Anybody who remembers the mad frenzy which gripped Karachiites (and other Pakistanis) about 18-20 years ago, at the turn of the 14th Islamic century, when broadsheets headlined “Shah Nematullah ki paishingoian” [The predictions of Shah Nematullah] were very popular, will enjoy this book. I remember the way in which an old man read aloud some of the items — “Musulman kay hath main talwar ajaay gi”(Muslims will get the sword again”) and the stars in the eyes of the passengers of the bus as they listened. My aunt burst the bubble for me with a single prick of common sense: “Notice he doesn’t say when!”
As the last years of the 20th century roll by, there is an increasing undercurrent of expectations among all classes of people. For the ordinary mortal, the 21st century is being hailed as an era where peace, prosperity, and plenty awaits — if only some of the unfinished business of the 20th is dealt with first! For the religious fanatic, it is a time for the signs to show themselves: from the Japanese “gas-throwing” cults to the attack at Waco, Texas, something is afoot. For the politically inclined, it is a pot-pourri of choices: either the end of history a la Fukuyama or the clash of civilizations as per Huntington, or return of the Socialist system following the failure of Capitalism in the Third World… the scenarios are plentiful; the choice is yours.
Damian Thompson offers a rich narrative of how the turning of the century has always inspired a sort of “let us set our house in order” kind of thinking among some people. No bad thing in itself, but when the people start believing that there is going to be the end of the world soon, and therefore the wicked need to be — ahem — done away with before the cataclysmic events engulf all, we are indeed in deep waters. While we may be surprised to learn that people were scared out of their wits in the year 999, and they may indeed do so again in 1999, a closer look at “the relationship of the calendar to collective anxiety” does “not offer a straightforward link”. Nothing in nature makes us see the end of a century as being any more important than the change of seasons, after all the calendar is an arbitrary mark of time. A highlight of the book is the keen way in which various fundamentalist cults in Judaism, Christianity and Islam are described and discussed.
What was unexpected [for me at least] was the strong religious/scriptural basis of the belief and its sweep all over the world. Thus, the subtitle of the book Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium takes on an added touch of relevance for all students of history.