The Religious Faith and Spiritual Reality of Siphiwe Baleka

Many people have asked me about my religion, and recent events in my life have compelled me to give this testimony.

To put it briefly, I had no religious training until I reached the age of twenty two when I became a devout follower and practioner of the Rastafari faith from 1995 to 2007. During that period, I took a Nazarite vow and did not cut my hair. In 2007 I was initiated further into the Anu Mysteries as taught in ancient Kemet. This allowed me to transcend religion and lead a life of spirituality through direct connection with Divinity and becoming One with God. In that system, I am between (2) The Intelligences, i.e., those who had attained the inner vision, and had received mind or nous and (3) The Creators or Sons of Light, who had become identified with or united with the Light (i.e., true spiritual consciousness). For years I underwent disciplinary intellectual exercises, and bodily asceticism with intervals of tests and ordeals to determine my fitness to proceed to the more serious, solemn and awful processes designed to facilitate the cultivation of the ten virtues.

I am required to manifest the following soul attributes: 

(1) Control of thought and 

(2) Control of action, the combination of which, may be called Justice (i.e. the unswerving righteousness of thought and action – [Siphiwe note: the object of which, according to Neely Fuller Jr, is that no one is mistreated and those that need the most help get the most help]). 

(3) Steadfastness of purpose, which was equivalent to Fortitude. 

(4) Identity with spiritual life or the higher ideals, which was equivalent to Temperance, an attribute attained when the individual had gained conquest over the passional nature. 

(5) Evidence of having a mission in life [See: Global Afrikan Strategic Reparatory Justice Efforts at the PFPAD, ICJ, and AU - The Board As Seen By Siphiwe Baleka] and 

(6) Evidence of a call to spiritual Orders or the Priesthood in the Mysteries: the combination of which was equivalent to Prudence or a deep insight and graveness that befitted the faculty of Seership.

(7) Freedom from resentment, when under the experience of persecution and wrong. This was known as courage. 

(8) Confidence in the power of the master (as Teacher), and 

(9) Confidence in one’s own ability to learn; both attributes being known as Fidelity. 

(10) Readiness or preparedness for initiation. There has always been this principle of the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt: ‘When the student is ready, then the master will appear.’

Now let me explain.

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I was born on April 14, 1971 at 2:37 am in Copley Memorial Hospital in Montgomery, IL. My maternal grandfather was a devout Catholic and raised my mother in the faith. By her effort, I was baptized as an infant at St. Anne’s Catholic church in Oswego, IL. I did not attend church as a child. My parents divorced and I was raised by my father, Jeremiah Nathaniel Blake, who was not a religious person at all.

I have a basic understanding of 1,108 generations of my family dating back to 42,300 BC, with the firtst 970 generations (haplogroup E-V38) originating in the Nile Valley and eventually settling and developing the Nekhen Confederation during the Nilo-Sudanic period. For 38,800 years we were a free people subject to natural law and totemic customs. I have come to understand our original spirituality as that of the Great Belief which centered on the concept of “vital life force energy”. There was no concept or theory of “salvation” or “sin”. The next 10 generations from 3,500 BC to 3,100 BC during Nekhen Confederation – 400 years - we were a free people subject to natural law and totemic customs and freely associated with members of the Nekhen Confederation.

The next 113 generations from 3,100 BC to 1400 AD during the Migration Period from Nile Valley to Guinea Bissau – 4,500 years - we were a free people subject to natural law and totemic customs During this period, my family resisted various assaults, attacks and raids by various peoples and various states, especially the Mande peoples of the Mali and Kaabu Empires, as well as by Islamic jihads. The next 9 generations from 1400 AD to 1765 AD we lived in Nhacra – 365 years - and we were a free people subject to natural law and Balanta customs According to Balanta oral history and historians, my family recognized no leaders, chiefs, or kings and the head of the family household was the highest unit of sovereignty.

Sometime in the 1760s, B’rassa Nchabra, my great, great, great, great, great grandfather, was captured and taken from his village in Untche in present day Guinea Bissau and became a prisoner of war that was declared by the Papal Bull Dum Diversas in 1452 and conducted by the Military Order of Jesus Christ that was established in 1319, following the suppression of the Kights Templars, with the support of King Denis of Portugal. The order's primary headquarters were in Tomar Castle, which had previously served as the Templars' headquarters. 

My family’s oral history in America was given on August 9, 1974 by my great grand uncle Revered Eustace Blake, the 44th Pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States founded in1794 by Richard Allen:

"Our forefathers were George, Jack, Yancey. Yancey Blake married Melissa Page. Yancey begat nine children by Melissa. Two boys and seven girls. Boys: Yancey Jr and John Addison. During the civil war a group of Federal Soldiers came pass the house of my grandfather (Yancey Blake), Yancey Blake Jr. joined them and was never heard from anymore.”

In 1853 Jack was emancipated. In 1896, his grandson, my great, great grandfather John Addison Blake founded and built the Union Bethel African Methodist Church (AME). Thus, from an early period, my Balanta grandfathers’ religion since their enslavement and captivity in America was always an Africanized version of Christianity since they were prevented from practicing their traditional Balanta spirituality. It was a forced conversion made under duress from the trauma of slavery.

In 1975, at the age of 4, my family took a trip to Charleston, SC. My father, a former high school swimmer and diver (his father, my grandfather was a member of the US Coast Guard), was undoubtedly excited to bring his son to see the Atlantic ocean. However, when I was brought to the waters edge and touch the water where my great, great, great, great, great grandfather had arrived in America, I freaked out! I was deathly afraid of the water. So bizarre was my reaction that my father immediately resolved that I would start swimming lessons as soon as we returned home.

THAT WAS THE MOMENT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF MY GREAT, GREAT, GREAT, GREAT, GREAT BALANTA GRANDFATHER ENTERED ME.

Around this same time, when I was six years old, I, like millions of Americans watched the television adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots. One scene, in particular, scarred me forever - Kunte Kinte being whipped to accept his slave name.

