Cultural Identity (pp. 337-356), Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.
  10. Dawes, K., 1999, [2004]). Natural Mysticism: Towards a New Reggae Aesthetic in Caribbean Writing, Leeds, Great Britain: Peepal Tree Press
  11. Dijk, F.J. van, 1993, Rastafari and Jamaican Society 1930-1990, First Edition, Utrecht: ISOR.
  12. Edmonds, E., 2003, Rastafari: from Outcast to Culture Bearers, Oxford: New York University Press.
  13. Elkins, W.F., 1972, ‘Marcus Garvey and the Negro World’, (pp. 29-45), in W.F. Elkins, ed., Black Power in the Caribbean: The Beginning of the Modern National Movement, Brooklyn: Revisionist Press.
  14. Elkins, W.F., 1977, Street preachers, Faith Healers, and Herb Doctors in Jamaica, 1890-1925, New York: Revisionist Press.
  15. Fanon, F., 1966, The Wretched of the Earth, Middlesex, England: Penguin. Friere, P., 2003, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, and London.
  16. Garvey, A.J., 1986, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, or, Africa for the African, Dover, Massachusetts: The Majority Press.
  17. Gifford, A., 2000, ‘The Legal Basis of the Claim for Slavery Reparations’, Human Rights: Journal of the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, 27(2), 16, 3p, 1bw.
  18. Government of Jamaica, 1961, Mission to Africa Report, Kingston: Government of Jamaica Printer.
  19. Haile Selassie I University Office of Public Relations, 1964, Academic Honours of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I Emperor of Ethiopia: A Commemorative Volume 1924-1963. Addis Ababa: Ethiopia.
  20. Hickling, F., 2004, ‘Popular Theatre as Psychotherapy’, Interventions: International Journal of Post-Colonial Studies. 6: 1, pp. 54-57.
  21. Hill, R., 2001, Dread History: Leonard Howell and Millenarian Visions in the Early Rastafari Religion, Research Association School Times Publication/ Frontline Distribution Intl’ Inc., Kingston, Jamaica.
  22. Homiak, J.P., 1999, ‘Movements of Jah People: From Sound Scapes to Mediascape’, in John Pullis, ed., Religion, Diaspora and Cultural Identity: A Reader in the Anglophone Caribbean, pp. 87-123. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.
  23. Hopkin, E., 1971, ‘The Nyabingi Cult of Southwestern Uganda’, in R.I. Rotberg, ed., Protest and Power in Black Africa (pp. 60-132), Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  24. Howell, L.P., ([1935]), The Promised Key, Kingston: Headstart Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd.
  25. James, W., 1998, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America, First Edition, London & New York: Verso.
  26. King, K.J., 1978, ‘Some Notes on Arnold J. Ford and New World Black Attitudes to Ethiopia’, in Burkett & Newman, eds., Black Apostles: Afro-American Clergy Confronts the Twentieth Century, pp. 49-55, Boston: G. K. Hall.
  27. Lee, H., 2003, The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism, Chicago: Review Press.
  28. Nettleford, R., 1972, Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica, New York: William Morrow & Company.
  29. Niaah, J., 2005, ‘Absent Father(s), Garvey’s Scattered Children and the Back to Africa Movement’, Lead chapter in Negotiating Modernity, Africa’s Ambivalent Experience, Elisio Salvado Macamo, ed., CODESRIA Africa in the New Millennium series, ZED Publisher.
  30. Niaah, J., 2003, ‘Poverty (lab)Oratory: Rastafari and Cultural Studies’, Cultural Studies, 17(6), 24-842.
  31. Planno, M., 1979, ‘The Truth About the Rastafari Movement as told by Brother Cummie’, [Interview by] Tam Fiofori for Spear, Nigeria.
  32. Planno, M., 1983, ‘Head Decay Shuns Needs an Autopsy’, presented at York University. Toronto: Canada (unpublished).
  33. Planno, M., 1996, Earth’s Most Strangest Man: the Rastafarian, New York: Institute for the Study of Man.
  34. Planno, M., 1998a, ‘Polite Violence’, Folk Filosofi Series [Audio cassette recording], Library of the Spoken Word, UWI, Mona.
  35. Planno, M., 1998b, ‘Bob Marley, Christ and Rastafari: the New Faculty of Interpretation’, [Audio cassette recording], Library of the Spoken Word, UWI, Mona.
  36. Planno, M., 1999, ‘From the Cross to the Throne: Rastafari in the New Millennium’, [Audio cassette recording], Library of the Spoken Word, The University of the West Indies, Mona.
  37. Price, C.R., 2003, ‘Cleave to Black: Expressions of Ethiopianism in Jamaica’, New West Indian Guide, 77 (1&2), pp. 31-64.
  38. Reckord, V., 1982, ‘Reggae, Rastafarianism and Cultural Identity’, Jamaica Journal, 46, 3-11.
  39. Rodney, W., 1990, The Groundings with my Brothers, Chicago: Research Associate School Times Publications.
  40. Rodney, W., 1981, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Second Edition, Washington DC: Howard University Press.
  41. Salter, R., 2001, ‘Rastafari in a Global Context: Affinities of “Orthognosy” and “Oneness” in the Expanding World’, (unpublished, made available by Arthur Newland).
  42. Silverberg, R., 1972, The Realm of Prester John, New York: Doubleday & Company.
  43. Simpson, G., 1962, ‘The Ras Tafari Movement in Jamaica in Its Millennial Aspect’, in S. Thrupp, ed., Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study, (pp. 160-165), The Hague: Mouton.
  44. Simpson, G., 1992, ‘Reflections on the Rastafari Movement in Jamaica – West Kingston in the 1950s’, Jamaica Journal, 25(2), pp. 3-10.
  45. Smith, M.G., Augier, R. & Nettleford, R., [1960] 1988, The Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston: Institute for Social and Economic Research.
  46. Talamon, B.W., 1994, Bob Marley: Spirit Dancer, West Indies Publishing Limited, Kingston.
  47. Wynter, S., 1995, ‘The Pope must have been Drunk the King of Castile a Madman: Culture as Actuality, and the Caribbean Rethinking Modernity’, in Taiana, Alvina Ruprecht & Cecilia, eds., The Reordering of Culture: Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada in the Hood, First Edition, Carleton: Carleton University Press.
  48. Yawney, C., 1999, ‘Only Visitors Here: Representing Rastafari into the 21st Century’, in J. Pulis, ed., Religion, Diaspora, and Cultural Identity, Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.
  49. Yawney, C., 2001, ‘Exodus: Rastafari, Repatriation, and the African Renaissance’, African Century Publications Series, No. 4, Pretoria.
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References


