INSIDE ST. MAARTEN

‘People will have to start listening to Rastafarians in order to survive’

Just like nature, Touzah Jah Bash is thriving during the lockdown. His days are filled with planting in a garden that no longer suffers from the pollution from cars. Without the corridor of carbon monoxide between him and the sea, he now experiences what he calls ‘the fog from the ocean’, something he has been longing for all along. “Oxygen! Life depends on it.”

You can live up to 30 days without food, one or two days without water, but don’t hold your breath for longer than two minutes. “Oxygen is our first food,” says Touzah Jah Bash. “Yet every island has a road along the seashore, continually functioning. We are living within a circle of pollution, day in, day out.” He shakes his head in dismay. “The trees and plants in the valley are flourishing, but not on this side, near the road. Look at the trees, you can see it for yourself.” Touzah Jah Bash. The farmer, the educator, the healer. And the prophet. A month before the lockdown he said: “For the destruction to stop, you have to wake up civilization. I can’t do it, but nature will.”

What is the lesson to be learned? “People who were ignoring the true value of the properties of plants will have to reconsider. You don’t hear about a deadly outbreak of coronavirus among animals, only humans are dying from it. The few animals affected are confined by humans, in zoos, or secluded in a house with humans. But the animals that are free, they know what to do. Have you ever wondered how animals survived for thousands of years without doctors? Animals self-medicate, they know what to eat to heal themselves. I study them and learn from them what to eat.”

We have to study animals in nature to help ourselves? “Yes. You see, during the dry months, the animals are sick; they have ticks, boils, rashes. But when the rain comes and everything becomes green again, the animals thrive. I knew a cow that was heavily battered during hurricane Irma. She was cut by branches and had many boils with flies all over. She came by my kitchen and started eating a plant that I never saw a cow eat before. The third time she came back to eat the leaves of Man-Better-Man (Achyrantes Aspera, ed.), she lifted up her head and gave me the eye. It was the last time I saw her. About six months later I asked the owner: “What happened to the cow that was messed up by Irma?” He pointed at a tree. “The brown and white one, you mean? Look, there she is.” I couldn’t believe it. What I saw was a brand new cow. No doctor had come. No chemicals were applied; the cow had cured herself completely.”

What do you eat in a day? “I eat like the birds. I take the fruits from the trees while I work in my garden, and when I get hungry I dig up a sweet potato and boil it to eat. I am experimenting with a new way of planting, I am creating a herb garden. Every year we lose many of the medicinal plants we have in St. Maarten. If we don’t study them now, preserve and cultivate them, we soon will be too far gone to recuperate the true knowledge of nature and healing. If we stick with the animals, value them, not just eat them, we will learn a lot from them.”

Do you eat meat? “Once it had life, I don’t touch it. I haven’t eaten animal flesh or fish in 45 years. I eat vegetation because it was written that every herb bearing seed and the fruits of the trees shall be called meat for me. And the leaves from it shall be for the healing of the nation.”

Many people interpret the Bible differently. “The children of Israel had no right to eat the birds that Moses gave them in the desert. But that is what they did want. Sometimes, even when we know that something is not good, when the majority wants it, it will be considered justified. Those who follow after may not know that it was the majority who caused it to be implemented and they just join in and continue with it. But we all know that flesh does not digest in the human body in 24 hours. And the food that you eat must digest and leave the body in 24 hours, otherwise it starts to rot. You end up with bacteria in your organs that should not be there, that cause diseases, and possibly tumors and other abnormalities.”

Do people see you as a medicine man? “Well, yes, but my true calling is a spiritual man. Because of a lady, Mrs. Adams. One day she came to me and told me: ‘You have to take care of your people. I know that you don’t want to, because you say that you were not called to do that, but God would not give you all this for you not to help others. You know all the plants, you know them by name, and you know their properties. Then she showed me a plant called Chickweed that is good for fever.” A week later Mrs. Adams died. I remained with this sense of responsibility she instilled in me. When a pastor came from Santo Domingo, and he presented himself as a bush doctor, I gave him the chickweed, and I asked him: ‘What is that?’ He tasted it and turned to a person that accompanied him. He told him in Spanish to tell me that this herb would kill any type of fever in less than 24 hours. He said it is the only bush that can do that. And that is correct. So I began from there, teaching people, encouraging them to use the herbs, make tea from it.”

