Although I’m known to be a Christian and I love to reason and spent time with my brethren and sistren in Messiah, I’m equally known for my reluctance in actually dealing with a church or “the Christian world”, so to speak. If I were not even promoting my music on sites known as “Christian”, then why in the world would I go to a Christian Festival to give some seminars and a small performance? Well, indeed nothing in this world would make me do a thing like that. JAH, however, is not of this world.

Yes, you’ve read that all right. I attended a Christian Festival to give two seminars and a small performance. And I am very happy that I did! This is a story about a mutual blessing.

It all started with a contact that came to be established between the bassist of a band called “Secret Archives Of The Vatikan” and myself. The bassist, with the funny name “Talking Dog”, and I have reasoned extensively, in which we’ve expressed our meditations concerning Rastafari and Christianity, in a variety of subjects. Talking Dog ofcourse isn’t really a dog and I couldn’t recognize anything doggish, or wolfish in him either. But he sure can talk! He convinced me to let go of my reluctance for once and share some of my meditations, especially those around Rastafari and Christianity. He also convinced the organisation of Greenbelt Festival in the UK to invite me, although I don’t know how strong they needed to be convinced. 

Or should I say “He”? And then, ofcourse, I refer to the Most High JAH! Throughout the whole festival it became clear to me, that He wanted me there. On one hand to get “my message” across, on the other hand, He also wanted to teach me some lessons. And I was led to a lot of information that I will use in the book I am currently writing.

Anyone familiar with my Itations and public discussions on certain Christian fora and newsgroups, know I have much criticism towards the way Rastafari is viewed and treated by mainstream Christianity. This mainstream doesn’t acknowledge Babylon’s existence and label Rastafari in a caricatural way. They even bend the Bible to make people follow Babylon shitstem. And I believe that I must address this. Being a Christian myself (Christ is Greek for Messiah), as well as a Dread, I feel sad over these controversies and the prejudices. So yes, there was a reason to go to a Christian Festival and share some of my reasonings with an audience that is not necessary a part of this mainstream Christianity, but Christian nevertheless.

And so, the Greenbelt organizers asked me to cross the Channel, do a little musical performance and give two seminars. One would be about Rastafari and Christianity, the other about how the Music Industry deals with the online audience and artist. During the preparations and communications with the Greenbelt people, it became clear that they were actually quite conscious and open-minded. And I am not speaking about a New Age kind of open-mindness, which I would rather call open-blindness. They want people to think for themselves, and they want to help people to get the necessary tools for that. They also want to raise the voice of those that cannot be heard: the downpressed, the sick, the imprisoned people of the world. 

But when all the preparations were done, and the time was there to actually go to the UK, I was soon to discover some things myself too. I didn’t know what to expect and yet I knew I had a difficult message to get across. Why? Well, simple. I had been judged before. People writing, responding to my meditations with words like “You’re leading people astray from God”, or worse. Sometimes, they would be prominent in the Christian World. Or some would show more interest in wanting to know as to whether I smoke herb or not, in an apparently desperate attempt to discredit me for other Christians. I know, my message to my Christian brethren and sistren can be quite disturbing: for many think that the western world is rich because God has blessed it. Many think that the west is a Christian Culture, where it is not. Many do not want to be disturbed and prefer to continue to live in their own little matrix. And some can get pretty nasty when you threaten to break through the lying! 

So I went to the UK, not knowing whether I would receive tomatoes to my head or not. 

I did not.

The first morning, on the Saturday, I met a preacher from the country of Nicaragua. As you may or may not know, this country has suffered tremendously under the politics of the United States and there is still no real prospect in this country for some improvement. And under the strangling policies of the World Bank and the IMF, Babylon System will make sure that the situation will go worse. The preacher said he was going to preach that day, and he would give a sermon about Babylon. He was going to speak on the fact that Babylon thinks she is God. He would indisputably compare the actions of the western countries with Jah’s description of Babylon. It was a very powerful sermon, from the brother. Near the end, a younger person stood up. He said, that before he listened to the preacher he thought the war against Iraq was good. But because of this sermon, he changed his mind.

