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By Barbara Blake Hannah, former Independent Senator and an Independent
Candidate in the next General Elections. Fall-Winter, 1986.
"His foundation is in the holy mountains; Our Lord loveth the gates of
Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of
thee, O city of God. Selah." Psalm 87.
Of a man, were these words once spoken. I heard briefly that his body
went to rest a few Sundays ago. His name was Keith Gordon, more commonly
known as Niah Keith. I also heard that a view of this man's life was recently
written in a Jamaican paper, and I hope to be able to offer another - if
different - view. A spiritual view, for this was the only category in which I
was privileged to know him and the Brothers and Sisters of the Ethiopian Zion
Coptic Church.
In the 70's, when I used to write a lot of articles on ganja, and in
favour of its legalisation, one of my articles was re-published in the widely
distributed Coptic Times. I felt it was time to find out who these people
were, and whether they were truly defending - as they claimed - the principles
of Marcus Garvey as well as the legalisation of ganja. So I went to see them
at their farm in St. Thomas, and ultimately to visit them at their Star
Island home in Miami.
What I found surprised me at first, but then I realised that Coptic was a
perfectly genuine and legitimate expression of Rasta - a movement of which I
was then an active promoter - and one which attempted to realise the dream of
Rasta/Black African aspirations in Jamaica, of a nation whose economy is based
on reaping the wealth to be earned from ganja.
Plant herb for its many uses.
I have ceased to promote these views, but at that time it was a dream
that could have been realised, had Jamaica been bold enough to do what the
Coptics advocated and plant herb for its many uses - glaucoma medicine, cancer
therapy, paper for printing money and Bibles, paint, rope, cloth, etc. In the
early '70s, before ganja, crime and cocaine became linked by laws that
classified them as equal and dangerous, there was a time when this dream could
have been realised.
Many individuals and groups tried to do so. Coptic tried. How they
succeeded is something that as a journalist, I never wanted to know, and as a
person I could only speculate on.
But I found out the Coptics secret. It was, quite simply, prayer.
Psalms, chants, reasonings from Garvey's words - this was their
hree-times-daily meal which gave the power of success; constant prayer and
divine reasoning was their foundation. Their prayer sessions were a joy of
harmony and spirit, and the most beautiful session I attended was one at which
Toots Hibbert added his great voice to the singers in the church.
Another interesting aspect of the Coptics was the total intermingling of
black and white minds in a consciousness of the principles of black history
and goals. The white Coptics were the most surprising, and at the same time
strongest, aspect of Coptic. It was astonishing to see true brotherly,
inter-race love in action. Indeed, "Love" was their constant greeting.
The man at the center of this, was Niah Keith. So great was his
considered wisdom, that many saw him as God and a Christ. He stirred up a
religious effort of Rasta's claim for the Herb in Righteousness, which only
failed when - in my opinion - they chose to make their battlefield America,
rather than Jamaica.
The case - I was the only journalist there, which made me very
conspicuous - put the U.S. drug laws on trial, bringing evidence to prove
ganja's medicinal and spiritual values, but of course the U.S. Courts ruled
against their claim, and today some of the white brethren - the brightest
minds of Coptic - are jailed in America.
The sometimes-opulent lifestyle they lived in Jamaica and America - many
cars, many houses - showed the wealthy possibilities which can be reaped from
ganja. But their wealth was not spent on gold or clothes, but on acquiring
land and equipment for large-scale farming.
Needless to say, since these actions are not approved of by our present
national and international laws, everything was done to discredit and
embarrass the Coptics, and their success. Yet, there are thousands of people
all over Jamaica today who benefited from Coptic - "ordinary" men and women,
who were set up in small businesses by Coptic - taxi drivers, sno-cone men,
construction workers, and most of all, farmers.
Our real wealth.
Indeed, in St. Thomas Coptic set up its most visible display of "wealth",
a large farm which not only gave employment to hundreds of the people of the
area, but was also proof of what could be done through ganja to enable the
unfinanced poor to use our real wealth, the land.
He was unlettered, they say, of Niah Keith, but he was a man of words and
wisdom. Sitting in a Coptic reasoning was always an uplifting experience for
me. Through Niah and the Coptics, Jamaica is not only richer with the
information on Garvey which they published in their excellent free newspaper,
but also from the information I gained when they sponsored a nine-month course
of study for me at the greatest resting place of black historical documents,
the Schomberg Museum in Harlem. It was also in Harlem that I met Captain
James Thornhill, Garvey's bodyguard - an old man of 98 still alive, who would
love to spend his last days in the homeland of his beloved Mr. Garvey, and who
filled me with first hand memories of the great man.
I don't know about a Coptic cocaine connection and I know that Niah never
used the stuff. If anything made Niah's flesh and spirit part, It was the
vanity and covetousness of others, that took the beloved brother from us.
"I will make mention of Philistia and Tyre with Ethiopia, this man was
born there," Psalm 87.
Teaching of Garvey.
Will the Coptic dream of legal ganja be realised? Who knows. That is
not my battle anymore. But one battle of the Coptics that is definitely mine,
is their advocacy that the teachings of Garvey can be used as the foundation
for a new Jamaica of true independence.
That is what Niah Keith stirred up in Jamaica, and advocated all his
life. For that he will always be remembered.
Some people laugh when flesh and spirit of a famous person part, and
some rush to speak ill. But when a work has been performed, the flesh and its
evils must be laid down. Niah Keith's work was performed, and he was a brave
warrior in an unusual war, bold enough to speak the words and fight the fight.
Interestingly, at his funeral, the several hundreds who attended were
able to take away with them, sackfulls of grapes from a broad and fruitful
vine which surrounds the Coptic Church - a sacramental wine which was Niah's
final gift to his friends.
A new mystic is blowing in Jamaica, and Niah Keith is part of it
I wonder what will happen next.