What exactly does this mean?
To chant that “we are all human” is a sweet and cute idea – it really is, even a brilliant one in an ideal world – but that idea alone will not gain us our freedom.
NO JUSTICE NO PEACE means that as long as INJUSTICE prevails, acting peacefully is a MORAL IMPOSSIBLY. It is our duty and RESPONSE-ABILITY to rise up and FIGHT against injustice, and to do so vehemently, urgently, boldly, and yes…even violently.
In 1962, John F. Kennedy famously said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
The honorable Malcolm X on revolution:
"You don't have a peaceful revolution. You don't have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There's no such thing as a nonviolent revolution. The only kind of revolution that's nonviolent is the Negro revolution. The only revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. ... Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. And you, sitting around here like a knot on the wall, saying, "I'm going to love these folks no matter how much they hate me." No, you need a revolution. Whoever heard of a revolution where they lock arms, singing "We Shall Overcome"? You don't do that in a revolution. You don't do any singing, you're too busy swinging."
RASTA RESISTANCE, RACE AND REVOLUTION
The forces that created the foundations of RasTafari were inspired by the revolutions of Maroons, Nyahbingi, Garveyism, Ethiopianism and Pan-AfriKan movements. There is a gross misconception that RasTafari is all about “One Love”, a pacifist movement of sorts. It was NEVER that for Black People. It only became so with the whitewashing of hippy-like flower children coming into RasTafari. It seems as if they expected us to “get together and feel alright”, and how we all should love one another, but this is UNREALISTIC and is a DANGEROUS FALLACY in the face of ONGOING PERSECUTION.
It is said by INI that “ANYWHERE RASTAFARI GO WHITE BWOY FOLLOW”
Rasta has ALWAYS and will always chant AFRIKA FOR THE AFRIKAN, AT HOME AND ABROAD. Somehow, this gets twisted by whites who now feel that because they have embraced Rastafari, and Hail, Emperor Haile Selassie I as the Almighty, you now have a right to dilute the Afrikan Revolutionary Foundation of RasTafari into some kind of colorless pacifist movement.
FIYAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"I am every Rosa Parks whose dignity you could not take,
Every Patrice Lumumba you silenced,
I am every Mau Mau soldier you vilified,
Every Marcus Garvey whose revolution you could not tame,
I am every Nelson Mandela you jailed,
And every Eric Garner you Profiled.
I am every Maya Angelou whose pen never rests,
Counselled by the spirit of Nyabinghi that will never hate,
But always denounce oppression,
With a voice unflinching,
My echoes will only get louder,
Until my brothers and sisters are every Django Unchained.
Then I will look to you,
With the same love I bear within,
And unparalleled exuberance,
And say...
“We are now… ONE”
By Sanna Arman
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