In 1989, I enrolled in Yale University but by 1992 suffered an identity crisis provoked by the use of my “slave” name and a year later, in February 1993, I abruptly left in order to “seek the kingdom of God.” From that time to 2007 - chronicled in my books From Yale to Rastafari: Letters to My Mom, 1995-1998 and the five volumes of Come Out of Her, My People! 21st Century Black Prophetic Faith and Pan African Diplomacy - I read the Bible from beginning to end using Bible dictionairies, concordances, and other bible study supplements. I spent my time Learning From The Leaders The Personal Cost of African Liberation: Responsibility, Racial Re-Education, Spiritual Re-Conversion, and Class Suicide for a Holy Order of Commitment. I learned the truth about who invented the gospel of Jesus Christ and why. I learned how there were over 400 European military warships named “Jesus” which trafficked people from Africa into slavery in Egypt. I learned about the Mental Slavery of Christianity: Its Origin, Development and The Challenge of Cognitive Dissonance to the African Ancestry Movement From the Point of View of Neuroscience and Behavior Change.

“I could no longer recognize or accept ‘Jesus’ as a saviour, but only as a fictional figure that had been deified and used to maintain the Dum Diversas’ “perpetual servitude” and white supremacy! Why else would all depictions of the Christ and Angels be white?????

All of this I learned from people who were known as the Rastafari movement. From them I learned about Ethiopia’s place in the Bible and biblical prophecy and Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of Judah and Elect of God. I didn’t need to go back 2000 years to find a “Jesus” when in my lifetime the King of Kings and Lord of Lords had come, and he came our of ETHIOPIA!!!! Just like there was an Old Testament for Israel, and a New Testament for Gentile Christians, now there was a Final Testament for those who received the Revelation of Rastafari. For me, the word of God was no longer the Bible, it was the 700+pages of the Selected Speeches of HIM Haile Selassie I. Reading

Reading the words of His Imperial Majesty, I FELT the living word of GOD in the 20th Century. I did not need the Bible to see that Haile Selassie was the embodiment, the voice of truth and righteousness in world events. And this is how I became a Selassiite, one who recognizes the Christ Consciousness in the person of the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of Judah.

To understand my religious training, faith and spiritual reality, one must therefore undertand the ETHIOPIA TO CHICAGO CONNECTION which is my heritage.

1892: Lij Tafari Makonnen, who later became Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, was born on July 23, 1892. His birthplace was Ejersa Goro, a town in the Hararghe province. He was the son of Ras Makonnen, the Governor of Harar, and Woizero Yeshimabet Ali Abba Jifar. 

1893: The "Chicago Congress on Africa" refers to the Congress on Africa held in Chicago during the World's Columbian Exposition. This event brought together individuals of African descent from both the United States and other parts of the world including Alexander Crummell, Bishop Henry Turner and Bishop Alexander Walters of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (AME) who, seven years later, would chair the London Congress. It combined intellectual, ideological, religious, philosophical, and scientific discussions related to Africa and its diaspora. Out of this event in my hometown was born the modern organized Pan African Movement.

1895: Another Pan-African Repatriation plan was initiated by black businessman William H. Ellis, who backed the efforts of Georgia preacher Henry McNeil Turner. At the end of the year, the Congress on Africa convened in Atlanta Dr. Blyden submitted a paper entitled, "Africa and the Future of the Negro Race" and Bishop Turner gave an address on "The American and His Fatherland."

1897: Benito Sylvan, Haitian born and former secretary of the Haitian legation in London, visits Ethiopia and becomes an aide-de-camp in the Imperial household of Emperor Menelik. Against this backdrop emerged the African Association that was launched in England on September 24, 1897

1903: Benito Sylvain returns to Ethiopia where he introduces William Ellis to Emperor Menelik II and tells the Emperor, "Europe for Europeans and Africa for Africans.”

1909: Robert Daniel Alexander moves from Chicago to Ethiopia. He is the first descendant of people trafficked from Africa and enslaved in the Americas to repatriate to Ethiopia. He provides Emperor Menelik with copies of the black-owned Chicago Defender newspaper.

1917: a Black man named Charles Henry Holmes (pen name Clayton Adams) wrote a book entitled Ethiopia, The Land of Promise: A Book With A Purpose. The book was a novel best described as visionary prophetic fiction. In the book, five Black men had strange dreams which caused them all to meet together on May 5. One of the dreams pictured Black soldiers and a red, gold and green flag. The men began meeting on the fifth of every month and realized that their dream was about forming an organization, the Ethiopian Union, in order to combat and conquer Jim Crowism in America.

1919: The Ethiopian/Abyssinian Mission to my hometown of Chicago in 1919 fulfilled the propshecy in Isaiah 18:1-7 and that the prophet Zephaniah revealed its meaning. This fulfillment of prophecy inspired the faith of Grover “The Prophet” Redding to start working in my hometown of Chicago. He began to organize “Ethiopians”, my suppliants, even the daughter or my dispersed, an afflicted and poor people, sorrowful, to whom the reproach of it was a burden, to gather them for the solemn assembly, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion. The name of the Prophet Redding’s organization: The Star Order of Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Mission to Abyssinia. Grover Redding burns the American flag and hoists the red, gold and green flag of Ethiopia, pledging his allegiance to the government of Ras Tafari. From them came the Ras Tafari Movement that preached:

Psalm 68:31 — Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.

Genesis 49:10 — The scepter shall not depart from Judah…

Revelation 5:5 — Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah…

Revelation 19:16 — King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Isaiah 9:7 — Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end…

Zephaniah 3:10 — From beyond the rivers of Cush

Psalm 87:4 — This man was born there (Ethiopia).

1922: Reverend James Morris Webb from Chicago publishes the pamphlet "The Black Man Will Be The Coming Universal King" and then lectures to the UNIA. Marcus Garvey then repeats Reverend Webb's call to "Look to Africa for the Crowning of a Black King."

1928 (October 7): Ethiopian Regent and Plenipotentiary Ras Tafari is crowned Negus "King" of Ethiopia.

On November 2, 1930 all the prophecies were fulfilled when Ras Tafari was crowned "Haile Selassie (meaning “Power and Might of the Trinity”) and given the messianic titles King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of Judah and Elect of God. Isaiah 9:6-7New International Version:

6 For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
    Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
    there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
    and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
    with justice and righteousness
    from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
    will accomplish this.

Revelation 19:16:

"On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS." Revelation 19:16 

1 Timothy 6:15:

"which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords," 1 Timothy 6:15 

Revelation 17:14:

"They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful."

Daniel 2:47:

"The king declared to Daniel, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings, and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.”

Subsequent events in history proved the fulfillment of prophesy, as the nations and kings of the earth, Led by the Pope and Italian Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini, did indeed make war on the King of Kings! 1935 (September 30) Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie signed the general mobilization order for his troops to defend against the Italian invasion. Colonel John C. Robinson from Chicago becomes the Emperor's pilot and trains the Ethiopian air force. Black people all over the world, including 5,000 people in Chicago, volunteer to go to Ethiopia and fight to defend the last sovereign nation in Africa.

