
The Rastafarian concept of Babylon is one we all understand in its broad outline. Babylon is the white man's world, the oppressor's world, the world of the slave-taker and slave-trader, the world in which precious spiritual things are reduced to mere commodities. It's a world characterized by greed and dishonesty, a corrupt and decadent world, a world with no respect for nature and no respect for humanity. One should have as little to do with it as possible -- one shouldn't deal with Babylon. For, because of its endemic vices and iniquities, Babylon shall fade and Babylon shall fall, just like the reggae songs tell us.

We could call Babylon, the Rastafarian concept, a "cautionary metaphor". By tunnelling far back into the past, the Rastafarians point to the fall of one empire, map it to the current empire, and preview, by extension and with relish, its fall too.
Babylon represents a range of corrupt and unjust institutions: politics, police, laws, even cities are "Babylon".
What's really remarkable is that the speeches from both sides of the current US presidential debates could very easily be reframed (I'm sure there's a text engine out there that could do it with cut and paste) in Rastafarian terms. When McCain and Obama agree that "Washington is broken, and Wall Street is broken", or when they talk about greed and corruption being endemic, they're basically recognizing that they live in Babylon. Even Bush, admitting that the $700 billion bailout may not solve the financial crisis, is warning us that Babylon may not be easily fixable. It may, indeed, fall. In fact, in a long enough perspective, it's absolutely sure to.

Jahwise Hammer of the Babylon King (excerpt) stereo mp3 file, 1.4 MB, 1 min 45 secs
Maybe one day this song will bring it all back: exactly where you were when Babylon began a fall.