Bankie, B.F., 2003, ‘Mortimo “Bro Cummie” Planno: The Pan African Nationalist I Know’, unpublished paper, made available by author.

Bayen, M.E., 1937, The Ethiopian World Federation Incorporated, Constitution & By-Laws, August 25, 1937, New York.

Boyce, D.C., ‘Deportable Subjects: US Immigration Laws and the Criminalizing of Communism’, South Atlantic Quarterly, 100: 4 (2001).

Boyce, D.C. & M’Bow, B., 2007, ‘Towards African Diaspora Citizenship: politicizing an Existing Global Geography’, Black Geographies and the Politics of Place, McKittrick and Woods, eds., pp. 14-45, Cambridge, Mass., Between the Lines

& South End Press.

Brodber, E., 1996, ‘Re-engineering Black Space’, Plenary presentation at the Conference on Caribbean Culture, UWI, Mona.

Campbell, H., 1987, Rasta and Resistance: From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney, Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.

Chamberlin, J.E., 1999, ‘A Map of the World’, Index on Censorship (4), 110-111. Chevannes, B., 1998, Rastafari and Other African-Caribbean Worldviews, First Edition, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Chevannes, B., 1999, ‘Between the Living and the Dead: the Apotheosis of Rastafari Hero’, in J. Pulis, ed., Religion, Diaspora and Cultural Identity (pp. 337-356), Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.

Dawes, K., 1999, [2004]). Natural Mysticism: Towards a New Reggae Aesthetic in Caribbean Writing, Leeds, Great Britain: Peepal Tree Press

Dijk, F.J. van, 1993, Rastafari and Jamaican Society 1930-1990, First Edition, Utrecht: ISOR.

Edmonds, E., 2003, Rastafari: from Outcast to Culture Bearers, Oxford: New York University Press.

Elkins, W.F., 1972, ‘Marcus Garvey and the Negro World’, (pp. 29-45), in W.F. Elkins, ed., Black Power in the Caribbean: The Beginning of the Modern National Movement, Brooklyn: Revisionist Press.

Elkins, W.F., 1977, Street preachers, Faith Healers, and Herb Doctors in Jamaica, 1890-1925, New York: Revisionist Press.

Fanon, F., 1966, The Wretched of the Earth, Middlesex, England: Penguin. Friere, P., 2003, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, and London.

Garvey, A.J., 1986, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, or, Africa for the African, Dover, Massachusetts: The Majority Press.

Gifford, A., 2000, ‘The Legal Basis of the Claim for Slavery Reparations’, Human Rights: Journal of the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, 27(2), 16, 3p, 1bw.

Government of Jamaica, 1961, Mission to Africa Report, Kingston: Government of Jamaica Printer.

Haile Selassie I University Office of Public Relations, 1964, Academic Honours of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I Emperor of Ethiopia: A Commemorative Volume 1924-1963. Addis Ababa: Ethiopia.

Hickling, F., 2004, ‘Popular Theatre as Psychotherapy’, Interventions: International Journal of Post-Colonial Studies. 6: 1, pp. 54-57.

Hill, R., 2001, Dread History: Leonard Howell and Millenarian Visions in the Early Rastafari Religion, Research Association School Times Publication/ Frontline Distribution Intl’ Inc., Kingston, Jamaica.

