page_title: Rastafari
section_title: Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Rastafari / Demographics / Regional spread / Europe
caption_attribution_description: Image has been cropped and adjusted from original on flickr. I used my 55-250 for this, so he's probably unaware of me taking the photo, but it's strange how he looked in my direction when I took the photo. This is possibly my favourite photo from the whole set.
context_page_description: Rastafari, also known as the Rastafarian Movement, is an Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control of the movement and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as Rastafari, Rastafarians, or Rastas.
  Rasta beliefs are based on a specific interpretation of the Bible. A monotheistic belief in a single God, referred to as Jah, who partially resides within each individual, is integral to them. Rastafari also maintains that Jah was incarnated in human form as Jesus Christ. Rastas accord Haile Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia between 1930 and 1974, central importance; many regard him as the Second Coming of Christ and thus Jah incarnate, while others see him as a human prophet who fully recognised the inner divinity in every individual. Rastafari is Afrocentric and focuses attention on the African diaspora, which it believes is oppressed within Western society, or "Babylon". Many Rastas call for this diaspora's resettlement in Africa, a continent they consider the Promised Land, or "Zion".
context_section_description: During the 1950s and 1960s, Rastas were among the thousands of Caribbean migrants who settled in the United Kingdom, leading to small groups appearing in areas of London such as Brixton and Notting Hill in the 1950s. By the late 1960s, Rastafari had attracted converts from the second generation of British Caribbean people, spreading beyond London to cities like Birmingham, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol. Its spread was aided by the gang structures that had been cultivated among black British youth by the rudeboy subculture, and gained increasing attention in the 1970s through reggae's popularity. According to the 2001 United Kingdom Census there are about 5000 Rastafari living in England and Wales. Clarke described Rastafari as a small but "extremely influential" component of black British life.
  Rastafari also established itself in various continental European countries, among them the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, and France, gaining a particular foothold among black migrant populations but also attracting white converts. In France for instance it established a presence in two cities with substantial black populations, Paris and Bordeaux, while in the Netherlands, it attracted converts within the Surinamese migrant community.
caption: The poet Benjamin Zephaniah is a prominent British Rasta.
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