Rastafari around the world .

BY BASIL WALTERS Observer staff reporter

Sunday, August 22, 2010

A member of the third generation of the Marley clan is discovering Rastafari not only from a personal perspective, but also its impact on countries around the world.

At the week-long Rastafari Studies Conference at the UWI (Mona), commemorating the 50th anniversary of the University Report on the Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Donisha Prendergast presented part of a documentary she is working on, looking at Rastafari around the world.

PRENDERGAST... the documentary is about Rastafari around the world and the different expressions of Rastafari 1/1

It was one of three such documentaries. The others were Rastas At Home And Aboard by Susanne Moss, Coping With Babylon by Oliver Hill and Rastafari Voices by Elliott Leib.

"Basically, the documentary is about Rastafari around the world and the different expressions of Rastafari," explained the young filmmaker, who started off in acting, about her work in progress she has been labouring on for the past four years.

"Remember now," she stresses, "that Rastafari is not a religion because religions are made to keep down the people. It is a cultural expression, it is a way of life, it is a movement, it is a earth-feeling, it is an inspiration, it is a service to mankind, that is what Rastafari is and so this documentary is to show to people who we are."

Noting that one of the main ways that Rastafari was promulgated throughout the world was through music, the daughter of Sharon Marley and Peter Prendergast, said that this is her way of documenting and celebrating the cultural tradition for which her grandfather was among its main exponents.

"It is even more personal to me, because what I do know is that, one of the main ways that Rastafari was distributed through the world was through music, particularly Reggae music. Particularly that of my grandfather. And then to follow the many many great Reggae musicians who came after him," she affirmed.

"And Reggae music is a thing that you can't help but feel it, and if you can't help but feel Reggae music that mean sey you can't help but feel Rasta. And it's a real real empowering thing to go around the world and to see these different faces singing the same kind of things, you know. Rasta reached a stage now where we have to tell people who we are in a certain way because them confused," Prendergast explained.

So far, she has been to four countries, Ethiopia, South Africa, Israel and the United States. "We're here in Jamaica now and once we leave here we head for Canada, then the UK and India... the plan is, we want go all over the world, but we a go do it in stages because every place inna the world deserves to tell Rasta story, the we they tell and mi woulda like fi go see. And this is the documentary that I am working on. I know that it will stand as a historical document for many, many years to come and that mean sey we have to put in the right information in it," the Jamaican-born/Miami-based student in film and digital productions told the Sunday Observer.