Later that day I would give my first seminar. This seminar was about Rastafari and targeted for a Christian audience. People really wanted to know about Rastafari, and what relevance it had to them: the venue was quite full. I started with a description of the situation in which the movement of Rastafari came into existence: the crowning of Haile Selassie, slavery and the so-called Christianity of the western world. Then I went on by showing some documented proof concerning the downpression of black people: for example how racism was carefully planned to keep the slaves under control, centuries ago. How all of this was given a “Christian Sauce”, so to speak. I also spoke about the horrible reality of Babylon System. How the Rasta would recognize it and how many Christians are being in denial of it. And how both Rasta and Christian are fooled by Babylon into thinking that Europe and her colonies are a “Judeo Christian Civilization”. Rastafari has exposed how Babylon has hijacked the Name of the Saviour, how she has turned the message of salvation into a method of oppression. In the last part of the seminar I went into detail concerning the description of Rastafari as given by the Christian establishment and I quoted from the interviews with Abuna Yesehaq and the Prophet Gad, both to be found on the Dubroom. This was the short summary of the seminar: 

My first point is, that it would proof to be very fruitful, spiritually, to listen to what the Rastaman has to say about Babylon. Babylon is a horrible reality that should not be denied by Christians, especially because this Babylon makes use of Christian rhetoric.

My second message is, that within the movement of Rastafari there are many Christians, who are not being acknowledged as such by a Christian establishment. Even further, the Christian establishment is at least partly to blame for the incorrect information on Rastafari and that is a very serious thing with enormous consequences. 

It was quite a heavy seminar, and there were thoughtful questions afterwards, which showed me the enormous interest that people actually have. These questions also help me tremendously in working everything out to an even deeper extend. There was one question to which I did not have a real answer, and this question was shocking. A sister asked me, basically, what should be done against “racism in the church”. Although I more or less answered that a “racist church” should either stop being racist or stop call themselves a church, the question obviously deserved a much more in-depth approach which I couldn’t really provide. And not only because there wasn’t much time left. I knew I had to study this more thorough. And I will. I do consider myself emancipated in this, which means that race in itself is not an issue for me. But that is of little use for any reader or listener. We all have to come out of that box and start to see that we are all created out of one blood. And we have to do that without disregarding history and present. 

Unfortunately we had to stop the seminar because the time was over. Copies of the Gadman Interview were handed out to those interested, en we left the venue. In the hall, a sister started to talk to me. She said, that she was in contact with Rasta’s, who “would not recognize my description of Rastafari”, as she put it. She said she could agree with me on an intellectual level, only that the Rastas she talked about would not recognize themselves. They would tend to read only the Old Testament, for example. Now the description of Rasta that I gave was more or less that Rasta’s [a] recognize the existence of Babylon and [b] see some spiritual significance in the personality of Haile Selassie. But in my seminar I have also described a “Christian House” if you will within Rastafari unto a great extend by quoting the leader of the biggest Rasta Organization who is obviously of this House as well as quoting the man who was sent by Haile Selassie to preach that Selassie was not God. No irrelevant persons, as I would think. It was a shame that we did not have the chance to discuss this issue further, but the sister expressed that she would “definitely visit” the Dubroom and perhaps get in touch about it so that we might meditate on this matter in a deeper way.

The biggest surprise I had to face was a very pleasant one. As said before, I expected at least some reactions that would be hostile. After all, I did come to a Christian Festival to say that the world we are living in is far from being “Judeo Christian” and I had documented proof with me. I made sure I came to the festival with back-up material. But I did not receive any hostility. Sure, I had no real answer to the sister’s questions, but these things were not hostile. And during the whole weekend people would start to talk to me and express their happiness with the evidence I provided. I provided them with evidence of something they felt but had no documented material on! And that turned out to be the real reason as to why Jah led me to bring forward this proof: to help brothers and sisters to be equipped and to see how Jah is moving among people, showing them what’s happening!

You see, and this might be a pleasant thing for some Rasta I’s who are reading this report: it just turns out that there are actually many, many Christians who are very well aware of the existence of Babylon. They are equally angry over Babylon hijacking the Name of the Divine Saviour in order to name their god to a brainwashed population. They know that they are being taught a lie, when it is taught that the “Western Civilization” is built on “Judeo Christian” values. And they’re emancipating themselves from mental slavery, and look for themselves, in the Light of Yesus rather than to a church with walls or the system.

