Bob Marley’s Perspectives On Power Struggle -By Patrick Iwelunmor

As lovers of peace, Rastafarians want the world order to unfold as God wants it. This is the reason, Bob Marley is still taking on the persona of a prophet in most of his songs, warning of things to come and reminding us of a Natural Mystic blowing through the air, even after forty-two years of his death.

Ever since the Edenic  misadventure that threw the gates of the earth wide-open to satanic deception and iniquity, mankind has largely wandered through the face of the earth in search of true redemption and only a few have found it; only those who have decided to get on board the heaven-bound Zion Train.

Those on the other side of the divide have willingly and deliberately decided to walk in iniquity, forming an alliance with satan to unleash terror on God’s creation, thereby causing the disruption of a peaceful world order. They are the ones Marley refers to in the song We and Them:

We no know how we and dem a-go work this out

Initially, Marley himself is at sea as to how the crisis created by this iniquitous people is going to be resolved but he finds an answer from the bible concerning the eventual fate of those who shed innocent blood:

But someone will have to pay

For the innocent blood

That they shed every day

Oh, children, mark my word

It’s what the Bible say, yeah! yeah!

Being the book of life, the bible always has an answer to all the fundamental questions of human existence. Marley’s reference to the bible is simple: those who shed innocent blood are addressed in the book of Deuteronomy 27:25:

“Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.”

There is no other state of damnation greater than the curse laid by God on those who shed innocent blood because they will also die in a very disgraceful manner. There are ample examples in history of people who received their rewards for spearheading or sponsoring the killing of innocent people.

Osama Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein, in spite of their many years of hiding and evading the US-led anti-terrorism intelligence, were caught and killed too. There are many other world figures in history whose shameful and painful deaths have demonstrated the power and inevitability of the curse of the above scripture. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Samuel Doe, Sani Abacha, Laurent Kabila, etc.

The Babylonians are people without a conscience. They believe in their own selfish imagination. They are the stiff-necked fools whom Marley refers to in the song Stiff-necked Fools:

Stiff-necked fools, you think you are cool

To deny me for simplicity.

Yes, you have gone for so long

With your love for vanity now.

Yes, you have got the wrong interpretation

Mixed up with vain imagination.

The biggest problems with these stiff-necked fools are their obstinacy, sophisticated imagination and preference to vanity just as Marley pointed out. In the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, the Babylonians thought they could encroach into the heavens with their architectural masterpiece but God struck them with linguistic anarchy.

One lesson we can learn from that episode is the fact that an average Babylonian is daring and always believes in his own selfish imagination. If people could have the guts to dare God, the Creator of the world, who then would they not dare? Their unbridled stubbornness remains a matter for trans-generational debate.

Looking at the psychographic characteristics of present day Babylon which is Iraq, one can see that the defiance and the spirit of obstinacy that existed in people like the late Saddam Hussain is still much present in some Iraqis who are still posing threats to world peace.

The Babylonians defy the teachings of the meek and humble Jesus and seek to establish a fundamentalist movement which thrives in terrorism. Their roles in the bombing of the World Trade Centre as well as the Pentagon cannot be forgotten, even though most of them paid the supreme prize for their indiscretions.

The characterization of the kings of Babylon reveals a deep-running blood of oppression and passion for subjugating other people to their whims and caprices through enslavement.

King Nebuchadnezzar who shares major characteristics with Saddam Hussein was credited as the one who destroyed Jerusalem in 526 BC and led away many Hebrews into captivity in Babylon. In another attack, according to Josephus’ Antiquities:

“Nebuchadnezzar later returned to besiege Jerusalem again in 586 BC. The book of Jeremiah reveals that this campaign resulted in the capture of the city, the destruction of Solomon’s temple, and the deportation of Hebrews into captivity.”

While the stiff-necked oppressor is driven by his Babylonian mentality, the oppressed, like Sisyphus, must continue to struggle for emancipation in an existential vicious cycle. Marley addressed this unending class struggle in the song “Guiltiness”.

Guiltiness

Pressed on their conscience. Oh yeah.

And they live their lives

On false pretence everyday

Each and everyday.

Marley declares with a tone of confident finality the fact that the oppressors are guilty of their oppression and that the burden of their despicable deeds will continually hang on their conscience, even as they pretend to be the direct opposite of what they are. Class struggle is a universal issue that is dated back to creation itself.

A deeper deconstruction of the concept of class struggle will echo elements of Marx’s and Engels’ perspectives to the same issue. The war between God and satan is another example of the continuous contention between forces in creation either for supremacy or relevance. Even in the animal kingdom, the concept of territorialism points to the fact that one species is always wanting to dominate the other.

According to Thomas D. Ice, in his article Satan’s War Against God: “After Satan’s fall into sin he now sets out to expand his influence by tempting the newly created Adam and Eve to join his rebellion against God who created them all. This he succeeded in doing as he tempted Eve and got Adam to join them in rebellion against God.”

If God and His creation (satan) can go to war, it means that the entire human race cannot be free from the same struggle for supremacy which has manifested itself in various forms, starting with slavery, colonialism, racial segregation, ethnicism, etc. Lamenting the wickedness of the oppressors, Marley refers to them as the big fish who always try to eat the small fish.