Babylon a fall!
Oct. 4th, 2008 02:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusOne thing the current financial crisis ought to be making us say (though I haven't seen anyone saying it yet) is "Shit, the Rastafarians were right -- Babylon a fall!". These past couple of weeks have seen the Rastafarian concept of Babylon looking stronger and smarter, and our own concepts about the efficiency and intelligence of the market system looking ever weaker and more stupid. If Bush and Blair and Brown thought that Babylon would save us, it's now becoming clear that it won't. Instead, Babylon is more likely to do what the Rastafarians have been telling us all along it will: Babylon is likely "a fall".
The Rastafarian concept of Babylon is one we all understand in its broad outline. Babylon is the white man's world, the oppressor's world, the world of the slave-taker and slave-trader, the world in which precious spiritual things are reduced to mere commodities. It's a world characterized by greed and dishonesty, a corrupt and decadent world, a world with no respect for nature and no respect for humanity. One should have as little to do with it as possible -- one shouldn't deal with Babylon. For, because of its endemic vices and iniquities, Babylon shall fade and Babylon shall fall, just like the reggae songs tell us.
Babylon in reggae and in Rastafarianism is a catch-all phrase, a metaphor. The real, historical Babylon, Wikipedia tells us, "was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad." Interestingly, the current-day location of Babylon is occupied by the Americans, who are without a doubt the current-day metaphorical Babylonians too. Ominously, though, "all that remains today of the ancient famed city of Babylon is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Iraq." Babylon was a holy city by 2300 BC and the seat of an empire by 612 BC. It boasted a globalization-friendly skyscraper in the form of the Tower of Babel and a world-standard tourist attraction in the form of the Hanging Gardens. And yet, by 141BC, Babylon was to be found "in complete desolation and obscurity". Babylon a fall.
We could call Babylon, the Rastafarian concept, a "cautionary metaphor". By tunnelling far back into the past, the Rastafarians point to the fall of one empire, map it to the current empire, and preview, by extension and with relish, its fall too.
As David Bardfield explains in The Roots of Babylon (The Dread Library), the concept as it appears in Rastafarianism comes from Marcus Garvey's teachings, which map the exile of African slaves in the Caribbean to the exile of Jews into Babylon, as described in The Bible. It's a word which is shorthand for a whole political program: "Instead of saying "Injustice must fall", "Poverty must be alleviated", or "Jamaican legislation must represent its people", a Rasta need only say "Babylon must fall".
Babylon represents a range of corrupt and unjust institutions: politics, police, laws, even cities are "Babylon".
What's really remarkable is that the speeches from both sides of the current US presidential debates could very easily be reframed (I'm sure there's a text engine out there that could do it with cut and paste) in Rastafarian terms. When McCain and Obama agree that "Washington is broken, and Wall Street is broken", or when they talk about greed and corruption being endemic, they're basically recognizing that they live in Babylon. Even Bush, admitting that the $700 billion bailout may not solve the financial crisis, is warning us that Babylon may not be easily fixable. It may, indeed, fall. In fact, in a long enough perspective, it's absolutely sure to.
Babylon has been a theme in my own music -- I even put an image of Haile Selassie on the inside of my 2006 album Ocky Milk. Here's a clip from a track on my forthcoming Joemus album which pits "the Babylon King" against his nemesis, a "Jahwise Hammer":
Jahwise Hammer of the Babylon King (excerpt) stereo mp3 file, 1.4 MB, 1 min 45 secs
Maybe one day this song will bring it all back: exactly where you were when Babylon began a fall.
The Rastafarian concept of Babylon is one we all understand in its broad outline. Babylon is the white man's world, the oppressor's world, the world of the slave-taker and slave-trader, the world in which precious spiritual things are reduced to mere commodities. It's a world characterized by greed and dishonesty, a corrupt and decadent world, a world with no respect for nature and no respect for humanity. One should have as little to do with it as possible -- one shouldn't deal with Babylon. For, because of its endemic vices and iniquities, Babylon shall fade and Babylon shall fall, just like the reggae songs tell us.
Babylon in reggae and in Rastafarianism is a catch-all phrase, a metaphor. The real, historical Babylon, Wikipedia tells us, "was a city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers (55 mi) south of Baghdad." Interestingly, the current-day location of Babylon is occupied by the Americans, who are without a doubt the current-day metaphorical Babylonians too. Ominously, though, "all that remains today of the ancient famed city of Babylon is a mound, or tell, of broken mud-brick buildings and debris in the fertile Mesopotamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Iraq." Babylon was a holy city by 2300 BC and the seat of an empire by 612 BC. It boasted a globalization-friendly skyscraper in the form of the Tower of Babel and a world-standard tourist attraction in the form of the Hanging Gardens. And yet, by 141BC, Babylon was to be found "in complete desolation and obscurity". Babylon a fall.We could call Babylon, the Rastafarian concept, a "cautionary metaphor". By tunnelling far back into the past, the Rastafarians point to the fall of one empire, map it to the current empire, and preview, by extension and with relish, its fall too.
