Absent Father (s), Garvey's Scattered Children & the Back to Africa Movement

This paper provides an introductory discussion of the leadership of the Back-to-Africa Movement in the African Diaspora. Concentrating on the experiences of the Rastafari Movement in Jamaica, it demonstrates the connections between Marcus Garvey's Back to Africa Movement and the Rastafari Movement, particularly in terms of a quest for renewal, wholeness, and for the redemptive power of a re-connection with the Father as a corrective for the dysfunctional families that proliferate as a result of the experience of enslavement in the African Diaspora. Through an examination of the idea of Father in the work of the Rastafarian teacher, the foundation logic of this multilayered concept is engaged in order to determine the extent to which the Rastafari Movement has successfully tackled the problematic developed in the West concerning fatherhood and male leadership in general. The conclusion is that in light of the Movement's work and given its operational context, both the problem of male leadership and fatherhood can best be viewed through Mortimo Planno's analysis. It is argued that Mortimo Planno's reading constitutes a New Faculty of Interpretation that is committed to the project of African Redemption. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]