You said:
“THERE IS NO SEPERATING HAILE SELASSIE I FROM THE RASTAFARI MOVEMENT....if you do that it is not RASTAFARI anymore.”

This is quite different from those who get on as if every Black African who comes here has to proclaim that Haile Selassie is their ‘God’ and should uphold the Christian bible. For I, respect for all concerned is good enough. That does not necessarily mean people have to agree with any side in the debate.

There was never an agreement on how all Rastas should deal with the presence of Haile Selassie. Certainly his significance to Caribbean Blacks is there, and no one can change that. Gman gave a fair reminder of that. The history of Marcus Garvey’s significance is also there. No one can change that, although many online unwittingly play down the significance of Garvey and go along with Whites who have not addressed their superiority complexes and privileges.

It is not disrespectful to Marcus Garvey and Haile Selassie that we can learn from them both and use the best available information today to build on what they left behind. Doing so does not take anything away from them.

What is also strange is that a FEW of those who seem adamant that Selassie is God and DEMAND that it should be so for everyone, are just into semantics. They tolerate the vilest conduct and disrespect to other Black Africans. They would embrace Whites to help fight down other Black Africans, then want to play they have this god thing worked out.

If you want Rastafari to be a private club for your preferred group of people, then sir, you too will have to form your own movement. Here we welcome Black African views. We will always remain open to our Indigenous African concepts and values, including those that disagree with much of what you and I think Rastafari is supposed to be about. I am cool once people are putting forward ideas that are in our collective Black African best interest.

In case you did not know, we have an open invitation to ALL Black Africans to participate here in the hope of making the Rastafari Movement more relevant to ALL Africans.