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REPORT: MESSIAN DREAD AT GREENBELT (UK),
2003 |
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the heart of the United Kingdom, close to
Oxford and Birmingham, lies the town of
Cheltenham. There’s a big racecourse in
this place, which was the location for a
festival called Greenbelt. A place to listen
to good music, hang out, and be edified by a
multitude of speakers and seminars around a
number of deep subjects. Greenbelt had its
30th anniversary this year (2003). DUBROOM
artist and webmaster Messian Dread was
invited too, for two seminars and a small
performance. Read his report.
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Although I’m known to be a Christian and I love
to reason and spent time with my brethren and
sistren in Messiah, I’m equally known for my
reluctance in actually dealing with a church or
“the Christian world”, so to speak. If I were
not even promoting my music on sites known as
“Christian”, then why in the world would I go
to a Christian Festival to give some seminars and
a small performance? Well, indeed nothing in this
world would make me do a thing like that. JAH,
however, is not of this world.
Yes, you’ve read that all right. I attended a
Christian Festival to give two seminars and a
small performance. And I am very happy that I did!
This is a story about a mutual blessing.
It all started with a contact that came to be
established between the bassist of a band called
“Secret Archives Of The Vatikan” and myself.
The bassist, with the funny name “Talking
Dog”, and I have reasoned extensively, in which
we’ve expressed our meditations concerning
Rastafari and Christianity, in a variety of
subjects. Talking Dog ofcourse isn’t really a
dog and I couldn’t recognize anything doggish,
or wolfish in him either. But he sure can talk! He
convinced me to let go of my reluctance for once
and share some of my meditations, especially those
around Rastafari and Christianity. He also
convinced the organisation of Greenbelt Festival
in the UK to invite me, although I don’t know
how strong they needed to be convinced.
Or should I say “He”? And then, ofcourse, I
refer to the Most High JAH! Throughout the whole
festival it became clear to me, that He wanted me
there. On one hand to get “my message” across,
on the other hand, He also wanted to teach me some
lessons. And I was led to a lot of information
that I will use in the book I am currently
writing.
Anyone familiar with my Itations and public
discussions on certain Christian fora and
newsgroups, know I have much criticism towards the
way Rastafari is viewed and treated by mainstream
Christianity. This mainstream doesn’t
acknowledge Babylon’s existence and label
Rastafari in a caricatural way. They even bend the
Bible to make people follow Babylon shitstem. And
I believe that I must address this. Being a
Christian myself (Christ is Greek for Messiah), as
well as a Dread, I feel sad over these
controversies and the prejudices. So yes, there
was a reason to go to a Christian Festival and
share some of my reasonings with an audience that
is not necessary a part of this mainstream
Christianity, but Christian nevertheless.
And so, the Greenbelt organizers asked me to cross
the Channel, do a little musical performance and
give two seminars. One would be about Rastafari
and Christianity, the other about how the Music
Industry deals with the online audience and
artist. During the preparations and communications
with the Greenbelt people, it became clear that
they were actually quite conscious and
open-minded. And I am not speaking about a New Age
kind of open-mindness, which I would rather call
open-blindness. They want people to think for
themselves, and they want to help people to get
the necessary tools for that. They also want to
raise the voice of those that cannot be heard: the
downpressed, the sick, the imprisoned people of
the world.
But when all the preparations were done, and the
time was there to actually go to the UK, I was
soon to discover some things myself too. I
didn’t know what to expect and yet I knew I had
a difficult message to get across. Why? Well,
simple. I had been judged before. People writing,
responding to my meditations with words like
“You’re leading people astray from God”, or
worse. Sometimes, they would be prominent in the
Christian World. Or some would show more interest
in wanting to know as to whether I smoke herb or
not, in an apparently desperate attempt to
discredit me for other Christians. I know, my
message to my Christian brethren and sistren can
be quite disturbing: for many think that the
western world is rich because God has blessed it.
Many think that the west is a Christian Culture,
where it is not. Many do not want to be disturbed
and prefer to continue to live in their own little
matrix. And some can get pretty nasty when you
threaten to break through the lying!
So I went to the UK, not knowing whether I would
receive tomatoes to my head or not.
I did not.
The first morning, on the Saturday, I met a
preacher from the country of Nicaragua. As you may
or may not know, this country has suffered
tremendously under the politics of the United
States and there is still no real prospect in this
country for some improvement. And under the
strangling policies of the World Bank and the IMF,
Babylon System will make sure that the situation
will go worse. The preacher said he was going to
preach that day, and he would give a sermon about
Babylon. He was going to speak on the fact that
Babylon thinks she is God. He would indisputably
compare the actions of the western countries with
Jah’s description of Babylon. It was a very
powerful sermon, from the brother. Near the end, a
younger person stood up. He said, that before he
listened to the preacher he thought the war
against Iraq was good. But because of this sermon,
he changed his mind.
