MONTEGO BAY, St James — Senior Rastafarians are urging younger members of the community to actively participate in the annual commemoration of the 1963 Coral Gardens Incident in St James where grave atrocities were committed against members of the religious movement.

The yearly event includes daytime discussions on topics such as the brutality faced by Rastafarians during that time. It also features evening entertainment by Rastafarian performers, which has become more widely attended than the educational segments.

Speaking with reporters at Aquasol Beach Park in Montego Bay last Friday, during the 62nd marking of the period referred to as Bad Friday, outspoken Rastafarian Ras Iyah V emphasised that Rastafari is more than just entertainment.

“I remember like in the 1980s there was more vibrancy around the memory of the Coral Gardens atrocity. Naturally, a lot of our elders, in particular [those] who experienced those atrocities, have passed on — about 90 per cent have passed on. But the memory is so important, because a lot of people see Rastafari now but they don’t know what Rastafari went through in terms of reaching where we are now,” he said.

“I don’t know if it is because a lot of the youths don’t know about Coral Gardens, have never experienced police brutality, but yes, the vibrancy is lacking. I am using this opportunity [to call] on the Rastafari community to ensure that the memory of the Coral Gardens atrocity is kept alive,” Ras Iyah V urged.

Secretary of the Rastafari Coral Gardens Benevolent Society, Pamela “Sister Nanny” Williams, concurred. She highlighted the vital information available during educational segments.

“We try to reach out to them but most of them come in late afternoon when it is show time. During our speakers’ forum, where we pass out a lot of information, persons are given opportunity to question and participate in discussions. That is when we would like to see them here,” she said.

Williams also pointed to the opportunity for younger Rastarafians to learn directly from those who have now become a part of history.

“We have a museum going on with a gallery of testimonies for the survivors— first-hand information from those who passed. We memorialise them [by] having their testimony that they gave to the public defender put on a vinyl poster, with their picture. Every year when we have a commemorative event, we display the statements,” Williams said.

“Sometimes you see persons come and read the statements [and] you can see that they are shocked that something like this happened in Jamaica’s history,” she added.

Following a violent altercation at a gas station in Montego Bay that left three Rastafarians, three civilians, and two policemen dead in 1963, police and military forces detained Rastafarians throughout Jamaica, killing and torturing many. The events began on Good Friday, April 11, and lasted until April 13, 1963. Two other Rastafarians who were involved in the gas station incident were tried, found guilty, and sentenced. They were hung on December 2, 1964.

In April 2017 the Government issued an official apology for the treatment meted out to Rastafarians then. It also established a $12.7-million trust fund to aid survivors harmed.

For Iyah V and Williams, there is still one major area of worry. They are concerned that despite amendments to the Dangerous Drugs Act in 2015 which, among other things, gives Rastafarians the privilege of using ganja as a sacrament, members of the community are still being arrested and dragged before the court for possession of the herb.