How do you identify a sick plant? “If a plant is free from insects that attack it, then you know it is good for you to eat. We have a plant here that we call St. Maarten cherry. It is a mine of bacteria, a mine of worms, germs and fungus, whereas the Surinam cherry comes with no pests at all. So when people tell me about St. Maarten national fruit, I say: ‘Garbage. Giving people worms in their belly’.”

Many people don’t believe organic food is better, just more expensive. “You eat this stuff from the supermarket that is full of fertilizer, chemicals, hormones and antibiotics, which causes tumors and sickness, but you are not going to accuse the food. Take an eggplant from the supermarket and leave it for a week to spoil, and you will see it starts to rot and it will have worms in it. Now take an eggplant from me, put it out there in the sun, and you will see that over the course of a few months it will turn yellow, then orange and finally brown, hard like a stick, and you can pulverize it. My plants do not rot.”

What do you say to people who want to change their eating habits? “Food is something you require every day, but not the same food continuously. You need variety to give you balance. The cycle of the earth changes once a month, every four weeks. Does a woman not have a monthly cycle? The moon changes and controls the human biology. Our body doesn’t remain the same when the moon changes position. So if you drink the same herbal tea for a month, it becomes excessive and causes stress in the body. Moringa, for instance, is only good in moderation. Moringa is a medicine, and you don’t need medication every day.”

When is the last time you went to a doctor? “I don’t visit doctors. If I go to a doctor, he will become my student.” The medical establishment does not recognize natural healing. “We are living in an era where humans are forbidden to know the Truth. And if you don’t know the truth, you will rely on people that want to control you. True Rastafarians have warned humanity all along. We have taught you how to eat. We have shown you how to live in accordance with nature, and how to pass this knowledge, your legacy, onto your children.”

Rastafarians use the term Babylon. What does it mean? “The Western society where everything is based on interest. Laws are being voted in for interest. Immoral laws are voted in in parliament because interest is attached to it. At that moment nothing can go good. It is about individual growth, it is about favoritism, it is about: give me something under the table. And this has to change. If you are elected by the voice of the people, you have to help the people. Your personal interest has nothing to do with it. You already have a salary. You have opportunity. You have gifts. You have favors. All this is attached to you being elected. What else do you want?” Our economy is supposed to help the nation grow. It is helping individuals grow. The nation is suffering. We came out of hurricane Irma, the deadliest thing that ever happened to St. Maarten. All the contractors who came to the island, all were saying that they came to help, in their mouth was help, but in their head was: we are going to steal from you. Look at my building. A contractor started to build it, he took half of the money and fled the island. I will have to finish it myself. St. Maarten needs to be purged morally.”

Do you believe that Babylon will fall? “In the early seventies there was a wave of Rastafarian knowledge and teachings warning humans about the way they are living. And explaining them the way to live, what to start to do and what not to do. We tell them: Stop eating junk. Plant your garden. Eat your food. Your food is your medicine. Use the herbs for healing. Learn to know the environment around you, that is part of your life. If you don’t learn it, your children will not know it. You will not be able to pass on the legacy. There are consequences for what we do wrong. And anything we do good, we’ll have a reward for it. So today we, Rastafarians, are reaping the reward and those who chose to remain ignorant are reaping the consequences for not listening.”

If you say to people that they are ignorant and should know and do better, they might feel offended. “When engaging in a matter, emotional words don’t have no value. Emotional words stagnate your efforts. They don’t deliver, don’t cure, don’t heal and don’t answer matters. If people rely on feelings, they will never get out of it. You have to rely on facts and reality, only those two can help you. How you feel emotionally, when you are questioning yourself, or you are in doubt, confused, angry, all of those words release negative energy that stagnates the individual growth. We as humans, as adults, we should separate the positive words from the negative speech that stops everything good from happening.”

We create our own happiness? “I can’t control people’s feelings, they themselves have to determine what is valuable and what is not. Only facts and reality can help you, regardless of how you feel about it. You have to start separating the good from the bad, and always chose good over bad. It is that simple. Rehabilitate yourselves. And let the wisest among you be a servant onto others.”

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