Countdown to the end of the world

You may have heard by now that because a calendar of an ancient civilization in the Yucatan peninsula ends on the 21st of December (this Friday), the world as we know it will come to an end. Once it is remembered that the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs [thereby allowing us mammals to thrive] impacted with earth just a few kilometers off that very same peninsula, the parallels become even more interesting. Like most people I am betting the world will still be around on Saturday. The theory that the world will come to an end is a ubiquitous one, nearly every culture and religion has some version of this. Saviours creeping in like thieves in the night, final battles between good and evil [with varying outcomes], falling skies and returning space craft are just some of the theories I can come up with at the spur of this writing moment. Just as we [humankind] as a species like to believe, contrary to all evidence, that we are alive for a reason or, contrary to all mathematical probability, the sole intelligent beings in the universe, our vanity leads us to believe that while we have only existed for about 200,000 years [and civilized for about 6000 years], we will not only be present for the end of a planet that has existed for 4.5 billion years but that we’ll be able to determine what that happens. This thinking also underpins the whole climate change debate but that’s a topic for another day. For now, I’ll wager that not only will the world not end on Friday but that it will still be around when the human race is no more. To our west, the Congolese circus continues with talks between the Government and its mutineers doing the diplomatic version of musical statues. Forever starting and stopping. In the meantime, The New York Times reports that the Congolese Army is gearing up for war and has allied itself with the loathsome FDLR for the coming offensive. Stand-by for the accusations of support for the M23, raids of provocation from the FDLR and very likely another take-over of Goma. This situation is a deadly but scripted one and apparently makes for President Kabila’s preferred reading. In the face of all the depressing news from the West, I was pleasantly surprised to read that this year’s Jungle Party is in Gisenyi [I can never get used to calling it ‘Rubavu’]. It reminds me of the spirit of Kigali’s commuters in the aftermath of the grenade terrorists’ attacks. They went straight back to the taxi parks and got on with their lives. The same can be said about the organisers, artistes and revelers attending the event in a town that was recently shelled and that is next to the epicenter of lawlessness and bad governance in the region. If they change the name from “Jungle Party” to “Defiance Party”, I might just decide to make a trip to the northwest despite my shameful ignorance on the subject of the artistes performing. One day after the end of the world, what could go wrong? The writer is a Kigali-based social critic.