Concerning religion, Haile Selassie I said:

"My dynasty has ruled ever since the Queen of Sheba met King Solomon and a son was born of their union."

- HIM Haile Selassie I Ras Tafari interviewed by Oriana Fallaci, Chicago Tribune, 24 June 1973.

Here is the fulfillment of -

1 Chronicles 28:6 - "The LORD hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the LORD over Israel. And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts: for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. Moreover I will establish his kingdom for ever."

"Solomon shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever."

- 1 Chronicles 22:9-10

"Then Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD as king instead of David his father."

- 1 Chronicles 29:23

"Blessed be the LORD thy God, which delighted in thee to set thee on his throne, to be king for the LORD thy God."

- The Queen of Sheba to Solomon, in 2 Chronicles 9:8

"I am the slave of my God and not a free man; I do not serve according to my own will but according to His will. And this speech of mine springeth not from myself, but I give utterance only to what He maketh me to utter."

- King Solomon in the Kebra Nagast, Miguel Brooks Version Chapter 24 / Wallis Budge Version Chapter 26.

Haile Selassie I said many things about Jesus Christ, the Bible, Faith, Religion and Spirituality. As Head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and “Defender of the Faith”, Haile Selassie I was a devout Christian. On June 8, 1954, HIM Haile Selassie came to Chicago and told the congregation of black people gathered at South Park Baptist Church:

"My message to the colored people of the United States is that they continue to press forward with determination their social and intellectual advancement, meeting all obstacles with Christian courage and tolerance, confident in the certainty of the eventual triumph of justice and equality throughout the world. The people of Ethiopia feel the strongest bond of sympathy and understanding with the colored people of the United States. We greatly admire your achievements and your contributions to American life and the tremendous development of this great nation."

Nine years after the Emperor’s visit to Chicago, he returned to New York to give his famous “War” speech at the United Nations. The speech represents the Ultimate Word of God to man on earth in our lifetime. Elder Gabriel (Patrick Mickiel Diaz ), one of the earliest Rastas and Nyabinghi drummers from Jamaica and close friend of Ras Mortimo Planno (Bob Marley’s mentor) went to the United Nations that day and returned with a printed copy of that speech, which he lamenated and kept as his prize possession.

On April 21, 1966 HIM Haile Selassie visited Jamaica. Ras Jahlani Niaah, Head of the Rastafari Studies Unit at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Jamaica, and Co-founder of the School of Sacrament Rastafari University (SOSACRU), addressing the 70th Anniversary of the First State Visit of HIM Emperor Haile Selassie I Ras Tafari to Austria on 28 November 2024, stated,

"My Rastafari teacher [Mortimo Planno] indicates that His Majesty used Jamaica to show the world who He was. So, according to Planno, His Majesty fully well know that the Jamaicans were gonna get out of control. You know, but that's exactly what He want. Because if you were to think of the Conquering Lion as a victorious politician, war general, etc. - He arrives in Jamaica and has to restore order in Jamaica immediately as His first task! The Jamaican state has lost control upon the landing of His plane. It is His Majesty who has to instruct the Chief of Staff to get Mortimo Planno. He can restore order right here. The newspapers described Planno as 'Prime Minister for a day'. So, they completely get it that His Majesty appeared before the people [and] overturns the state. By the ganging of the plane the state just fell. Understand that! Soldiers cannot shoot. Nothing to regain control can happen. So, this is now that extended period of: 'What is gonna happen?!' You know, Jamaica cannot afford for a major fiasco! This is the King of Kings who has landed! We can't fire, and we can't behave how we would behave with our own negro people. You know, we have to find a better approach.' Thankfully, Planno was able to save the day!"

According to Charles Price in Rastafari - The Evolution of a People and Their Identity (page 230)

"The Emperor's visit created the opening for a new status for Rastafari. Emperor Selassie did not denounce the Rastafari as many elites had expected. He greeted a delegation of Rastafari and gifted each of them a gold coin and was rumored to have encouraged the Rastafari to organize and centralize for their future development. Many non-Rastafari re-evaluated their view of the Rastafari after the Emperor's visit, and some themselves became Rastafari, expanding the numbers of the community."

Hector Wynter, then Jamaican Government Minister, in Jeanne Christensen writes in Rastafari Reasoning and the RastaWoman (page 106):

"As we prepared for his welcoming, 33 [note: probably 13] individual Rastafarian leaders one by one at King's House, [Emperor Haile Selassie I], his aide, and I were talking in the room at King's House. I asked him if he would comment on the view that he was the Son of God. His response, through his Aide, was that it was not his habit to interfere with people's beliefs. I agreed with him."

Ancient Ras Filmore Alvaranga in the Roaring Lion Documentary states:

"We met him at King’s House and he said to us: 'How long do the Rastafari movement start in Jamaica?' We said to him: 'Ever since your coronation, Your Majesty – the 2nd of November 1930.' He said to us: 'Your works are purposeful', [and that] we must continue in our endeavour. That mean we nah fi [must not] stop say Rasta! But hear what him go say now: 'You must centralize and organize!'"

Ancient Ras Mortimo Planno when interviewed by Mutabaruka on Cutting Edge, Irie FM said,

“Listen, the 21st ah April 1961 we meet His Majesty in Addis Ababa. And 1966, five years after, the 21st ah April we meet him in Jamaica. The 21st ah April, that is the point I'm making. And if you look now, Rome was born on the 21st ah April. . . . When His Majesty come him tell we, say, anywhere him there him want Rastafarians there. [...] We had to go daily to get instructions from the Ethiopian Ambassador. Everyday His Majesty say what him want and what him don‘t want. What him want is Rastaman fi there everywhere where him there. So them give me a whole bundle of invitations, all me have to do is just write up who we want to go where.”

During this same time, Amilcar Cabral, writing in the 1960’s in reference to the liberation struggle being waged in Guinea Bissau stated,

“it follows that a considerable part of the population notably the urban or peasant 'petty bourgeoisie", assimilates the colonizer's mentality, and regards itself as culturally superior to the people to which it belongs and whose cultural values it ignores or despises. This situation, characteristic of the majority of colonized intellectuals, is crystallized to the extent that the social privileges of the assimilated or alienated group are increased with direct implications for the BEHAVIOR towards the liberation movement by the individuals in this group.

