Babylon a fall!

[imomus]

One 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.

Comments

[bugpowered.livejournal.com]

What part of "the West" are you referring to? Greece? Carthage? The Vandals? Or are you referring to the Arabs, who forced Islam upon Africans? If you're referring to the late-Victorian era -- how do you explain Ethiopia, who were never colonized? Who instilled their "core 'Babylonian' values"?

There's no part of the world where Babylonian (i.e western capitalist) cultural
views have not infiltrated. That doesn't mean those are a domestic product, it does not mean they are not alien to the indigenous cultures, growing like a parasite.

The fact is that the West has learned from its mistakes and has gone a long way towards redress. Africa itself has resisted most of the West's positive values.

Such insight. Maybe, you should join the Peace Corps. The "west prositive values" is the expansion of economy over freedom, greed and hypocrisy. Who do have quite a different view of "west's positive values" when you have to deal with the west in its' real terms.

In Ethiopia, where colonization never took place and slave trade with the West didn't happen, these same problems mentioned above still occurred and still occur today. Can you explain?

There is much more to it than just open colonization. In fact, the majority of the African countries now are not officially protectorates or colonies. Yet, they still are. Here's an example I gave before: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-frances-secret-war-396062.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/inside-frances-secret-war-396062.html)

Let's take Ethiopia for example. Who said they have "core Babylonian" values? Have you even been there? Have you had any contact with the local culture and values?

Where is it that the local ruiling class shops for their values and who supports and guides them to power? Who sponsored Mengistu at first and who subsequently?
What powers saw to the creation and supoort of the "nation" of Eritrea, cutting Ethiopia from vital resources? What did Italians had to do in Ethiopia, since the late 19th century? What is the origin of the multinational corporations that exploit, bribe and control the Ethiopian economy?

[bricology.livejournal.com]

In South Africa alone, today, 1,300 women will be raped. (http://www.paralumun.com/issuesafrica.htm) More than 15% of the victims (about 200 victims every day) will be under 11 years old. (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25806) A high percentage of those little girls (many of them as young as toddlers) will be raped because of the absurd idea that having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS. Nearly 100% of the rapists will be black. Less than 5% of the rapists will even be charged, much less convicted. Africa is by far the rape capital of the world. This has nothing to do with Europeans, colonialism or any other external factor. And the number of women raped in Africa has probably decreased due to the presence of law enforcement.

Slavery was commonly practiced in Africa long before Europeans arrived. And long after slavery was outlawed in the rest of the world, millions of Africans are living in slavery right now, enslaved by other black Africans. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_modern_Africa) This has nothing to do with Europeans, with colonialism, with any other external factor. There is no reason to believe that black-on-black slavery has gone up in Africa; more likely, it's gone down.

This year in Africa, tribal warfare will kill tens of thousands of people; many of them children. The conflict in Darfur has killed somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 people in the past 5 years, and hundreds of thousands more have had limbs hacked off; hundreds of thousands of women have been raped. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur) Tribalism and conflicts between tribes is endemic to Africa. There is no reason to believe that it has gone up; in likelihood, it has gone down. And this has nothing to do with Europeans, colonialism or any other external factor.

This year in Africa, at least 2 million young women will have their genitals brutally mutilated in a practice believed to curb "female promiscuity". This has nothing to do with Europeans, colonialism or any other external factor. There is no reason to believe that female genital mutilation has gone up in Africa; more likely, it's gone down.

Poverty and famine are commonplace in Africa. In the past 40 years, foreign nations have poured a half of a trillion dollars of aid into Africa. Much of it has been siphoned off by corrupt Africans, was used to buy weapons, or was simply mismanaged. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_Africa) The international community has been more than generous with Africa since the days of colonial exploitation, but Africans themselves have squandered it.

In 2006, in just one city (Kinchassa, Congo) somewhere between 25,000 and 50,000 children were accused of "witchcraft" and thrown out of their homes. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchcraft#Africa) In just the past year, 25 albinos have been murdered in Tanzania, just one small nation in Africa, where albinism is regarded as "sorcery" and the body parts of albinos are used for magical potions. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7518049.stm) This has nothing to do with Europeans, colonialism, or any other external factor. There is no reason to believe that the persecution of people for allegedly being "witches" has gone up in Africa; more likely, it's gone down, due to the presence of law enforcement.

In just about every aspect of life in Africa, conditions are far worse for women, and for gay/lesbian/transgendered people than in other parts of the world. (http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=78716) Violence against them is common and seldom prosecuted. (http://www.blogher.com/murder-popular-soccer-star-highlights-problem-anti-lesbian-violence) Murders are often carried out by mobs. (http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/03/02/safric12753.htm) This has nothing to do with Europeans, colonialism or any other external factor. There is no reason to believe that the persecution of homosexuals has gone up in Africa; more likely, it's gone down. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting) ()

[bricology.livejournal.com]

From the earliest recorded history through the mid-19th century, Africa endured the same waves of invasion as did Europe, from Ireland to Greece, from Gibraltar to Finland, so there's nothing unique about their experiences. During ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome -- right up to the medieval period, groups of all different ethnicities and tribes throughout Europe were captured and enslaved.

There was a relatively brief period of European colonial rule in Africa, but before Africa even came into contact with white Europeans, it was a violent, superstitious place, and it remained so even after the colonies were dismantled and the European "invasion" took the form of charities and aid-workers, of being perpetually reinforced against famine and plague.

Of course Africa had no Magna Carta, no habeas corpus, no Miranda, no civil rights movement, etc., until the Europeans came. It was a patriarchal, theocratic, feudal, tribal society where women were subjugated and black-on-black brutality was the norm. It was rule by might, blessed by shamans. Of course, this doesn't excuse the brutality that Europeans and Americans added to what Africans already had to deal with, but it does show that their experience was neither unique, nor externally caused.

This is all a matter of record, even if it runs contrary to the accepted image of Africans as pitiful victims of European oppressors. Africans no longer live miserable lives under European or American masters. They're now back to living miserable lives under their own kind. So I refuse to buy into this lefty article of faith that you and Momus so clearly cherish. To use Momus' metaphor: Babylon was already built in Africa, by Africans, long before the Babylonian empire even existed. And it Babylon will continue to be an African construction until/unless they change their own society. Until then, they'll keep up the slave-taking, the raping, the murder and superstition and oppression that makes distinguishes them from all other societies today.