The rain and cold weather did not stall the celebrations of Haile Selassie Earth Day in Judah Square, Knysna, at the weekend.
Though the seven-day festival was reduced to just a day, the Rastafarian community spent the weekend singing, drumming and chanting worships at the Nyabinghi to Selassie, with guests coming from as far as Jamaica to join the festivities.
Planned activities for the weekend included the unveiling of a 2.2m sculpture of Selassie overlooking the community.
The unveiling, however, had to be postponed due to the cold and rainy weather.
Rastas accord key importance to Selassie — many regard him as the second coming of Jesus and Jah incarnate, while others see him as a human prophet.
The statue was set to attract visitors to the area and provide some economic relief during the coronavirus pandemic — under normal circumstances large numbers of tourists would have flocked to the area for the Knysna Oyster Festival, which ended on Monday.
Selassie’s birthday was on July 23 and celebrations began at midnight on Thursday.
Eugene Lewis, who created the sculpture, said it would be erected this week.
“For me it does not matter when the statute goes up because what matters is what it signifies.
“This will be the first Rasta God statue in SA and that is what matters.
“It means more than just a statue. It’s the history of Africa,” he said.
Community leader Noel “Ras Maxi” Melville said they had kept celebrations to a minimum due to the pandemic.
“Things were very different this year — we usually have a huge volume of people and we celebrate for seven days.
“But, nonetheless, people came from as far as Jamaica,” he said.
The celebrations usually include a national council meeting at which community members discuss the Rasta movement’s future.
“This year part of the agenda was the Covid-19 vaccine.
“This was a hot topic for discussion because we do not want to be against government, but we also do not believe in needles and injecting things into the body,” Melville said.
Another hot topic was politics, he said.
“As the Rastafari people, we are anti-politics but we live in a political world.
“We spoke on how to advance ourselves politically so that our views and our concerns on the running of the country are heard.”
Asked if they would start their own political party, he said: “Who knows ... maybe.”
HeraldLIVE
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