Mutabaruka “The dub poet” speaks out

27 Jan, 2017 - 00:01 0 Views
Mutabaruka “The dub poet” speaks out

The ManicaPost

Continued from last week. . .
MUTABARUKA is an amazing man, a vegan rastafarian who challenges the assumed concept of Rasta ganja smoking. A drug-free dub-poet with more years of veganism than I have of life.

I’m interested to know how people in Africa respond to what you have to say to them.

Muta: Africa has so much problems going on within itself that it is very difficult for them to react to what is going on in the rest of the world. Many African leaders are not African-centred, and don’t understand the relationship between Africa and history, or the part that it played, and the part it can play in today’s world.

 They have this European dream, this European mindset that because they went to university in London and Paris they can carry that idea back to Africa and impose it on the people, who have no idea what it means to be a British or a French person.

People talk about the end of apartheid in South Africa, but the end of apartheid is a political idea that has not manifested politically and economically. The wealth and means of production is still owned and operated by whites and foreigners. If Africans try to reclaim that economic power, they are stagnated by American blocks, and people who think that they are out of place and wrong for doing so. It’s backwards.

You said religions suppress women. What about your Rasta religion?

Muta: Well, I don’t see Rasta as a religion. Rastas don’t have a church where they go and gather and say the same thing. Rastas allow you to keep your individuality. Rasta is a way of life. It can be a religious idea, a religious concept. Religion is when you have a group of people gathering in one place to express the same dogma.

But why don’t we find reggae songs against suppression of women?

Muta:You are not listening to Mutabaruka, son!

I will check it.

Muta: Check it! That’s the first album, too. The first album is named `Check it.’(laughing)`Hard times love’. There’s a poem named `Hard Times Love’.

But we do also find sexism in Africa!

Muta: Of course there’s sexism in Africa. Sexism reached Africa by way of the Arabs, by way of the Muslims who invaded Africa before the Europeans came there with their patriarchal religion. Because in Africa there was no talk of a God that was a `he’. God was `her’. Mother Earth. Mother Nature. Most Africans see God in the feminine. It was not until the Arabs came into Africa that the patriarchal system started to develop and it has flourished even to West Africa.” — sparksofdissent.blogspot.com

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