2012: hype
and realism
By JAMAL KANJ
Thursday,
December 27, 2012
The year 2012 was the last in the 21st century to have
matching day, month and year (12-12-12.) It will be another nine decades before
new congruent calendar is possible.
That wasn't, however, the only unique phenomenon ending the
year.
Hyped by Nostradamus 500 years ago, the ancient Mayan
calendar - long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar - predicted
December 21, 2012 to be the conclusion of year 5125 or the end of life on
earth.
Very few took the Mayan calendar or Nostradamus' prophecy
very seriously.
Yet movie makers and documentarians made 2012 a successful
marketing theme for many of their productions.
Recognising the hype, I thought that would also be a good
segue for this week's column on centuries-old doomsday theories.
The end of earth by supernatural power is a belief shared by
mainstream Islam and Christianity.
Each, however, has avoided setting an exact date deciding
instead on indefinite vague symbols.
Notwithstanding, some Christian dominations had diverged from
the conventional Church doctrine by setting a "definite" calendar for
the end of life as we know.
In 2000 and in anticipation for the end, famed Argentinean
goalie Carlos Roa gave up football.
In that year Christian devotees even moved to Jerusalem to
join Jesus in the battle to "slaughter the non-believers" and convert
the surviving few for the "true path of salvation".
Earlier in the 20th century, Ellen G White, a
self-proclaimed Christian prophetess, predicted that 1914 was the year for
Jesus' return.
His followers sold everything awaiting their saviour.
Several apocalyptic predictions were made again in 1989,
1993 and 1994.
Since its founding in 1870, Jehovah's Witness could win a
place the Guinness Book of Records for consistently failing - as an institution
- to foretell doomsday.
The last controversial prediction was in 1975 when many
church members sold their possession preparing for God's Kingdom on earth.
After 1975, and with the defection of many church members,
Jehovah's Witness' elders decided to adopt the Christian and Muslim model by
describing the Day of Judgment in nebulous terms.
I couldn't help but wonder if adherents to doomsday
philosophy were selling their property to beat the market and hoping to
reinvest after the "crash?" Or was it a down payment for their
redemption?
Either way, in the "Kingdom" one would assume that
absence of a banking system, paper currency and/or material possession would be
of little value.
Back to sanity, 2012 was filled with tangible outcomes. Some
were painful, while others were more hopeful.
The world economy is still trudging; Israel continues to
flout international law with impunity. The Arab Spring has turned into an
autumn of fratricide fight between a dictator striving to retain his inherited
rule in Syria and an opposition throwing itself on the lap of international
devils to defeat a homegrown evil.
On the positive side and after much vacillation, the Palestinian
leadership had finally garnered the courage to stand up to Israel's proxy in
Washington demanding a UN vote recognising Palestine as an Observer state at
the General Assembly.
Despite nuisance transition to democracy, Egypt held its
first ever free presidential election; a black man was re-elected in America
and Sarkozy was booted out of office.
Let's hope 2013 to be the year for a peaceful transformation
in Syria; steady evolution of egalitarian democracy in Egypt; an end to
Israel's intransigence and the start of global economic recovery.
*Jamal Kanj
writes frequently on Arab world issues and is the author of Children of
Catastrophe, Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America. He can be
reached at [email protected].