| Antje Maroussi on 2012 |
Hello everyone,
I have been reading this website for many months, and it is the time that I add my opinion on the 2012 apocalypse phenomenon (the "hysteria" for the purpose of this entry).
Historically, people have been fascinated about the fate of humanity and the planet,[1] but I know that some people scare people into believing that the world would end on some date.
On this occasion, the Mayan long count calendar is the basis for the hysteria, and some people have misunderstood how their calendar works, with extraordinary consequences.
I am confident that the world will not end on 21st December 2012. In fact, I could bet a googolplex gazillion pounds (sterling) that excepting the problems we face every day, such as terrorism, debt, famine and crime, the world will not end on that day.
The Mayan calendar is just like our calendar, where we assign "year one" to a moment of great significance (e.g. 1 CE as in the first year in the Common Era) and then measure time from that point. The difference is how we do it:
- We have different ways to measure time: while we use a days, months and years, the Mayans use k'ins, winals, tuns, k'atuns and b'ak'tuns.
- We also have different ways to measure long periods: whereas we use millenniums of 1,000 years each, the Mayans used b'ak'tuns of 20 k’atuns each, or 394.25 of our years.
- We even have different ways to place "year one": whereas the Mayans chose 11th August 3114 BCE for the purported creation of the human beings, we chose 1st January 1 CE for the purported birth of Jesus Christ in Christianity (save the religious debate for later, please).
Therefore, on 21st December 2012, The Mayan long count calendar will simply roll over to the 14th b'ak'tun. Something similar happened to our calendar when it rolled over to the 3rd millennium on 1st January 2000 (or for some, 2001!). Therefore, those observing the Mayan long count calendar will be celebrating the equivalent to our millennium on that day.
You might like to know that the hysteria is one of the many hoaxes that many scammers take advantage of to commit identity theft and fraud. Earlier this year, I told viewers of the Al Jazeera’s The Stream programme that the 2012 hysteria benefits scammers,[2] and they have done it before, as the effects of the Nigerian 419 Scams, Fake Antivirus Scanners and Computer Ransomwares demonstrate.
The scammers pose as different organisations purporting to sell you "survival kits" and stuff like that, with a common aim of either stealing your money or your personal details, so that they can either spam your email inboxes or empty your bank accounts. You do not need to understand rocket science to deduce the giveaway sign – the apocalypse will not happen at all!
The bottom line is that you should not believe in the "doomsday" predictions at face value, and let it take over your life: we already know that there is a lot of evidence pointing against the 2012 predictions, as we are only days from the start of the 14th b'ak'tun… and nothing worse.
Antje Maroussi is a Flickr photographer and graphic designer studying at the London Metropolitan University. She took part in the Al-Jazeera debate on the 2012 phenomenon earlier this year.