Later that day I would give my first seminar. This
seminar was about Rastafari and targeted for a
Christian audience. People really wanted to know
about Rastafari, and what relevance it had to
them: the venue was quite full. I started with a
description of the situation in which the movement
of Rastafari came into existence: the crowning of
Haile Selassie, slavery and the so-called
Christianity of the western world. Then I went on
by showing some documented proof concerning the
downpression of black people: for example how
racism was carefully planned to keep the slaves
under control, centuries ago. How all of this was
given a “Christian Sauce”, so to speak. I also
spoke about the horrible reality of Babylon
System. How the Rasta would recognize it and how
many Christians are being in denial of it. And how
both Rasta and Christian are fooled by Babylon
into thinking that Europe and her colonies are a
“Judeo Christian Civilization”. Rastafari has
exposed how Babylon has hijacked the Name of the
Saviour, how she has turned the message of
salvation into a method of oppression. In the last
part of the seminar I went into detail concerning
the description of Rastafari as given by the
Christian establishment and I quoted from the
interviews with Abuna Yesehaq and the Prophet Gad,
both to be found on the Dubroom. This was the
short summary of the seminar:
My first point is, that it would proof to be very
fruitful, spiritually, to listen to what the
Rastaman has to say about Babylon. Babylon is a
horrible reality that should not be denied by
Christians, especially because this Babylon makes
use of Christian rhetoric.
My second message is, that within the movement of
Rastafari there are many Christians, who are not
being acknowledged as such by a Christian
establishment. Even further, the Christian
establishment is at least partly to blame for the
incorrect information on Rastafari and that is a
very serious thing with enormous consequences.
It was quite a heavy seminar, and there were
thoughtful questions afterwards, which showed me
the enormous interest that people actually have.
These questions also help me tremendously in
working everything out to an even deeper extend.
There was one question to which I did not have a
real answer, and this question was shocking. A
sister asked me, basically, what should be done
against “racism in the church”. Although I
more or less answered that a “racist church”
should either stop being racist or stop call
themselves a church, the question obviously
deserved a much more in-depth approach which I
couldn’t really provide. And not only because
there wasn’t much time left. I knew I had to
study this more thorough. And I will. I do
consider myself emancipated in this, which means
that race in itself is not an issue for me. But
that is of little use for any reader or listener.
We all have to come out of that box and start to
see that we are all created out of one blood. And
we have to do that without disregarding history
and present.
Unfortunately we had to stop the seminar because
the time was over. Copies of the Gadman Interview
were handed out to those interested, en we left
the venue. In the hall, a sister started to talk
to me. She said, that she was in contact with
Rasta’s, who “would not recognize my
description of Rastafari”, as she put it. She
said she could agree with me on an intellectual
level, only that the Rastas she talked about would
not recognize themselves. They would tend to read
only the Old Testament, for example. Now the
description of Rasta that I gave was more or less
that Rasta’s [a] recognize the existence of
Babylon and [b] see some spiritual significance in
the personality of Haile Selassie. But in my
seminar I have also described a “Christian
House” if you will within Rastafari unto a great
extend by quoting the leader of the biggest Rasta
Organization who is obviously of this House as
well as quoting the man who was sent by Haile
Selassie to preach that Selassie was not God. No
irrelevant persons, as I would think. It was a
shame that we did not have the chance to discuss
this issue further, but the sister expressed that
she would “definitely visit” the Dubroom and
perhaps get in touch about it so that we might
meditate on this matter in a deeper way.
The biggest surprise I had to face was a very
pleasant one. As said before, I expected at least
some reactions that would be hostile. After all, I
did come to a Christian Festival to say that the
world we are living in is far from being “Judeo
Christian” and I had documented proof with me. I
made sure I came to the festival with back-up
material. But I did not receive any hostility.
Sure, I had no real answer to the sister’s
questions, but these things were not hostile. And
during the whole weekend people would start to
talk to me and express their happiness with the
evidence I provided. I provided them with evidence
of something they felt but had no documented
material on! And that turned out to be the real
reason as to why Jah led me to bring forward this
proof: to help brothers and sisters to be equipped
and to see how Jah is moving among people, showing
them what’s happening!
You see, and this might be a pleasant thing for
some Rasta I’s who are reading this report: it
just turns out that there are actually many, many
Christians who are very well aware of the
existence of Babylon. They are equally angry over
Babylon hijacking the Name of the Divine Saviour
in order to name their god to a brainwashed
population. They know that they are being taught a
lie, when it is taught that the “Western
Civilization” is built on “Judeo Christian”
values. And they’re emancipating themselves from
mental slavery, and look for themselves, in the
Light of Yesus rather than to a church with walls
or the system.
