Why is Bob Marley an icon of human rights?

By: Silke Wünsch

When Bob Marley appeared in June 1980 to sing on the stage of the Sports Hall in Cologne, the Jamaican musician showed signs of illness. But, his brilliance won over the eight thousand spectators, especially when he sang the song The payback song [Redemption Song]: all alone in the luminous cone of a light projector, surrounded by clouds of smoke created by hundreds of hashish cigarettes passed through the audience from hand to hand.

A year later Marley died - on May 11, 1981, from cancer. He was 36 years old. But his political and spiritual messages are still alive today and will continue to live in his songs.

Bob Marley launched reggae music and its messages to the world so convincingly that UNESCO has included this type of music in the world's spiritual heritage and today reggae is played everywhere in the world. The biographical film A love [One Love], will erect another monument to Bob Marley.

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At the age of 22, Bob Marley discovered the Rastafarian religion. This religion was created about 100 years ago. The moment of creation marks the day when Haile Selassie I was crowned emperor of Ethiopia on November 2, 1930. A few years earlier, Jamaican activist Marcus Garvey had prophesied the coronation in Africa of a powerful black king who would bring liberation from shackles. for all people of color. Selassie's original name was Ras Tafari Makkonen. "Ras" means "Count" in Amharic, the language spoken in Ethiopia. Believers of the Rastafarian religion saw in him the resurrection of Christ and treated him as if he were the living god on Earth. Many parts of the belief in the Rastafarian religion refer to the Bible, especially the Old Testament.

Believers of the Rastafarian religion believe in a spiritual return to Africa, to the promised land, Ethiopia. Black Jamaicans are descendants of slaves who were forcibly brought from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean. Believers of this religion want to achieve a cultural change with the help of faith, to change the culture created by the enslavement of their ancestors. To create a life as natural and close to nature as possible, with the principles of love and peace, of justice, unity and justice, as well as the fight against Babylon - a synonym for the "western world" that has brought so many disasters to the people African. Babylon is also synonymous with Jamaica, the place where their ancestors were brought as slaves.

Rastafarian believers are against any form of political, cultural and religious subjugation of man. Thus, this religion is a worldwide movement with followers among people of different skin colors. Today, their number - worldwide - is estimated to be 700 thousand to one million. Wearing curly hair [dreadlocks] some believers want to deliberately distance themselves from the upper class of society. The historical roots of this hairstyle originate with the Mau-Mau freedom fighters who fought in Kenya against colonial Britain. Believers of the Rastafarian religion identify with them. The smoking of marijuana, associated with them, serves more to expand consciousness than to disturb the mind and is not necessarily part of the Rastafarian religion.

Bob Marley, who is considered to be the first world star to come from a developing country, made both reggae music and the Rastafarian faith known to the whole world. This music was born in the 1960s in Jamaica, at a time when social unrest and gangsters made the country's streets unsafe. DJs, who made music on the street with their castophones (mobile discotheques), developed this type of sound by taking influence from better known genres - such as mento, ska, soul and jazz. Bob Marley was an important participant in these developments.

The laid-back yet driving rhythm is best suited for spreading positive messages of peace and love. Bob Marley's lyrics use a lot of religious rhetoric, yet they are down-to-earth and talk about the problems of a discriminated minority, about ghettos, slavery and injustice. The Rastafarian faith accompanies Marley's songs as a common denominator.

Stand up, resist [Get up, stand up] was created after Bob Marley went to Haiti where, apparently, he was shocked by the poverty that reigned there under the Duvalier dictatorship (1957-1986). The text calls on people to fight for their rights and not to give up. The song encourages people to trust their own judgment, while being seen as the organization's unofficial anthem Amnesty International.

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Song Exodus [Exodus] deals with the return to Africa of the Rastafarian faith. The text reads: "Are you satisfied with the life you lead? We know where we are going, we know where we come from, we are fleeing from Babylon, we are going to the land of our fathers... Exile is the movement of the people of Yahu (God)".

In the song Zimbabwe [Zimbabwe], Bob Marley urges Africans to liberate Zimbabwe which – being a British colony – bears the name Rhodesia. At Zimbabwe's independence celebrations, Marley performed this song in real time. It became the country's unofficial national anthem.

"No woman, no screaming" [No woman No Cry] one would first remember that this title says. But Bob Marley wanted to say something else, something comforting, because in the language of the residents of Trenchtown, "No Woman, No Cry" means: "No, woman, don't cry"! Trenchtown is the ghetto of the Jamaican capital, Kingston – the neighborhood where Bob Marley grew up. The song reflects life there characterized by poverty and strong family gangs that help each other. The song was composed when Marley was sitting in the yard and listening to how a woman in the neighborhood was crying.

The payback song it's the trail Marley left behind. There are many recordings of it, but in fact he wanted to have only a clean voice and guitar version, leaving out the other instruments, in order to increase the intensity of the song. In this song, Marley quotes Rastafarian prophet Marcus Garvey, who in 1937 said in a radio speech: “Emancipate yourself from mental slavery; no one else can free their minds." The slavery of the ancestors must disappear from the heads of the people; only when one has a free spirit is one truly free. These thoughts, and knowing that he would soon die, inspired Bob Marley to compose The payback song, a song with which he still gives hope to many people in the world. /DW/