Epilogue

Kisembo Karudi left Tanzania for England in 1998. She was no longer willing to tolerate Ras Bupe Karudi’s worsening efforts to exercise complete control over her life, and she was determined to protect and to educate her children. But she was not willing to leave Tanzania for good. Though the marriage was seriously strained, she returned to Tanzania frequently with the intention to retire there. She also continued to support Ras Bupe financially, and she eventually purchased the house they had rented in Karakata with the money she earned working in England....

Sow in Tears, Reap in Joy

Chapter five turns to the point at which the Rastafarians received land from the Tanzanian state. This was a major accomplishment with deep symbolic and material meaning. Now secure at home, they were prepared to reap what they had sown. The process was, like life itself, filled with both trials and triumphs. They wrestled with epidemiological threats, economic woes, and family dynamics. In the midst of hardship, however, they contributed to Tanzania’s development in the areas of education, journalism, accounting, while supporting African liberation movements and forging alliances with pan-Africanists worldwide. Of utmost importance is also the interaction between these Rastafarians and the local Tanzanians who embraced Rastafari as a serious philosophy. This set in motion social processes far beyond the initial goals of those who repatriated, as the local movement broke off into sects with one even declaring its independence from the Jamaican Rastafarians, insisting that Rastafari had its roots in East Africa.

The Wages of Blackness

When Rastafarians began to petition the Tanzanian government for the “right of entry” in 1976, they benefitted from a history of linkages between Jamaica and Tanzania, facilitated largely by the personal and political friendship between Julius Nyerere and Prime Minister of Jamaica, Michael Manley. This is the subject of the third chapter, which provides essential context for the repatriation. The chapter begins by unearthing the pan-African politics of Michael Manley, which he constructed after appropriating Rastafarian symbols and consciousness into his political campaigns. It also puts a spotlight on the extent to which African leaders of newly independent states helped to define the pan-Africanism of this period by detailing the impact of Julius Nyerere on Manley’s thinking. Finally, it juxtaposes Manley’s acceptance in pan-African circles across Africa with his personal struggle over his own perceived distance from blackness, as a member of Jamaica’s “brown’ elite. In the end, Rastafari was absolutely central to generating the brand of politics surrounding race, color and class in the moment of decolonization. The history of repatriation transgresses analytical boundaries between state and nonstate actors.

Tanzania

This chapter sets the pan-African context in which the repatriation occurs. In particular, it explains the rise of Tanzania as a safe haven for African freedom fighters and radical diasporic Africans in the 1960s and 1970s, connecting the repatriation to wider diasporic engagement with Tanzania in this period. It places ujamaa within the context of other African socialisms of the day and highlights the role of pan-Africanism in the making of Tanzania’s modern history.

Introduction

Kisembo Karudi was born in Kingston, Jamaica, during the 1950s, that final decade before the island made the transition from British colony to independent nation-state. The last of six girls raised by her mother, Kisembo spent the early 1970s putting her high school diploma to good use working in a bank, and worshiping in a Methodist church shortly after dawn each Sunday. Her life was by no means intolerable, but she was unable to shake the feeling that she was somehow spiritually adrift—that, in her own words, “something was missing.” That changed in 1974 when she met the love of her life, Ras Bupe Karudi, and he introduced her to Jah, the black god of Rastafarians....

Strange Bedfellows

This chapter examines the relationship between Ras Bupe Karudi and C.L.R. James. In 1964, James highlighted the “absurdities” of Rastafari. Additionally, in contrast to all that Rastafari represented, he remained ambivalent about Af- rican heritage and identity. By 1986, however, he was corresponding with Karudi frequently and sending money to him in support of the mission. This collaboration is critical to my exploration of how Rastafari inserted itself into the intellectual history of pan-Africanism, and to the relationship between Rastafari and the radical left. The chapter also brings James into conversation with Rastafari through the prism of colonial education and engages important questions concerning the debates over identity construction in Africa and the African diaspora.

Diasporic Dreams, African Nation-State Realities

This chapter examines the clash between Rastafarian diasporic dreams and African nation-state realities. Even as the Rastafarian notion of diaspora transcended the state, Rastas were at the mercy of the Tanzanian state apparatus. The state granted them official “right of entry” in 1985,but it was not codified into law, and this made for a less than smooth process. The fissures that came to the fore turned on the legal, economic, cultural, and religious realities of repatriation. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Rastafarians and Tanzanian state officials continued to trod diaspora and to make claims about the relationship between race and citizenship.

Without Vision the People Perish

This chapter begins in Jamaica where Rastafarians formulated the philosophy that sent them in search of Africa. It demonstrates Rastafari’s internal complexity by examining all facets of the worldview: from religious imaginaries and rituals to political commitments and strategies. It then goes on to situate the Rastas who went to Tanzania amid this plurality with a view to explaining who these particular Rastafarians were.