The system? Yes, Babylon system is using the
believes of the Christians in a very, very subtle
way. Let me give you an example. She makes use of
the Christian’s naivety concerning the
situations in the Middle East. Look at
Israel/Palestine, for example. I met with people
who witnessed first hand how the Palestinian
people are subjected to humiliation, in their own
land. Backed up by a billion dollar well of money
from Zionists who may or may not think that “God
is bringing His People back”, the state of
Israel commits a politics of apartheid. Apache
helicopters flying over the land, roadblocks
everywhere, the people are so poor that 4/5 is
living below poverty level and corruption is
rampant. I obtained a whole library of research
material concerning (Christian) Zionism for my
book; including some video material that the
Israeli government doesn’t want people to see.
Sunday afternoon, I held my second seminar. This
one was targeted for a more specific audience,
those interested in the online music community and
the way the Music industry deals with it. I was
able to expose how MP3.com was taken over and how
that symbolized the attitude of the Music
Industry. I’ve made the link between the
strangling force of globalisation, and I’ve
named the criminals who cut the MP3.com artists
with 100% of their income. The same company that
steals people’s water in South Africa! The
seminar also included some members of the Secret
Archive Crew in the last part, and they have
shared their vision of an artist-audience
connection totally independent from the Music
Industry. They revealed, that the so-called
Christian Music Industry was actually owned by the
secular (as they call it in the Christian world)
Music Industry and that there was therefore no
real difference. In other words, Christian artists
and audience do not have to expect to find Jah
Love in their own Gospel Industry either.
Before I started my musical performance on the
Sunday-night, backstage I heard another artist
speak about the same thing. He was speaking about
some CIA recording he had in which it was admitted
that they were actually involved in some pretty
nasty business. I heard how he said the people
were aware of what is going on but were generally
unable still to express this, et cetera. When he
looked at me, I could only say: “I agree with
you, watch the first minutes of my performance”.
And this was just another experience in a long row
of similar happenings. Everywhere I would meet
people who are very much aware of the situation we
are in! Visitors and contributors of the festival,
Palestinian and South American preachers. It
happened throughout the weekend, even until the
last moments, but I’ll tell you about that
later.
Sunday-night, as said, I did a little performance.
I prepared a 22 minute long mix of special
versions, containing 5 of my tunes. The mix was
made as one session, and mixed for dancing at a
concert. In fact, it was entirely created for this
festival. There was a heavy bass and loads of dub
effects over which I voiced, a little singing and
a little chatting/toasting style. It was my first
performance that I did without any monitor!
Fortunately I do have a past in music and built up
a little experience (15+ years) so I guess I
managed. For some reason, the monitors were turned
of. For those of you who are not artists, this
means that I could not hear myself on the stage as
I should. I only heard a lot of resonated bass,
and that’s it, so I had no reference points.
Basically, this means that I had to decide the
tone in which I sung from the memory instead of
the sound of the music. It came down to me singing
my tunes an octave (12 tones) lower then I’m
used to.
The set started with a version of “Invasion Of
The Freedom Snatchers”, which was remixed and I
sang the lyrics of a tune called “Babylon”
over it. Next I did a tune, which we also play
with Jah Roots, called “Reggae, Reggae”. Much
more laid back than the introduction tune, which
was a massive steppers. The third tune was a
lively version of the tune called “Heroin”,
followed by a workout of another Jah Roots tune,
called “Chant”. This one was a prayer to the
Most High. The set finished with another heavy
steppers tune on which I chanted the lyrics of
“Real Rockers Style”.
People were dancing on the heavy drum and bass,
the walls were literally shaking and the people
rejoiced over much! I heard rejoicing and cheering
over the conscious lyrics, and this was just
another confirmation that people are actually much
awake.
Awake, but very tired I left the site on the early
Monday morning, caught some hours sleep and met
with the Talking Dog to spent the last hours
together before I would go back to the
Netherlands. While we were sitting there,
reasoning, a sister approached me. She had written
a book and wanted to tell me a little bit about it
since the book was about Amsterdam, more or less.
The book was also about games that are played, the
creation of the perfect drug to keep soldiers
awake for days and days.
So from the first experience to the last, I must
say that I have met a lot of conscious people all
over the weekend. From the young to the old! All
love Yesus Kristos so much and they were very much
aware over the fact that His Name is being used by
the powers that be for their own purposes. I went
there; “well-armed” so to speak, prepared to
meet a lot of “resistance”. It was good that I
was “well-armed”, in other words that I came
with documented evidence to back up what I was
saying, but Jah had not led me to bring documented
stuff so that I could “defend” myself, but so
that the people would be given some more tools in
a struggle that they themselves are also fighting!
And that was THE lesson for me: I must and want to
say, that I went to the UK, to the heart of
Babylon some would say, to meet my brethren and
sistren in an ire vibration. Not to escape from it
all, but to equip each other.
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