Empress Marina Blake
American lawyer Empress Marina Blake has advised young people to avoid repeating the mistakes made by their leaders, who aim to impede the advancement of society.
In her speech at the 132nd birthday celebration of Haile Selassie I, organised by the Rastafari Council, Empress Marina Blake said: “The elders of Rastafari have made some miscalculations and even some serious mistakes, and I call on the youth not to repeat our mistakes but to correct them.”
Empress Marina added: “Some of our mistakes included a total repudiation of formal education, referring to it as colonial indoctrination, not realizing that we could have leveraged that education in ways that would benefit our community and our race.”
“We have hit the nail on the head when it would have been better to take a more delicate and selective approach. We also completely refused to work in or interact with oppressive capitalism. However, in fact, we were interacting with the capitalist system, but only at the lowest level. It would have been better to get involved in order to gain experience, skills and access to capital that we could then use to finance our revolutionary movement.”
According to her, “we seriously underestimated the importance of money for the revolutionary struggle out of zeal without sufficient knowledge like a runaway horse.”
He concluded by saying, “We elders, in our misguided approach, inadvertently create a mentality of victimhood, dependency, and waiting for a Savior to change our situation, rather than recognizing that we have the power to save ourselves. The responsibility is entirely ours.”
The 132nd anniversary celebration was organised by the Rastafari Council of Ghana at Rising Phoenix in Accra.
Speakers at the celebration included Jah Gold, Glen Zebi and the Rastafari Council, Ghanaian President Ahuma Bosco Ocansey aka Daddy Bosco. Special guests at the event included Stuart Brown aka African Star Elder Djabi and veteran media personality Black Santino.
Performers included Osagyefo, Konkarah Jahvybes and Empress Fya Lioness. Other performers included Aklerh, Empress Sancious and Jefri King.
The rotating DJs were Nature One and Ras Nene at the Mighty Black Waves Sound.