As David Bardfield explains in The Roots of Babylon (The Dread Library), the concept as it appears in Rastafarianism comes from Marcus Garvey's teachings, which map the exile of African slaves in the Caribbean to the exile of Jews into Babylon, as described in The Bible. It's a word which is shorthand for a whole political program: "Instead of saying "Injustice must fall", "Poverty must be alleviated", or "Jamaican legislation must represent its people", a Rasta need only say "Babylon must fall".Babylon represents a range of corrupt and unjust institutions: politics, police, laws, even cities are "Babylon".
What's really remarkable is that the speeches from both sides of the current US presidential debates could very easily be reframed (I'm sure there's a text engine out there that could do it with cut and paste) in Rastafarian terms. When McCain and Obama agree that "Washington is broken, and Wall Street is broken", or when they talk about greed and corruption being endemic, they're basically recognizing that they live in Babylon. Even Bush, admitting that the $700 billion bailout may not solve the financial crisis, is warning us that Babylon may not be easily fixable. It may, indeed, fall. In fact, in a long enough perspective, it's absolutely sure to.
Babylon has been a theme in my own music -- I even put an image of Haile Selassie on the inside of my 2006 album Ocky Milk. Here's a clip from a track on my forthcoming Joemus album which pits "the Babylon King" against his nemesis, a "Jahwise Hammer":Jahwise Hammer of the Babylon King (excerpt) stereo mp3 file, 1.4 MB, 1 min 45 secs
Maybe one day this song will bring it all back: exactly where you were when Babylon began a fall.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Babylon
Date: 2008-10-05 12:28 pm (UTC)I enjoyed this post, and I can see why it made some commenters throw hissy fits. When races are continually set apart and compared (a cruel process practiced everywhere, in media and in life), sibling rivalry is created and it makes sensitive commenters like bricology freak out when a figure of authority (Momus) seems to single out one of the siblings for praise. Its the eternal question of who's best, and bricology brilliantly channeled a peeved little brother in writing:
"Yes, don't worry -- we all can see where you've chosen to draw yours: White = Bad, Black = Good, America = Bad, everywhere else = Good. Got it, already."
As far as I could tell, however, Momus was not trying to say that either culture wins the grand prize for best race ever. A way to clarify this is to speak of Babylon as a tendency, or a sickness, that all people can be guilty of (greed and cruelty are not unique to America, even if mr Bush is somewhat unusual in trying to institutionalize them)
There is a swedish reggae song called Babylonsjukan, that deals with Babylon as a virus that you have to fight in yourself:
My head is stuffed with images,
Cars and money from advertisements
The finer things in life, that one should
Work and hunt for until one dies
Happiness, it is there, in my next buy
If it's to be mine its best if I
Contend with objects
But I want to beat my chest, howl and cry
(Chorus)
Call the doctor and send somebody
I've got the Babylon sickness
Call 911 and say; Come quick!
I've got the Babylon sickness
Yes, I've got the Babylon sickness
Yes, I've got the Babylon sickness
Re: Babylon
Date: 2008-10-05 01:02 pm (UTC)Swedes would never play Atrocity Snap. I salute you for it!
Re: Babylon
Date: 2008-10-05 07:14 pm (UTC)I would just like to submit the following: I think it is possible that the Nobel committee doesn't judge writers from the U.S. differently. But since the "serious writers" of the United States don't participate in the "dialogue of literature", they tread water (albeit beautifully). And the Nobel prize has a lot to do with breaking new ground (at least in its present configuration. Engdahl once founded a modernism literary review, and has essentially abandoned the original "ideological" tenet of the Nobel prize)
Its funny how surly a few of the U.S. (?) commenters seem to get. But, I suppose that is the very human tendency to personalize criticism leveled at the motherland. (which becomes particularly pernicious when the country in question is as hegemonic as the United States.)
As for the asymmetrical, I like Anatole France's take on the:
"majestic equality of the laws, which forbids rich and poor alike to
sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread."
(a comment worth applying on the national scale as well)
Re: Babylon
Date: 2008-10-05 07:35 pm (UTC)