Homiak, J.P., 1999, ‘Movements of Jah People: From Sound Scapes to Mediascape’, in John Pullis, ed., Religion, Diaspora and Cultural Identity: A Reader in the Anglophone Caribbean, pp. 87-123. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.

Hopkin, E., 1971, ‘The Nyabingi Cult of Southwestern Uganda’, in R.I. Rotberg, ed., Protest and Power in Black Africa (pp. 60-132), Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Howell, L.P., ([1935]), The Promised Key, Kingston: Headstart Printing & Publishing Co. Ltd.

James, W., 1998, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America, First Edition, London & New York: Verso.

King, K.J., 1978, ‘Some Notes on Arnold J. Ford and New World Black Attitudes to Ethiopia’, in Burkett & Newman, eds., Black Apostles: Afro-American Clergy Confronts the Twentieth Century, pp. 49-55, Boston: G. K. Hall.

Lee, H., 2003, The First Rasta: Leonard Howell and the Rise of Rastafarianism, Chicago: Review Press.

Nettleford, R., 1972, Identity, Race and Protest in Jamaica, New York: William Morrow & Company.

Niaah, J., 2005, ‘Absent Father(s), Garvey’s Scattered Children and the Back to Africa Movement’, Lead chapter in Negotiating Modernity, Africa’s Ambivalent Experience, Elisio Salvado Macamo, ed., CODESRIA Africa in the New Millennium series, ZED Publisher.

Niaah, J., 2003, ‘Poverty (lab)Oratory: Rastafari and Cultural Studies’, Cultural Studies, 17(6), 24-842.

Planno, M., 1979, ‘The Truth About the Rastafari Movement as told by Brother Cummie’, [Interview by] Tam Fiofori for Spear, Nigeria.

Planno, M., 1983, ‘Head Decay Shuns Needs an Autopsy’, presented at York University. Toronto: Canada (unpublished).

Planno, M., 1996, Earth’s Most Strangest Man: the Rastafarian, New York: Institute for the Study of Man.

Planno, M., 1998a, ‘Polite Violence’, Folk Filosofi Series [Audio cassette recording], Library of the Spoken Word, UWI, Mona.

Planno, M., 1998b, ‘Bob Marley, Christ and Rastafari: the New Faculty of Interpretation’, [Audio cassette recording], Library of the Spoken Word, UWI, Mona.

Planno, M., 1999, ‘From the Cross to the Throne: Rastafari in the New Millennium’, [Audio cassette recording], Library of the Spoken Word, The University of the West Indies, Mona.

Price, C.R., 2003, ‘Cleave to Black: Expressions of Ethiopianism in Jamaica’, New West Indian Guide, 77 (1&2), pp. 31-64.

Reckord, V., 1982, ‘Reggae, Rastafarianism and Cultural Identity’, Jamaica Journal, 46, 3-11.

Rodney, W., 1990, The Groundings with my Brothers, Chicago: Research Associate School Times Publications.

Rodney, W., 1981, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Second Edition, Washington DC: Howard University Press.

Salter, R., 2001, ‘Rastafari in a Global Context: Affinities of “Orthognosy” and “Oneness” in the Expanding World’, (unpublished, made available by Arthur Newland).

Silverberg, R., 1972, The Realm of Prester John, New York: Doubleday & Company.

Simpson, G., 1962, ‘The Ras Tafari Movement in Jamaica in Its Millennial Aspect’, in S. Thrupp, ed., Millennial Dreams in Action: Essays in Comparative Study, (pp. 160-165), The Hague: Mouton.

Simpson, G., 1992, ‘Reflections on the Rastafari Movement in Jamaica – West Kingston in the 1950s’, Jamaica Journal, 25(2), pp. 3-10.

Smith, M.G., Augier, R. & Nettleford, R., [1960] 1988, The Ras Tafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica, Kingston: Institute for Social and Economic Research.

Talamon, B.W., 1994, Bob Marley: Spirit Dancer, West Indies Publishing Limited, Kingston.

Wynter, S., 1995, ‘The Pope must have been Drunk the King of Castile a Madman: Culture as Actuality, and the Caribbean Rethinking Modernity’, in Taiana, Alvina Ruprecht & Cecilia, eds., The Reordering of Culture: Latin America, the Caribbean and Canada in the Hood, First Edition, Carleton: Carleton University Press.

Yawney, C., 1999, ‘Only Visitors Here: Representing Rastafari into the 21st Century’, in J. Pulis, ed., Religion, Diaspora, and Cultural Identity, Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.

Yawney, C., 2001, ‘Exodus: Rastafari, Repatriation, and the African Renaissance’, African Century Publications Series, No. 4, Pretoria.

Author Biography

Jahlani A. H. Niaah

Institute of Caribbean Studies, Faculty of Humanities & Education, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica. Email: bongoniah@yahoo.com

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