A review by imalahakhund
How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

3.75

Not sure if it's the proper word to use but I kind of seem to have a thing for books about dysfunctional families. After "enjoying" Educated by Tara Westover and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, this new memoir is about a Jamaican woman raised under a strick Rastafarian Father. I may have come across the word or may have heard some song of Bob Marley (prominent follower of the religion) at some point but I'll be honest before reading the goodreads description I didn't even know that Rastafari was a religion and also supposedly claimed to be an Abrahamic one. 

People generally associate Dreadlocks, Cannabis and Reggae music with the community but Rastafari beliefs or Rastology, are based on specific reading of Bible and was developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. According to their beliefs God is referred to as Jah, Emperor Haile Selassie. There are three main sects of Rastafari, the Mansion of Nyabinghi, The Twelve Tribes of Israel and The Bobo Shanti, ranging on a full spectrum from the most conservative militantly Pan-Africanist group, believing in Haile Selassie as reincarnation of God or Black Messiah on earth and the prophecized Black Emperor of Ethiopia, believing in Black unification, liberation, and repatriation to Ethiopia to a more liberal Rastafari sect, welcoming wayward uptown Jamaican youth and white foreigners as members; they eat meat and believe in Jesus Christ to a more closed off, conservative group, adhering to Jewish Mosaic Laws from the Old Testament, including observing Sabbath, and special separation laws for menstruating women. Rastafari also have a spiritual concept of Livity, that is the righteous living, have specific dietary religious regulations called Ital (strict vegetarian diet free from additives, chemicals and meat), and have concepts of Babylon and Zion with the belief that Black African Diaspora are exiles living in Babylon, a  term which applies to Western Society. For Rasta people, European colonialism and capitalism and Christianity are regarded as manifestation of Babylon, while police and soldiers are viewed as it's agents. 

Contrary to popular perception, Rastafarian people are a persecuted minority in Jamaica, prohibited from roaming around beaches and resorts lest they spoil the image of the touristy sights by their unpleasant and unkempt appearances. Up until the 1960s, the anti-Rastafarian sentiments were so prevalent among the government and police that when a group of Rastas refused to relinquish the farmlands they lived on to government seizure, Alexander Bustamante, the white prime minister then, ordered the military to “Bring in all Rastas, dead or alive!” This triggered a devastating military operation where Rasta communes were burned island-wide in a weekend of terror, where more than 150 Rastas were dragged from their homes, imprisoned, and tortured, and an unknown number of Rastas were killed. Also search Coral Garden Massacre. The Rastafari, though shunned and outcast by their own people, became the living mascots and main cultural export of Jamaican tourism, with barely any profit to the Rasta community, their spiritual reggae music diluted and commercialized for the foreign masses while they were themselves painfully maligned at home.

As a teenager Safiya's father founded the Rastafari community after being let down by his own neglected, abusive upbringing and met Safiya's mother, who also had her own set of familial traumas and both had four kids between them, three daughters and a son, they however did not get married ever, because the Rastafari don't believe in marriage. Safiya's father was a reggae musician and guitarist who at some point had his own band but after being exploited and facing discrimination, started playing at these resorts for foreigners. Both of her parents, and particularly her mother prioritized education. Her mother taught her kids at home and simultaneously organized a teaching program to bring some additional income at home alongwith providing free education to the more underprivileged kids. At first you find yourself relating to the strong anti-colonial and anti-capitalist stance of Rastafari people but then after you read about the repressive attitudes of the some members of the community, particularly towards it's female members, you are forced to see it differently. As time went on, Safiya's father became plagued with a deep insecurity at his inability to properly provide for his family, paranoid from the outer world and corrupt forces of Baldheads and Babylon, he became increasingly obsessed with righteousness and purity of his children, particularly his daughters. The children were prohibited from befriending the other kids at school and girls were forbidden to wear jewellery, makeup, pants. Overtime harsh words transformed into physical abuse. While her father grew militant in his ways, her mother was mostly passive and nonconfrontational, her recurrent attitude was smoking a spliff everytime something odd happened at home, sometimes even in the face of abuse and cheating. Safiya had always been acutely aware of her different family since a very young age, this sense built around by bullying by her peers or her own curious nature or being secluded from the outside world, or a mixture of everthing, Safiya grew up to be quite different and opposite to her father and in turn had to bear the brunt of his words and physical violence. She gradually grew estranged from her community and detached and detestful of her father, to esacpe his world, she sought refuge in poetry and writings and went on to win awards and scholarships. While her mother finally came around and stood up for her, Safiya eventually severed her ties with the Rastafari community and symbolically cut off her dreadlocks at the age of nineteen years which she had been wearing for over a decade.

The memoir though interesting and well-written, it was way too long and repetitive for me, it could be probably cut 100 pages short. It was fascinating reading about this relatively unknown community but it wasn't as mind-blowing to me as the other two memoirs I have mentioned above. The books has strong themes of physical abuse, suicidal ideation and self-harm so beware of triggers. 

 

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