A SPIRITUAL RE-CONVERSION - OF MENTALITIES - is thus seen to be VITAL for their true integration in the liberation movement. Such re-conversion - re-AFRICANIZATION in our case - may take place before the struggle, but is completed only during the course of the struggle.”

After the Emperor’s visit to Jamaica, Ancient Ras Mortimo Planno's 12-Point Position Paper on the State of the Rastafarian Movement, July 1970, as quoted by Yawney, Lions in Babylon, page 380, emphasized,

"Who is a Rastafarian? The question who is a Rastafarian can be answered by everyone who accepts the King of Kings of Ethiopia as the 'Messiah. But who is an Ethiopian? is a far different question and a more unique answer. An Ethiopian cannot change his skin. This is a skin Identification. H.I.M. attribute it to Blood Brothers, not Soul Brothers. . . .The Rastafarian Movement must be credited to maintain under assidious circumstances the purposes of the foundation of the movement which is: 1) To accept the Truth and Logic of the manifestation of the Living God sitting upon the Throne of King David in the Person of H.I.M. Haile Selassie I. 2) The Rastafarian Movement found and built its tenets by the interpretation of the Scriptures. Therefore, classify the Rastafarian Movement to that of a religious movement who advocate Peace and Love, Unity and Reorientation of a lost Race of People through Slavery, Redemption and Repatriation back to our forefathers' land."

Every year there was a big Haile Selassie I celebration in Washington Park in Chicago, which was founded in 1974 by Elder Gabriel (Patrick Mickiel Diaz ), one of the earliest Rastas and Nyabinghi drummers from Jamaica and close friend of Bob Marley’s mentor Ras Mortimo Planno (who would become the only man to receive two Gold Medals from Emperor Haile Selassie), and Tzaddi Wadadah Terrier II a.k.a. Selector T. Elder Gabriel was another of my mentors and I lived in his basement for over a year. I remember him fondly, always bringing out his copy of Haile Selassie’s War speech and telling the story of how he sat in the balcony and watched him give the speech. Often he would go about the house shouting, ‘Until the philosophy, which holds one race superior and another, inferior, is finally, and permanently discredited, and abandoned. . . . Until that day! The dream of lasting peace and world citizenship. . . . And the rule of international morality shall remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued and NEVER ATTAINED.”

At the Haile Selassie festival in 1996 I remember when Mutabaruka said from the stage that Rastas were “talking too much about Africa and not walking enough to get there - Africa is a land, not a state of mind.” That inspired a small group of us to take Repatriation seriously. That same year Ancient Ras Boanerges (aka Bongo Watto), one of the founders of the mystic Nyahbinghi Order, speaking in Elsie's River, Cape Town, Azania South Africa, delcared,

"Each and everyone take up this crown [Dreadlocks] of the Almighty, which [who] is called by His name [Ras Tafari]. If you don't have this [touching his Dreadlocks], no one will call you Rasta. And Rasta is the name of the Almighty, the new name. Rasta is the new name! So that we don't recognize no religion, nor no politics, nor no political life no more, nor no christian life no more. For the I bring us salvation through His name Ras Tafari. Haile I Selassie I King Ras Tafari!"

After the raid on Nkrumah Washington Community Learning Center where I was working, I shifted from political education and black nationalism and began to prepare to return to Ethiopia.

I started hanging out at the Wild Hare, Frontline and King Solomon’s Mines with Ras Sekou Tafari, Abba Kisi, and Jahsyl and learning about Rastafari. I finally found The Revolution I was seeking. The Rastas were militant. They were spiritual. They were political. They were cultural. They were intellectual. They were openly defiant. They were mystical….. I found my peers here, others who were seeking African liberation, and in particular, Repatriation, and were willing to completely commit and order their lives to it. From Rastafari people I learned,

“Haile Selassie I the First, Conquering Man Lion of Judah came TO ORDER THE PEOPLE. The confused mentality that was fostered by Slavery had burned out and the mind had to be set on a course of HIGH ORDER . . . . When one looks at the first inspiration that came to I&I from His Majesty, it was an INSPIRATION through the establishment of IVINE ORDER. It was not an inspiration to create a mere RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT. Neither was it an inspiration to create a mere social movement nor a political movement. The vision was to create an IVINE ORDER OF LIVITY that encompassed ALL aspects of life. . . . Without a Pan-African vision that has as its goal the establishment of Black Nationhood with a restored concept of BLACK ROYALTY AND DIVINITY, the root of the problems that now face Black civilization cannot be rooted out. THE TRUTH MUST BE FACED THAT THE PROBLEMS ARE NOT ONLY ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND CULTURAL, but they are also SPIRITUAL in the sense of having been subjected to unnaturalness for so long that naturalness becomes an unwelcome stranger. TRAPPED, domesticated and tethered for centuries to the stake of unnaturalness the caged and domesticated creature is apt to lose its spiritual equilibrium and forget what is clean from what is unclean, what is right from what is wrong, and what is high from what is low. This is the condition of the ‘ex-slaves’ in this time, sorely in need of something more than a political movement, something that involves the reshaping of character in the similitude of ROYALTY. . . . If one were to put into one sentence THE MAIN GUIDELINE OF THE NYAHBINGHI ORDER upon which the whole of RASTAFARI IS FOUNDED, it is Resurrection of THE BLACK IDEAL FOR THE PURPOSE OF ACHIEVING BLACK LIBERATION. . .”

Black liberation meant finding an escape from the plantation, from the SYSTEM. I didn’t want to become an economic wage slave so I tried to find strategies that could free my from serving the SYSTEM from 9 am to 5 am every day and having to pay rent. Like my Balanta ancestors who resisted Mandinka and Portuguese oppression by relocating to the mangrove swamps, I relocated to the waste spaces in Chicago and started squatting abandoned building which became my “liberated territories”. I would clean them up and do basic rehab and continue as if I owned the place. My first confrontation with Chicago police concerning my liberated territory took place on July 14, 1997 at 1944 S. California Avenue, Chicago, IL.. I was charged with criminal trespass, but the case was eventually dropped.

