[Verse 3: Peter Tosh]

1. We’re sick and tired of your ism and schism game
2. Die and go to heaven in Jesus’ name, Lord
3. We know and we understand
4. Almighty God is a living man
5. You can fool some people sometimes
6. But you can’t fool all the people all the time
7. So now we see the light
8. (What you gonna do?)
9. We going to stand up for our right
10. (Yeah, yeah, yeah)

Annotation:

We (the oppressed) are tired of all the philosophies and religions that only serve to divide people.

“Schism” is a division or a split, usually between groups belonging to a religious denomination (subgroup).

“Ism” is basically ideologies ending with -ism, like racism, capitalism, Nazism, nationalism, communism. Isms are not very popular in the Rastafari movement, as they separate, divide and put people in different groups. Hence ism-schism.

Written in response to the social and political unrest in Jamaica, “Get Up, Stand Up” is a call to stand up for the voiceless and all those denied basic human rights. Its impact has endured long past its origins to the point that it was adopted by the human-rights nonprofit Amnesty International as its official anthem.^[1]