The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

Expressing his support for the decriminalisation of marijuana, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis may have endeared himself to the Rastafarian community, particularly Bobo Ashanti members of the late Prince Charles Emmanuel Edwards’ Ethiopian African Black International Congress (EABIC). To the Rastafari, marijuana is a sacrament. I recall an EABIC official boasting about the Rastafarian community having 10,000 adherents in The Bahamas, with the overwhelming majority presumably residing in New Providence.

Constituencies such as Garden Hills, Bain and Grants Town, Carmichael, Golden Gates, Marathon, Mount Mariah and Bamboo Town will be near to impossible for the Free National Movement (FNM) to retain in 2022, especially with a declining popularity among the grassroots.

With a purported 10,000 adherents, the Rastafari community represents a potentially strong base of support for the FNM, particularly throughout the inner city constituencies. Minnis may have to emulate the late Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley, who pandered to cult members in the lead up to the 1972 general election. Historians have surmised that the People’s National Party winning 37 of the 53 seats in Parliament was due to the thousands of Rastas who participated in that election. With his “Rod of Correction” cane that was given to him in 1970 by Haile Selassie I while on a trip to Ethiopia, in addition to him fraternising with Bob Marley, Manley’s bold political posturing paid off.

With the destruction of Prince Emmanuel’s Back-O-Wall Rasta compound in 1966 by the Jamaica Labour Party administration of the late Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante, the arrests and imprisonment of Rasta leaders Leonard Howell, Robert Hinds, the Rev Claudius Henry of the African Reform Church and George “Bongo Watto” Watson of the Youth Black Faith, Rastas harbour grave misgivings about all governments of the West, the Minnis administration being no exception. Allowing Rasta adherents the privilege of smoking sacramental weed during their ritual may cause thousands of apolitical cultists to make an exception for Minnis in 2022. Time will tell if it will be sufficient enough to help the FNM win in 2022.

KEVIN EVANS

Grand Bahama

January 26, 2020