By the summer of 1998, our small group began to get ready to leave America to repatriate to Ethiopia. A passage in From Yale To Rastafari: Letter to My Mom, 1995-1998 reads,

“Some other Rastafarians and I have decided to join forces. His Majesty Haile Selassie has given us 500 acres in Shashemane, Ethiopia. Currently there are 60 families there, and, JAH willing, We will be the next group to go and settle the remaining 350 acres. There are six of Us right now – Yahnaq, whom I consider a brother, Zakiyyah, who is like a first wife, Nikelda, her son Alejandro, and Jahneri, Yahnaq’s wife. Everyone wears dreadlocks and is called, chosen and faithful to His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of Judah.

We are planning to go forward to Ethiopia at the end of October of this year. We already have half of our gear and plane fare. In order to prepare for our new life, we have been living out of tents in a remote area where we are growing our own food and herbs and learning how to live without modern conveniences like electricity, cooked food, etc. Since our vegetable crops are not ready, we’ve been eating wild foods which I pick everyday – wild lettuce, dandelion leaves, wild carrot, greens, pepper grass, horsetail, blackberries, ground strawberries. We also buy organic fruit (wholesale) as well as hard wheat berries, buckwheat, and nuts, raisins, peanut butter and coconut. We also sprout seeds and legumes. Because everything is fresh, raw and without chemicals, we are getting strong and healthy, . . . .

The air out here is fresh, and I am breathing normally. I can even smell various herbs, flowers, etc. and can tell if someone is cooking miles away! At night we sometimes build a fire and so long as its not raining, we sleep on the ground uncovered and gaze at the celestial bodies moving across the sky.

We have even built huts from saplings, leaves and mud. During the afternoon when it gets hot, we retreat from the fields and take SIESTAS under the huts which are surrounded by forest and a great green canopy. The wind blows gently – a natural air conditioning, the temperature in the huts can be as much as 10 degrees cooler! They also serve as an infirmary and, in addition to cuts and scrapes, I’ve had to treat Zakiyyah for heatstroke. Out here I get to be me – father, brother, architect, doctor, priest, king, entertainer, everything. So, I am very free and happy. It is a great time of preparation for our journey.

I don’t know if I will be coming back to America. It is doubtful. Just thought I’d let you know.”

October came and went and we did not go to Ethiopia. We were not yet ready. We needed another year. At the Haile Selassie Festival in Washington Park in July of 1999, we were were very joyful because we believed we would be going to Ethiopia and escaping “Babylon” in just a few months before the start of the Babylon New Year, January 1, 2000. With Elder Gabriel and all the Rasta people in Chicago, and the conscious black community in Chicago, we camped and celebrated for three nights in Washington Park, singing praises to Haile Selassie and listening to live reggae music. I had become theocratically appointed Ilect of Records for the original Star Order of Ethiopia secret organization that started with Prophet Redding in 1919. Then something curious and disheartening happened. My backpack with some of our important documents, a large sum of cash, and other things disappeared from my tent. Then two weeks later, I was ambushed by the Chicago police. Below is the account contained in my records.

I. Charges

Sometime after midnight in the early morning of Friday, August 6, 1999, I, Ras Nathaniel Afrika Tafari (as I was known then) was ticketed for parking on city property, driving without insurance and failure to produce a drivers’s license. I was also arrested and charged with 839 grams of cannabis sativa, a violation of Illinois Criminal Statue 720550/4 of the Cannabis Control Act.

According to Section 550/3(a) of the Act,

“Cannabis” includes marijuana, hashish and other substances which are identified as including any parts of the plant Cannabis Sativa, whether growing or not; the seeds thereof, the resin extracted from any part of such preparation of such plant, its seeds, or resin, including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and all other cannabinol derivatives, including its naturally occurring or synthetically produced ingredients, whether produced directly or indirectly by extraction, or independently by a combination of extraction and chemical synthesis; but shall not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from stalks, oil or cake made from the seeds of such plant, any other compound, manufacture, salt, derivative, mixture, or preparation of such mature stalks (except the resin extracted therefrom), fiber, oil or cake, or the sterilized seed of such plant which is incapable of germination.

Section 550/4(e) states that

“more than 500 grams but not more than 2,000 grams of any substance containing cannabis is guilty of a Class 3 felony.”

At the trial, when I was called to the stand to testify, my hand on the Bible, I was asked, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” I replied,

“Only if you swear to judge this case in accordance with what it says in this Bible I am swearing on.”

At that moment, it was as if lightning struck and the record had skipped. This was not normal, and my answer threw a monkey wrench into their proceedings. The judge promptly cleared the court and went into his chambers.

While they court tried to figure out what to do, I was ready. I had prepared my opening statements ahead of time:

My Defense

This is no longer about me. What do I care if I win or lose this case? Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, you will see that the future of my generation, especially those we with black faces like me, is nothing.

We are already imprisoned on death row, “some in maximum, the rest in minimum,” as Mumia Abu-Jamal states. The fullness and freedom of life have already been sucked out of most of us. We have no future as long as our hope rests on the policies of the U.S. which have made us last in every major index of health and quality of life, and first in every misfortune. We have no future as long as our hope rests on the pipe dreams of the NBA, the Ivy-League, or Hollywood. We have no future as long as any success means the loss of soul and self-government. What shall it profit a man to gain the riches of the world only so that he must spend it on air filters so one’s children don’t choke on the exhaust of the industrial devilution?; What shall it profit a man to gain the riches of the world only so that he must spend it on air filters, water purifiers, medicine and a first-class space shuttle ticket off this dying Earth? What hope is there that if I succeed, I must spend it all on Security to ward off and beat down my neighbors and the world’s millions upon whose backs were built everything the Elite Few now enjoy? No! what future is there when there is no land to escape to which has not been stained by the blood of so many innocent people? Visit Africa and see a continent full of artificially and technologically mutilated leper colonies. Yeah, in Zaire, Sudan, the Congo are armless and legless humans. Their soccer leagues now have a crippled-only division.

No, this is no longer about me. You can do nothing to me. Imprisonment, death – we are already living that reality, despite the efforts of some to escape it and act as though things are getting better. The only freedom they offer is the freedom to become a freak, a predator, or the living dead.

This case is now my attempt to SAVE THE WORLD. To shout loudly, speak eloquently, present thoroughly my last God-inspired appeal for TRUTH, RIGHT and JUSTICE.

