The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Fire, flood or giant calabash ... pick your apocalypse Posted: 15 Dec 2012 07:03 AM PST Fire, flood or giant calabash ... pick your apocalypse Apocalyptic myths, involving floods, asteroids or other cataclysmic events, are found in many ancient cultures. — AFP-Relaxnews pic Nature's cycles - day succeeding night, the four seasons - long fed fears of being plunged into eternal darkness, or an endless winter. "Before the great monotheistic religions, most ancient civilisations lived in fear that these cycles would one day stop," explained the historian Bernard Sergent, author of a recent book exploring 13 apocalyptic myths. The Aztecs believed there was a chance that - once every 52 years - the sun would no longer rise, so they ordered copious human sacrifices to ensure it did. But rather than The End of all things, throughout history a good old apocalypse has often been viewed as a way to reset the clock, divide good from evil and start anew. Derived from ancient Greek, the word means "revelation". Chosen to figure in the Bible, the Apocalypse of John is just one of the many world's end scenarios that were in circulation in early Christian times. The Book of Revelation, the last in the New Testament, describes a string of cataclysmic events that annihilate part of life on Earth, culminating with the announcement of the Second Coming of Christ. Islam also offers a repertoire of tales of mass destruction - by sandstorm, invasion or fire. Plague, famine and brutal wars made Europe in the Middle Ages, to many, seem ripe for extermination -- leading to a flourishing of prophecies the world would end in 1,000 AD, just as doomsayers would foretell The End a millennium later. At the start of the Renaissance, the Anabaptists were convinced the end of the world was nigh, and that it was vital to "rebaptise" adults before it came. It's part of the human make-up "What is most often at stake is being called to account by the gods, or by nature, it's about being punished for defying some higher order," said Jean-Noel Lafargue, author of a study of world's end myths through history. "Today we no longer need Gods to make us tremble. Man-made disasters suffice. That's what changed in the 20th century." For thousands of years water was the apocalyptic weapon of choice. For Judeo-Christians, the flood evokes the biblical story of Noah's Ark, but the motif of a deluge sent upon man by an angry divinity stretches back deep in time. In Mesopotamia all-engulfing flood myths date from Sumerian times, between the fourth and second millennium BC, as told in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the earliest surviving works of literature. Ancient Greece and Rome had their share of floods, too: from the Greek deluge of Ogyges - named after a mythical ruler - to Atlantis, the legendary island swallowed up by the sea, as recounted by the philosopher Plato. At the dawn of our era, a deluge myth told by a small people from the Near East, the Hebrews, went on to become the most famous of all. According to the Book of Genesis, God decided to rid Earth of men and animals, instructing a single, "righteous" man, Noah, to build an ark to save himself and a remnant of life. Fire usually comes just before, or after a flood. Greece, Scandinavia, India and native American cultures all spoke of the annihilation of early mankind by flames. Africa and ancient Egypt had no flood myths, but West African folk tales do speak of a "devouring gourd", or calabash, that swallows up entire settlements, homes, livestock, even the whole of mankind. "I think it's part of the human make-up, part of the human psyche somewhere, to have a fascination with the end of the world," Jocelyn Bell Burnell, visiting professor of astrophysics at Oxford, told AFP. In the globalised 21st century, the apocalypse - on the silver screen - most often comes as a pandemic or climate cataclysm, but the most enthusiastic doomsayers will doubtless be stockpiling supplies as December 21 supposedly marked by the Mayan calendar as a world's end moment, draws near. — AFP-Relaxnews |
| Great balls of China to defend against ‘apocalypse’ Posted: 15 Dec 2012 02:55 AM PST  Farmer Liu Qiyuan poses among survival pods that he built and has also dubbed 'Noah's Arc', in the village of Qiantun, Hebei province, south of Beijing on December 11, 2012. — AFP pic Camouflage-clad former farmer and furniture maker Liu Qiyuan, 45, inspected his latest creation, a sphere several metres tall he calls "Noah's Ark", designed to withstand towering tsunamis and devastating earthquakes. "The pod won't have any problems even if there are 1,000-metre-high waves... it's like a ping pong ball, its skin may be thin, but it can withstand a lot of pressure," he told AFP at his workshop in Qiantun, an hour from Beijing. Liu's seven completed or under-construction pods, made using a fibreglass casing over a steel frame, have cost him 300,000 yuan ($48,000) each, he says, and are equipped with oxygen tanks, food and water supplies. They also come with seat belts, essential for staying safe in storms, Liu said, strapping himself into position before his assistants shook the sphere vigorously from outside. "The pods are designed to carry 14 people at a time, but it's possible for 30 people to survive inside for at least two months," he said. Their insulation was such that "a person could live for four months in the pod at the North or South Pole without freezing, or even feeling slightly cold," he said. One of the spheres even boasts the domestic comforts of a table, bed and flowery wallpaper. Liu claims he came up with the design after watching the 2009 Hollywood disaster film "2012", which is inspired by the expiry on December 21 of the Mayan Long Count, a more than 5,000 year calendar used by the ancient Central American civilisation. "If there really is some kind of apocalypse, then you could say I've made a contribution to the survival of humanity," Liu said. Apocalyptic predictions have provoked widespread fears among believers, including in China, where two rural counties sold out of candles this month after a panic that three days of darkness would begin on Dec 21, the Xinhua news agency reported. A businessman in China's eastern Zhejiang province has received 21 orders for bright yellow doomsday survival pods also sold as "Noah's Ark," for five million yuan each, the state run China Daily reported. A man from China's northwestern province of Xinjiang told AFP that he has invested all his savings, approximately US$160,000 (RM489,040), to build a survival ark, fearing that his home will be engulfed in a doomsday flood. Chinese authorities have sought to reassure citizens, with Beijing's police force publishing an online notice on Wednesday stating that "the so-called end of the world is a rumour", and advising citizens to use "scientific concepts". Liu first conceived of spherical houses to withstand earthquakes, which occur frequently in China, but switched his focus to survival technology after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives. Liu, who is married with a daughter, said many were sceptical when he first outlined his plans. But despite building them he has not sold any, and is worried about repaying loans he took from neighbours and friends to fund his workshop. "I worked for many years without saving much money... I invested most of my money in the pods, because it's worth it, it's about saving lives" he said. Keen to demonstrate the design's strength to AFP, he used a step-ladder to clamber inside one pod before an assistant reversed a pick-up truck into it, inflicting only a minor scratch on its surface. Peeking out of the hatch, he grinned triumphantly. "No problem," he said. "I didn't feel a thing." — AFP-Relaxnews |
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