The system? Yes, Babylon system is using the believes of the Christians in a very, very subtle way. Let me give you an example. She makes use of the Christian’s naivety concerning the situations in the Middle East. Look at Israel/Palestine, for example. I met with people who witnessed first hand how the Palestinian people are subjected to humiliation, in their own land. Backed up by a billion dollar well of money from Zionists who may or may not think that “God is bringing His People back”, the state of Israel commits a politics of apartheid. Apache helicopters flying over the land, roadblocks everywhere, the people are so poor that 4/5 is living below poverty level and corruption is rampant. I obtained a whole library of research material concerning (Christian) Zionism for my book; including some video material that the Israeli government doesn’t want people to see. 

Sunday afternoon, I held my second seminar. This one was targeted for a more specific audience, those interested in the online music community and the way the Music industry deals with it. I was able to expose how MP3.com was taken over and how that symbolized the attitude of the Music Industry. I’ve made the link between the strangling force of globalisation, and I’ve named the criminals who cut the MP3.com artists with 100% of their income. The same company that steals people’s water in South Africa! The seminar also included some members of the Secret Archive Crew in the last part, and they have shared their vision of an artist-audience connection totally independent from the Music Industry. They revealed, that the so-called Christian Music Industry was actually owned by the secular (as they call it in the Christian world) Music Industry and that there was therefore no real difference. In other words, Christian artists and audience do not have to expect to find Jah Love in their own Gospel Industry either. 

Before I started my musical performance on the Sunday-night, backstage I heard another artist speak about the same thing. He was speaking about some CIA recording he had in which it was admitted that they were actually involved in some pretty nasty business. I heard how he said the people were aware of what is going on but were generally unable still to express this, et cetera. When he looked at me, I could only say: “I agree with you, watch the first minutes of my performance”. And this was just another experience in a long row of similar happenings. Everywhere I would meet people who are very much aware of the situation we are in! Visitors and contributors of the festival, Palestinian and South American preachers. It happened throughout the weekend, even until the last moments, but I’ll tell you about that later. 

Sunday-night, as said, I did a little performance. I prepared a 22 minute long mix of special versions, containing 5 of my tunes. The mix was made as one session, and mixed for dancing at a concert. In fact, it was entirely created for this festival. There was a heavy bass and loads of dub effects over which I voiced, a little singing and a little chatting/toasting style. It was my first performance that I did without any monitor! Fortunately I do have a past in music and built up a little experience (15+ years) so I guess I managed. For some reason, the monitors were turned of. For those of you who are not artists, this means that I could not hear myself on the stage as I should. I only heard a lot of resonated bass, and that’s it, so I had no reference points. Basically, this means that I had to decide the tone in which I sung from the memory instead of the sound of the music. It came down to me singing my tunes an octave (12 tones) lower then I’m used to. 

The set started with a version of “Invasion Of The Freedom Snatchers”, which was remixed and I sang the lyrics of a tune called “Babylon” over it. Next I did a tune, which we also play with Jah Roots, called “Reggae, Reggae”. Much more laid back than the introduction tune, which was a massive steppers. The third tune was a lively version of the tune called “Heroin”, followed by a workout of another Jah Roots tune, called “Chant”. This one was a prayer to the Most High. The set finished with another heavy steppers tune on which I chanted the lyrics of “Real Rockers Style”. 

People were dancing on the heavy drum and bass, the walls were literally shaking and the people rejoiced over much! I heard rejoicing and cheering over the conscious lyrics, and this was just another confirmation that people are actually much awake. 

Awake, but very tired I left the site on the early Monday morning, caught some hours sleep and met with the Talking Dog to spent the last hours together before I would go back to the Netherlands. While we were sitting there, reasoning, a sister approached me. She had written a book and wanted to tell me a little bit about it since the book was about Amsterdam, more or less. The book was also about games that are played, the creation of the perfect drug to keep soldiers awake for days and days. 

So from the first experience to the last, I must say that I have met a lot of conscious people all over the weekend. From the young to the old! All love Yesus Kristos so much and they were very much aware over the fact that His Name is being used by the powers that be for their own purposes. I went there; “well-armed” so to speak, prepared to meet a lot of “resistance”. It was good that I was “well-armed”, in other words that I came with documented evidence to back up what I was saying, but Jah had not led me to bring documented stuff so that I could “defend” myself, but so that the people would be given some more tools in a struggle that they themselves are also fighting! 

And that was THE lesson for me: I must and want to say, that I went to the UK, to the heart of Babylon some would say, to meet my brethren and sistren in an ire vibration. Not to escape from it all, but to equip each other. 

Please consider the writing above as the personal opinion/observation of Messian Dread rather than "Official Dubroom Policy" or something like that. 

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