So how does a good, bright, gifted Black kid with a million-dollar education like me end up here? Having been tricked through a process of constructive fraud by Yale University, I was coerced to re-examine my entire life and values. This in turn provoked a leap of faith and by the Grace of God, Almighty JAH RASTAFARI, I landed on the other side of overstanding, on the new heaven and Earth where God’s Supreme Spirit and Wisdom is inscribed in my heart and where righteous self-government rules. It should not surprise you, then, that the dimensions of this struggle are principally spiritual. To best understand this case, ask yourself this question: does the State know better how to live your life than you do? Or better yet, does the state have the authority to take away my God-given rights and gifts? As I perceive it, this case is really about my decision to accept Jah Rastafari as my King and Lord, just like Christians accept Christ. It is my internationally protected human right to do so.

His Majesty implores us to read the Bible with sincerity, with a clean conscious, and the TRUTH, which is the word of God, shall be opened and revealed. In doing so, I found that God gave us every green herb bearing seed of its kind for food and medicine. Cast in this light, the State is attempting to deny me that which God expressly gave each of us – green herb bearing seed of its kind.

Thus, the State is trying to kill me through starvation, deprivation of medicine, and forcing me to abandon my religious faith.

This is consistent with all kinds of cruel U.S. policy since the murder, genocide, and ethnocide of the Native peoples of this land and the Africans they enslaved and brought here, as well as people of foreign lands who are the fodder for finance monopoly capitalism.

President Clinton has asked us to have a national dialogue on race. Well, everyone knows that the U.S. starves people and enforces blockades and embargoes, including medical ones, all over the world, so it should not surprise you that it is happening right here in America. Though its primary targets are racial minorities, paraplegics like Jim Montgomery, grandmothers, kids – no one is spared, least of all the least of this society – poor, non-white (Black) youth who have, since the time of slavery, always been the human fodder to feed this system. Our bodies were forced to build America, clean America, and entertain America.

Today, we are forced to die slowly for America. Once a person internalizes this and then learns the TRUTH about cannabis, is it any wonder that we are here today? Given the choice to die slowly or live fully, contributing to saving the planet by growing cannabis, any right thinking, reborn, emancipated slave would choose freedom and cannabis every time. Only the ignorant, the timid, and the sellout would do otherwise!

My name, like my father’s and grandfather’s is NATHANIEL which means gift from God. I am the firstborn son in the month of April, the first month according to the Zodiac. I am also among the group of people in the last 70 years to receive the Revelation of His Majesty. Like Christ and the Buddha, I have walked this Earth with nothing. My dreadlocks are consecrated to freedom and are a visible sign of a special relationship with God in the same tradition as the biblical Nazarites.

Having beheld Haile Selassie I, the power and might of the Trinity, I have lived under the Overwhelming grace of the Most High. This trial, then, represents the States persecution of the first and last fruit of God’s chosen people. The State is thus in advance doomed to failure because one man with God is more powerful than any army on Earth.

Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, I am not on trial, YOU ARE. You are being tested to see if you can overcome intimidation, overcome propaganda, and overcome the ignorance and fear which has been ingrained in you without your permission. You are being tested to see whether or not you can still recognize RIGHT, and courageously stand up for real JUSTICE by dismissing an unjust law and unjust persecution. You are being tested to decide whether or not ILLEGAL means WRONG. You must decide what is RIGHT. I remind all of you that slavery was once legal, but we all know that that did not make it RIGHT!

The decision you make can either radically break with the death dealing status quo of the system or acquiesce to the system. You must choose Revolution in this very courtroom. If you don’t your kid, or your mother or your grandmother will be next. Even you.”

In 2002, Ras Mortimo Planno’s student Ras Xylon held an educational competition. The first person to answer all 100 quiz questions on the history of Pan Africanism and Rastafari would win a plane ticket to Ethiopia. I won the competition and in December of 2002, I flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where lived for nearly a year. During that time, I visited Lalibela, and by virtue of my dreadlocks covenant, I was allowed to play the timbrel with the Orthodox Priests inside the famous rock-hewn Church!!!!

As I was a journalist for the Rastafari Speaks newspaper, Ras Xylon took me to the Ministry of Informatin where I received my press credentials. The Rastafari community living on the Shashemane land granted to the Black people of the West by Ethiopian Emperor after the war then appointed me its representative to the 1st Extra-Ordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa - the only Afrodescendant in the meeting - starting my career as a Pan African and Afrodescendant diplomat negotiating the Right of Return of 250 million African people living outside of the African continent.

By the end of 2006, I became frustrated and disillusioned with the Rastafari Movemenat’s failure to organize and centralize for the Ethiopian Millennium Repatration Census that was supposed to see an emergency airlift of 10,000 Rastas to Ethiopia to start the Millennium according to the Ethiopian Calendar. Like Ras Mortimo Planno and other brethren, I was concerned about what they called 'lackstafari'. These were delinquent youth who grew locks, identified with the movement, but engaged in petty crime or just spent most of their time smoking ganja and listening to reggae music, neither of which was part of the original Ras Tafarites and the Star Order of Ethiopia. More orthodox brethren argued that they lacked any understanding of the spiritual aspects of the movement. Rastafari had become a kind of relgion, and the deeper I got into the spirtual aspects of it and, more importantly, the words of HIM Haile Selassie I on the Task of African Development: Planning, Implementation and Personal Sacrifice Required, the more I realized that I did not need dreadlocks or ganja to do the work of His Imperial Majesty. In 2007, while organizing the Global Unity Conference in Azania, I was given the name Siphiwe Baleka by a council of Elders. When I returned to the United States that year, I cut my dreadlocks, stopped smoking ganja, and legally changed my name from Ras Nathaniel to Siphiwe Baleka. At that point, a new mentor entered my life that taught me the esoteric Paut Neteru which I then formulated into the Grand Equation which is a map of my understanding of Spirituality today.

I used this understanding on how to re-program the subconscious when I developed my Fitness Trucking program from 2009 to 2016. It eventually became the #1 weightloss program in America.

On September 28, 2010 I received the African Ancestry dna test results showing that my maternal ancestry was Yoruba from Nigeria (which explained her Catholicism) and my paternal ancestry was Balanta from Guinea Bissau (which explained my father’s lack of religion) and his spiritual character.

By 2014, HIH Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie, President of the Imperial Ethiopian Crown Council and Grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie I, said the following during the Coronation Day Message to the Rastafari Community at Fairfield House

"Rastafarians are the mystics of our modern time, they have become the connection between man and God."

