Bob Marley, has always preached a message of One Love but his music has travelled far and wide and assisted in the liberation of many people.
Some Forty years ago, Marley and his band, the Wailers, stepped onto the stage at Rufaro Stadium in Harare to help usher in Zimbabwe’s independence from British and local white minority rule.
Marley, one of the most politically and socially influential musicians of his time also had strong connection with Africa, was invited to perform during the ceremony celebrating majority rule and internationally-recognised independence for Zimbabwe.
The reggae superstar not only accepted the invitation but also spent tens of thousands of dollars to fly in his band and its equipment to take part in the festivities that started on the evening of April 17.
Now posthumously, he is being placed in context on the battlefields of Ukraine.
The Gong’s music legend is now in conflict as a band of Ukrainian volunteer fighters have taken on the name Bob Marley Squad.
The ten member, group of young Ukrainians, a far cry from the Buffalo Soldiers Bob sang about, first came together to defend their homeland when Russia snatched Crimea and stoked conflict in the east of the country in 2014.
“It’s about being guys who can switch between the war and being chill,” says Dmytro Dubas, one of the members of the group.
“If we need to be rude, we can if necessary. If we have time to chill, we do.” She told Vice Magazine.
He adds: “We want victory, and peace. But we don’t want to fight our entire life.”
The unit wears patches depicting the late reggae icon, and cuts an unconventional presence on the battlefield. Its social media accounts use Ukrainian hashtags of #jahrastafari and a motto that states, roughly, that if you’re stoned you can’t be killed.
The members of the Bob Marley Squad in their civilian lives, boast careers in psychology, medical science, and advertising.
They have however, taken up arms to defend their homeland, something they had long anticipated having to do again, said the 33-year-old Dubas.
“We’d gather at a spot in Kyiv, and go to war.”
“I can’t say I was really close with everybody all the time,” says Dubas. “But we have this special connection between us – if somebody asks you for something, you never say no to each other.”
Cedella Marley, daughter of Bob Marley has shown support to the group on Twitter. She said, “Sending all love to this group”
The group has its origins in the Maidan protests that raged from November 2013 to February 2014, eventually unseating then-president Viktor Yanukovych.
“I was never a person who was attracted to politics, I have no idea about the difference between left and right and I don’t care.”
Back in February when Russia first invaded Ukraine, Bob’s oldest son Ziggy made remarks directed and president Putin.
“WTF VLAD!? who here stands with #ukraine against bullyism ? I and I do!!
oil is a burden to humanity those who have it hold the world hostage to their whims
and those who want to control it have killed millions to do so for their war/ and domination machine. #seedemfakeleaders,” he posted on his Instagram.
One of Dubas’s friends was a member of the Bob Marley Squad. When Russia annexed Crimea in early 2014, Dubas met the group.
“They were guys who were close to me in spirit, patriotic in the normal sense – not the Russian propaganda sense,” he says, referring the Russian claim that Ukrainian nationalists are neo-Nazis. “I realised that we were into a new chapter with this Crimea occupation, and the country’s in big danger,” he said.
Dubas told Vice News he saw the concept of the volunteer battalion as a model that had deep roots in Ukrainian history, stemming back to the Cossack proto-state, the Zaporozhian Sich, that existed between the 16th to 18th centuries.
“They were farmers and other things, but at times of war, they went to the Sich and took up a weapon,” he said.
Dubas said the Aidar Battalion was composed of a similarly diverse cross-section of Ukrainian society, from “guys who ride the tractors in their villages,” to younger urban guys, to a handful of ultranationalists with a far-right ideology.
He described the Bob Marley Squad as being defined by people “who are interested in each other.”
“We talk about music, jam, talk about books, history,” said Dubas. “Of course we smoke weed, but it’s not about the weed. It more about [identifying with] the songs of Bob Marley: ‘Buffalo Soldier,’ ‘War,’ ‘Get Up, Stand Up.’”
“You know – when people say they want peace and everybody should put their weapons down: well, if Russia puts their weapons down, war stops. If we put our weapons down, Ukraine doesn’t exist.”
While the group’s current logo looks like a weed leaf in the national colours of Ukraine, he explains, it’s “a bit of a game” – it really depicts the similar-looking chestnut leaf, which is a symbol of Kyiv. And while the group was publicly associated with smoking weed through its social media branding, he said there wasn’t much of that going on during the current conflict.
“When you’re in active war, it’s not really that useful to smoke. It makes you panic,” he said. The only time he had smoked since the current invasion was with his commander, who was badly injured, en route to hospital in Lithuania.
