Could You Be Loved: Rastafari-Reggae Bob Marley: Africa Scattered for Rhythm of Spirit of Oneness for the World
COULD YOU BE LOVED is of all Humankind acknowledging shared origin for Progress with Peace. ” . . insightful . . incisive and instructive . . a beautiful poetic move . . brilliant . . author, poet, philosopher Tekla Mekfet relates Bob Marley’s poetics to African philosophy, the Bible and the problems of Babylon as we encounter them in Jamaica and the world. . . helps to resolve the tension between the individual and the community, in Rasta poetics . . Historical memory . . clues to liberation in the present. Out of history and prophecy . . philosophy in Rastafari offers unaccustomed wide practical application.” (Dr. Noel Erskine, Professor of Theology & Ethics, Emory University, USA). ” . . deep understanding of world politics . . knowledge of the world’s literary works whether fiction or treatise . . wide knowledge of music of all genres . . erudite . . encyclopedic . . for every and anyone.” (Dr. Erna Brodber, sociologist-historian-novelist, University of the West Indies).
“In his own thoroughly original way Tekla Mekfet evokes the largesse of spirit and innovative rhetorical performances of Walt Whitman . . Whitman opened up the space of the line in American verse; he had an agile poetic persona; he was chronicler, seer, prophet. In our time Ras Mekfet is accomplishing much the same through his vision and voice.” (Michael Kuelker, Professor of English, St. Charles Community College, Rastafari-Reggae researcher, DJ, Missouri). Structure is as vocabulary item, social commentary, music of meaning, “Often, life is not nice neat sentences’. The index invites piece-mealing focus on such as The Word, Logic RHYTHM Household-Community, Reality, Freedom, Whiteness, or Oneness.
Varied subjects are explored as symbiotic – as could be related to Spinoza’s All is One and The One is Divine’, to ‘Selassie is The Chapel’, to Hegel’s ‘God’ dwelling within Humankind & permanently pervading the universe – related to shared African principles of an all-manifesting all-embracing ‘NTU’, or JAH of Rastrafari. Of Nature’s Logic & Kant’s ‘Categorical Imperative’ for universal oneness. Concept ‘Babylon’ de-constructed throughout, as is ‘Zion’. Of ‘Concrete Jungle’, The City, Marketed ‘God’, Moral Relativity, “life-long insecurity.” ” . . the heavy and the weary weight / Of all this unintelligible world / Is lightened.” Mekfet invites you to be free ‘of being psychologically blind. For YOU, are living of some measure & mix of philosophy . . that you may be living unperceived.” to be recognized “for sense of options for direction. .”
– Mother Africa’s Philosophy, Rastafari, The Bible, & cross-refs philosophy of West & East
– Philosophy in Reggae, Jazz, Dancehall Music: Atavistic Appeal African Rhythms Worldwide
– Culture of Politics, Mis-Education, Violence & Masculinity in ‘Jamaica’/’Carry-beyond’
– A Rastafari Journey, Jamaica & Social Prejudice
– Animism & Literary Imagery. Multi-cultural imagery ‘Christ’/Re-patria-tion/Ancestor Worship
– ‘Israel’ & ‘Jerusalem’ not as geographical entities, but as universal concepts for social organization related to Rhythm of Ecology & Bio-diversity, the Cosmos as a single organism, & Bio-mimicry – all antithesis of concept of ‘Babylon’