And in November 28, 2024, Dr. Prince Asfa-Wossen Asserate (a Grand-Nephew of Emperor Haile Selassie I) addressing the 70th Anniversary of Emperor Haile Selassie I visit to Austria at the University of Vienna stated,

"As the protector of the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia, the Emperor cannot say that He is a God. Because this would be the greatest sin as an Ethiopian-Orthodox man that you could commit. But if you, our Rasta Brothers and Sisters, feel that He is, this is your right! But we must protect Him from being, you know, accused of being an Anti-Christ because He started believing in Himself as the Child of God, or as the Messenger of God."

“We are not reasoning about who is Moslem, or who is Rasta, who is this tribe or who is that tribe. We are speaking of all black people. One African Liberation. One African people. One African Nationality. That is what we are all about. And our Christianity, and our division, reign, divinity that we speak about, is higher than religion, greater than Christianity. This western world don't know of I n I divinity. It's just now that they are having a little taste of it. But I n I was from the foundation of the world, according to Proverbs, chapter eight."

- Ancient Bongo Time interviewed by 11-90-AM-WIB Radio Station, New York.

HAILE SELASSIE I ON RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY

Haile Selassie I said a lot of things about religion, spirituality, Jesus, Christianity and more (see quotes below). However, for me, the most important thing he said was:

"We respect everyone’s religion without partiality." (Silver Jubilee, 391)

"We do not consider Our religion alone valid and have granted the people the freedom to observe any religion they please." (Interview with Oriana Fallaci, Chicago Tribune, June 24 1973)

"Both Christians and Moslems in Eritrea, without any religious antagonism, have lived side by side in harmony with faith in the words We pronounced, assuring Our people: “The country is for all and religion for the individual,” and this has enhanced Our unity and strengthened Our Government through the spirit of brotherly love." (Selected Speeches, 347)

With those words, I was released from Christianity and its tyranny that unless I accept Jesus Christ as my savior, I will not be “saved” and will be excluded from “heaven” and will burn in an eternal “hell fire”. Such spiritual terrorism!!!!! Now, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Conquering Lion of Judah has released everyone to worship god from their own Innerstanding which is valid.

"Now is the time when the sincere belief in man‘s kinship (the state or fact of being of kin; family relationship) to God must be the foundation for all of man‘s efforts for enlightenment and learning - the basis for all understanding, co-operation and peace." - HIM Haile Selassie I Ras Tafari, Selected Speeches, 23.

MAN AS TEMPLE:

"After our blameless Creator was sent to this world by His Father, then the hearts of all believers become The Temple of God." (Interview with Dr. Oswald Hoffman, The Lutheran Hour, December 25, 1968)

SPIRITUALITY:

"Spiritual power is the eternal guide, in this life and the life after, for man ranks supreme among all creatures. Led forward by spiritual power, man can reach the summit destined for him by the Great Creator." (Selected Speeches, 631f)

"Having passed the academic test posed by this College, you now move on to face the more arduous tests posed by life. And the only way to face these tests successfully is to be spiritually prepared for them." (Selected Speeches, 10)

"But times have changed and these spiritual qualities are no longer enough. Today, knowledge and training, as provided largely in the universities of the world, have become essential." (Selected Speeches, 21)

"Nor can we ignore the importance of the spiritual in this academic life. Learning and technical training must be nurtured by faith in God, reverence for the human soul, and respect for the reasoning mind." (Selected Speeches, 22)

"Education is a means of sharpening the mind of man both spiritually and intellectually. It is a two-edged sword that can be used either for the progress of mankind or for its destruction." (Important Utterances, 22)

“Spiritual leaders and laymen have also a sacred duty to coordinate their efforts to advance the cause of mankind.“ (Annual Nation-Wide Address to the Nation, November 3, 1971)

"It is important that spiritual advancement must keep pace with material advancement. When this comes to be realized man's journey toward higher and more lasting values will show more marked progress while the evil in him recedes into the background.

Knowing that material and spiritual progress are essential to man, we must ceaselessly work for the equal attainment of both. Only then shall we be able to acquire that absolute inner calm so necessary to our well-being.

It is only when a people strike an even balance between scientific progress and spiritual and moral advancement that it can be said to possess a wholly perfect and complete personality and not a lopsided one." (Selected Speeches, 663f)

"Our programmes undertaken in the economic field for augmenting the material welfare of Our subjects, has not made Us forget that, according to the words of the Bible, “man does not live by bread alone.” We believe that the spiritual and moral welfare of Our people is as important as their material well-being." (Selected Speeches, 75)

"There is no conflict between serving one’s country materially and serving God spiritually." (Silver Jubilee, 390)

"In the mystic traditions of the different religions we have a remarkable unity of the spirit. Whatever religions they may profess they are spiritual kinsmen. While the different religions in their historic forms bind us to limited groups and militate against the development of loyalty to the world community, the mystics have always stood for the fellowship of humanity." (Quoting Radhakrishnan; Selected Speeches, 132)

"We refer, in addition, to the spiritual conditions in which man lives, for just as a man without means to feed his hunger and to clothe his nakedness can take no pride in his existence as a human being, so, also is one who is reviled and discriminated against because of his race or religion, robbed of his self- respect and human dignity." (Selected Speeches, 178)

"Any monument to be left for Our people, to be permanent, must be erected upon spiritual foundations." (Selected Speeches, 3)

"The strength of the Christian tradition has been of vital significance in Our national history, and as a force for the unification of the Empire of Ethiopia. It is this force which gives us, among the other countries of the Middle East, a profound orientation towards the West. We read the same bible. We speak a common spiritual language." (Selected Speeches, 115)

"We know that man’s physical needs and his intellectual and spiritual strivings can only be satisfied through the medium of education." (Selected Speeches, 363)

"Whenever conflict arises between material and spiritual values the conscience plays an important role." (Selected Speeches, 418)

"Countries where the people and the entire country having lost unity, spiritual or otherwise, have become playgrounds and laughing stocks of outsiders." (Selected Speeches, 426)

"Man, during his lifetime, is usually absorbed with the problems of his existence, in which both the material and spiritual phases complement each other." (Selected Speeches, 546)

"The benefits of modern science and technology shall be lavished upon Our people without any loss of the underlying moral and spiritual values which have contributed so much to our history." (Selected Speeches, 582)

"Since the time when, by God's goodness, We were chosen to ascend the Throne of Ethiopia and while We have been leading Our people to progress in learning and knowledge, We have laboured in every way possible with an eye to their growth in spiritual and material learning and knowledge." (Selected Speeches, 616f)

"Help the destitute both economically and/or spiritually." (Selected Speeches, 621)

