Talk:Rastafari/Archive 2

message: This page has grown quite long under the attention expansion of Squeakbox.  Perhaps sections ought to be spun off to subpages and summarized on the main page.  I'm thinking a separate section on the Rastafari vernacular, and History of the Rastafari.  That way this page would have a chance of squeaking (no pun intended) in under the page size requirement. —thames 23:04, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page Size 

message: My understanding is that the article needs to be either in English English or American English, but not in a mixture of the 2. I have been writing in English English. I changed colors to colours in red, gold and green's latest contribution, but do not know if that was a good or bad thing to do. Opinions please?--SqueakBox 15:55, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
:As far as I know, the policy generally goes like this: American English is viewed as the default.  British English takes precedence on pages which are topically related to Britain or British English.  Since Rastafari developed in Jamaica, and Jamaica was a British colony that speaks a dialect of British English, I believe that British spellings can rightly be used on this page.  Another factor is the language the page was started in, or the language of the person who has done the most work on it.  Whatever is decided though, the whole page has to be consistently one or the other.  We'll have no mixing of American and British English!  We will remain two countries separated by a common language. —thames 16:32, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is not policy. Policy is not to prefer any particular type of english, but to go with whoever started the page, unless the topic is clearly tied to a particular English dialect. See The Manual of Style. --Improv 17:00, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Jamaica uses English spellings, Rastafari is primarily Jamaican, so precidence should go to English English.  Guettarda 19:29, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  English or American 

message: User:Cumbey is threatening to tell the police I have a stash of janja (sic) ie cannabis because of my interest in this site. This is the unsavoury, and unfortunate side of wikipedia! particularly bizarre as I have not written about ganja here, though I have now put a (true) bit about not having to smoke ganja to be a Rastafarian. --SqueakBox 19:35, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
I have taken Cumbey to Wikipedia:Requests for mediation. I mention it here because she is accusing me of smoking ganja and threatening to call the police, based on my interest here, and formerly expressed in my talk page; I now formally state there that I do not smoke marijuana. Not only is cannabis smoking a serious crime in Honduras, but one does not want the  attentions of the police due to the baseless accusations of another contributor. talk about trying to restrict my freedom of speech. --SqueakBox 21:08, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
:She's really unhinged.  What a page! —thames 04:36, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Threats 

message: I would like to take the doctrine sub-sections and put them into a separate Doctrines of the Rastafarians. Any objections? I think it would make for a more balanced article here, and I would also put info there from History of the Rastafarians --SqueakBox 22:04, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
:I would absolutely say to call it "Doctrines of Rastafari" - doctrines are of the [named] religion.  Guettarda 22:52, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, "History of Rastafarians" would be, IMO, the correct title.  Guettarda 23:19, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  New article 

message: The following was recently cut from Israelite, replaced by text more appropriate to that article; some of it probably belongs here: I think this includes material not in this article. (I've taken the liberty of copy editing it.) Someone might also want to look at the present content on Rastafarians at Israelite, there may be more that should be here as well. 
:Rastafarianism's followers, known as Rastafarians or Rastas, believe that Ras Tafari (Haile Selassie, last emperor of Ethiopia) remains a living messiah who will lead the world's peoples of African descent into a promised land of full emancipation and divine justice. The term Rastafari comes from Emperor Haile Selassie's pre-coronation name, Prince Ras Tafar Makonen. Rastafarianism is a strongly syncretic Abrahamic religion. Conquering Lion of Judah is an ancient title of that monarchy, not unique to the country's last reigning emperor. In addition, a claimed descent from Solomon (and, therefore, David) has been promulgated by several Ethiopian Imperial dynasties and is also not unique to the last Emperor. 
:Rastas believe that they, and the rest of the black races, are descendants of the ancient twelve tribes of Israel. Haile Selassie himself was a devout Coptic Christian. He neither denied nor admitted the attribute of divinity given to him by the Rastafarians. One Rasta sect, called the Twelve tribes of Israel, imposes an astrological system whereby Aries is Reuben, Aquarius is Joseph, etc. 
Jmabel | Talk 22:25, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
User:SqueakBox/Rastafari articles --SqueakBox 23:09, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
As it was explained to me by a Jamaican Nyabingi documentary film maker, this is spot on. I think this is relevent and integral to understanding the beliefs behind Rastafarian theology and culture.--NoPhE4R 20:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possibly useful material 

message: Didn't I read somewhere that the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos (I may have the islands wrong) had banned dreadlocks?  Someone might want to address this in the article.  deeceevoice 12:06, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  No dreads allowed 

message: I have deleted this
*During the 1930s, depression wracked Jamaica and Ethiopia alike. Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia in 1935 (see Second Italo-Abyssinian War), marking one of the major events leading up to World War 2. Haile Selassie, in exile in the United Kingdom, formed the Ethiopian World Federation to unite black support worldwide for Ethiopian sovereignty. as being not relevant to the article. It also implied they were looking to their Bibles in 1936 to recognise his divinity, which is completely contradicted by the 34 Howell trial. Given the publicity surrounding the coronation, which I have now added to the text, all we can safely say is that his divinity was appreciated at some point during or after this event. I don't believe anything further is really known about those early years, SqueakBox 05:34, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
*:Sounds fine, as this isn't really relevant to the Rastafari movement, but specifically to Haile Selassie I and/or the history of Ethiopia and should properly be included in those articles as relevant. Whig 15:38, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted paragraph 

message: Please source your claim that dreadlocks are called rasta in Spanish and Italian according to Google. Give us a search term, or even better a page reference. Do you mean Spain or Spanish, because it is not used as a term in Caribbean Honduras. Finally, even if it is true I would argue it is irrelevant to the article, and therefore should remain deleted, SqueakBox July 3, 2005 13:54 (UTC)
I don't know about this, but by sheer coincidence I just happened to read last night that "Rasta" is also the Hindi word for "road"...  Something I never knew before...   Codex Sinaiticus 3 July 2005 15:45 (UTC)
:I lived in Italy for a year, and that's what people called them.  Here in Spain, I haven't heard it, but I see results from different countries for "tiene rastas".  In fact, more results than for "tiene dreadlocks".  
:I'm not saying that it's correct; I'm not saying that dreadlocks are the same thing as rastafarians; I'm not saying that all Spanish and Italian speakers say this.  I'm just saying that it is indeed said in these languages.  It is notable that the cultural association of rastafarians with dreadlocks causes the two to be linguistically confused.  — Chameleon 3 July 2005 15:56 (UTC)
I am spanish and I can assure you that the word "rasta" also means here what you know as a dreadlock. It is a colloquial form, I mean, a term anyone can understand (from your average teenager to grandmothers). People that consider themselves rastafari or whatever, use the term dreadlock and usually think that the other people who call them "rastas" (specially the ones who have this hairstyle) don´t know anything about the origins of dreadlocks, etc. Other, more informal term usually used by crust punks is "trunyos" (with an Ñ instead of "ny", I don´t know if you can read it because its a spanish letter). The word literally means "turd", but it´s not used in a pejorative way, more like in a joking way. Violenciafriki 01:48, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dreadlocks<nowiki>=</nowiki>Rasta