Real Situation: 2012 & The Eschatology of Reggae Music

Real Situation: 2012 & The Eschatology of Reggae Music

by Frederick R. Dannaway (Riddim Magazine, July/August 2012)

“2012, something big going to happen, either me married or the Lord is coming” Chris Martin

“But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Luke 21:28

So Much Trouble in the World
Most of the world’s religions have some sort of end-times scenario. These range from the destruction of the world and rebirth of a New Jerusalem or the appearance of the Madhi or a new cyclic Vedic world age. Religions from Christianity and Buddhists to Mayans and Rastafarians all anticipate some cataclysmic event or divine moment that will forever change life as we know it. Science predicts global entropy for environmental systems as cultures, economies and societies seem to crumble like melting icecaps in the world news. To confront reality, to literally be “conscious,” is to sense that the world is in hyper-crisis –and although it has always as such– it has perhaps never faced so many complex scenarios from global warming to catastrophic world obliterating weapons. Zimbabwe’s biggest newspaper just had a major Sunday feature on evangelical doomsday prophecies threatening African’s very stability as the people’s faith has them stopping saving for their retirement or children. Whole villages are abandoning long-term concerns of health, investments and education in slightly more zealous certainty than an outstanding amount of Evangelicals worldwide who eagerly await being raptured off the earth before divine wrath consumes the world. Numerous documentaries have shown villages abandon with jobs, debts, savings and families, so utterly convinced the end is near and the worlds rampant use of finite resources and pollution would seem to indicate that elites are not concerned for long term planetary sustainability. Mayan calendar predictions have reached pop culture from Hollywood movies to commercials and Jamaica is no exception. And as Chris Martin isn’t planning on putting on a wedding ring this year something big might happen as this is perhaps reggae’s most discussed year numerologically since 1977. So even if you are either planning a wedding this year, as is yours truly, or expecting the Lord to return or the earth’s pole to shift into hyperconsciousness, one is still haunted by reggae’s soundtrack to the apocalypse that stretches back some 35 years.

Read the rest here, before it's too late:
http://www.highstylus.com/real-situation/