"The work of the welfare organization is not merely the distribution of money, but also the giving of personal warmth, of wholehearted service and spiritual encouragement." (Selected Speeches, 621)

"Strengthen the spiritual and cultural bonds between Our people and the peoples of the African continent and of the whole world." (Selected Speeches, 624)

"To meet together, to take council with one another, and to act in mutual co-operation, has proved a most fruitful method both in the secular and spiritual fields." (Selected Speeches, 640)

RELIGION:

"It is only when the human mind is guided by religion and morality that man can acquire the necessary vision to put all his ingenuous inventions and contrivances to really useful and beneficial purposes. The progress of science can be said to be harmful to religion only in so far as it is used for evil aims and not because it claims a priority over religion in its revelation to man." (Selected Speeches, 663)

"To make our wills obedient to good influences and to avoid evil, therefore, is to show the greatest wisdom. In order to follow this aim one must be guided by religion. Progress without religion is just like a life surrounded by unknown perils and can be compared to a body without a soul." (Selected Speeches, 663)

"Leadership developed here should be guided by the fundamental values and the moral power which have for centuries constituted the essence of our religious teachings." (Selected Speeches, 22)

"Religion has long taught to have no grudges against others." (Selected Speeches, 610)

"We emphasized the urgent need in the modern world for religious tolerance, in order that men of all faiths may live together in peace and harmony." (Selected Speeches, 103)

"We respect everyone’s religion without partiality." (Silver Jubilee, 391)

"We do not consider Our religion alone valid and have granted the people the freedom to observe any religion they please." (Interview with Oriana Fallaci, Chicago Tribune, June 24 1973)

"As we guarantee to each the right to worship as he chooses, so we denounce the policy which sets man against man on issues of religion." (Important Utterances, 108)

"Our peoples must temper and reduce the racial, political and religious differences among them; which must bring to them the peace required for the better world which you seek to create." (Selected Speeches, 108)

"With the raising of all men to their rightful dignity and honour as individuals, they will be able to regard their fellows, of whatever nation, of whatever race, of whatever religious, linguistic or historical tradition, as equals, without jealousy, without fear, without undue pride." (Selected Speeches, 128)

"Free the human race from superstition and fear that originate from ignorance; to enable him to transcend the apparent obstacles of race and religion; and to help him recognize the blood-ties of the whole human race." (Selected Speeches, 132f)

"Had Western religion and philosophy not been exposed to the philosophy and religion of the East, how much the poorer would human thought have been!" (Selected Speeches, 133)

"It is my ardent belief that all nations must live in peace and friendship with each other, religion or socio-political structure notwithstanding." (Selected Speeches, 162)

"Men are coming increasingly to be judged by their talents and abilities rather than by the less meaningful and far more superficial standards of race and religion." (Selected Speeches, 178)

"Unity can be and been attained among men of the most disparate origins, that differences of race, of religion, of culture, of tradition, are no insuperable obstacle to the coming together of peoples." (Selected Speeches, 245)

"The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjuration of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security." (Selected Speeches, 368)

"There shall be no discrimination whatsoever amongst racial or religious groups." (Selected Speeches, 404)

"There shall be no interference with the exercise in accordance with the law of the rites of any religion or creed by residents of the Empire." (Selected Speeches, 406)

"We have time and again said with regard to the Moslem Community, that the integrity and religious right of everyone should be protected and respected. As laws are being enacted at all times, We have long ago permitted the drafting of laws suited to their religious practices. However, since religion and work go hand in hand, it should be understood that the laws should be practised in a method not detrimental to the unity of a nation." (Selected Speeches, 420)

"In spite of past and continuing attempts of certain alien enemies to create differences based on tribalism and religion, the Ethiopian people have waged a successful struggle against these forces of evil and thus preserved their national unity." (Selected Speeches, 430)

"Those who, in the light of all these historical ties and evidence of unity, are coming between Us on religious, ethnical and other grounds are doing so not for our benefit but for that of their own." (Selected Speeches, 465)

"Equal rights granted to foreigners and equally to all Ethiopians without any religious or racial discrimination is an outstanding example to prove the compatibility of the Ethiopian policy and administration. Would it be possible for foreign Muslims to migrate into Ethiopia in excessive number and live and assimilate here for three or four generations if the Government practised any religious discrimination against them?" (Selected Speeches, 467)

"Ethiopia, jealous of her freedom, has always had to struggle, both for the sake of her territorial integrity and for the preservation of her religious liberty." (Selected Speeches, 597)

"The catastrophe which was brought about by human hands during the past years can be avoided in the future by religion and hope in God which should be in the heart of the people." (Selected Speeches, 630)

"The Unity of the Church, as Your Holinesses well know it, is the will of God and ought to be an inspiring example to all men. It should always be a help and not a hindrance to the unity of men of different religions." (Selected Speeches, 635)

"We do not believe that the religious and social problems that you members of this conference are going to discuss are less significant than the political and economic problems confronting the governments of Africa." (Selected Speeches, 643)

"The love of God brings a sense of religiousness in a human being, it gives him comfort for the future and assurance that right cause will ultimately prevail." (Interview with Dr. Oswald Hoffman, December 25, 1968)

"God is not to be found in the sky above, or in the stars there or in the waters here. He is to be found in the deepest part of man‘s being. It is that man who is truly religious who is God-intoxicated, who is God-possessed, who has seen into the meaning of existence."

"The man who realizes God is one who sees the Divine in his inmost being."

- Indian Philosopher and former President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, „Living With A Purpose“, page 29.

"Religion is not something which is an aside or parenthesis. It is the deepest part of our being. In all our activities, if we live from the dimension of depth, we are religious. The Infinite or Supreme is the deepest part of our being. We must work not on the surface but from the ultimate depths. Life from depth is authentically a religious life. If you are able to give to your children that kind of outlook, they will not be carried away by the sophistications and the scepticism of the modern world. We will all become really, deeply, authentically, religious in our nature."

- Indian Philosopher and former President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, "Living With A Purpose", page 93f.

"To this generation, so tormented between modern knowledge and ancient faith, your scrupulous studies have pointed the way by which man may be saved from traditional superstition and modern scepticism."

- HIM Haile Selassie I Ras Tafari addressing Indian Philosopher and former President of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Selected Speeches 132f.

It is only this understanding from above which allows me to simultaneously pursue the Catholic Church for reparations for 570+ years of war damage to African people and accept marrying a Balanta woman who is Catholic.