Reggae Icon Bunny Wailer chants support for Rasta Millennium Council

REGGAE legend Neville Livingstone, better known as Bunny Wailer, is urging the Rastafarian community to rally around the Rastafarian Millennium Council.

In his call for support of that Rastafari umbrella organisation, the Rastafari elder and entertainer asserted that now was the time for the Rastafarian community to set up its own organisational structure in order to make the necessary choices as to where to go in defending the indigenous intellectual properties that it has created.

"So that anytime one wants to use whatever belong to Rasta, they have to get the right (permission). If you nuh get the right, you get a lawyer document weh sey, cease and desist from touching that until you have the right. And in the meantime, you see like how you touched it, account fi all weh you touched and weh you get out of it.

"Rasta haffi can do dat fi dem self or dem a nuh Rasta, dem a jokers around here. So brethren and sistren of the faith of Rastafari, let's rally with the Millennium Council. Let's bring all our devices, let's bring all our resources, let's bring all our knowledge, let's bring all our experiences, let's bring all the things that are necessary for Rastafarians to fulfil their destiny," Bunny Wailer said.

Jah B, as he is affectionately known, was speaking at the start of the recent Rastafarian Millennium Council's series of seminars on intellectual property rights.

Wailer was providing answers to at least one panellist, who later lamented the slow progress of Rastafari after 80 years.

Apparently aware of the ongoing concern of some members within the Rastafarian Community, that it has not advanced sufficientle to achieve a sustainable level of economic self-reliance, Jah B's response was also in the context of the unconventional nature of his faith.

"As an Ethiopian you will always be looking forward for repatriation and reparation as far as the sentencing of our foreparents who worked so hard to build Babylon and never got a dime," the legendary Wailer reminded the gathering.

"All we have to do is to do the right thing and having one voice. If the Millennium Council is not seen or recognised as this one voice, then we have yet to create that one voice. But the Millennium Council so far has exhibited what it takes. We are trying to find a way out of Babylon system and if you check the system of Babylon, it has let down all Jamaican people. All Jamaican people have been let down by the system. Rastafarians somehow are different," said the veteran singer.

"Because we have put our trust in the Most High Rastafari, who has inspired I and I and showed I and I the way how to survive in all of this catastrophe set up to trap and get rid of Rasta, which is an impossible task.