Rastafarism and weed
This article will be about one of the most famous symbol of rastafarism : weed . Our article will be a commentary of an article on the “Friends of cannabis” website. Their article is about Bob Marley’s love for weed .It talks about the singer’s justification for herb consumption and problems he had with justice because of that .
Before commenting this article we must tell why cannabis is a symbol of rastafarism . Because rastafarism is a religion ,his adepts considers weed as a symbol because they see several references to it in the Bible. We can quote few sentences as “eat every herb of the land." (Exodus 10:12) or "Better is a dinner of herb where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred there with." (Proverbs 15:17). Herb is clearly a reference to poverty and men unity with their land . To make this idea be clearer we must know one of the others rastafarism symbol : the flag.There are three colors on the flag ( red, yellow and green ). Red for the blood , yellow for the gold Europeans stole to Africans and green for the land they have been taken from .Weed is then a way to express their love for Africa because as Bob Marley said “ Herb is the healing of a nation, alcohol is the destruction" .We can go further saying that it also expresses sadness or nostalgia for Africa .
Moreover weed is worship because according to them it has been created by God .The friends of cannabis article quote Bob Marley saying” How could a plant created by God be made illegal by humans? "You mean they can tell God that it's not legal?" to a Canadian journalist.
Marley associates weed ban to a persecution .He says Babylon crucified Jesus . Weed ban can be considered has a way to keep Rastafari from reminding Africa and a way to keep them as slaves .
As we said before Marley loved weed , he “went to jail for marijuana, as did all three founding members of the Wailers”. He named one of his album “ Kaya” wich is a word for cannabis .
To conclude this article we will comment a Marley quotation : "Music and herb go together. It's been a long time now I smoke herb from 1960s, when I first start singing." Why does he say that music and herb go together ? First of all weed can be consider as way to get inspiration for music as he also say “When you smoke the herb, it reveals you to yourself” whereas music would be a way of expressing love and pain .
http://www.friendsofcannabis.com/friends/bob_marley.htm
Jesse Kinvi