On the end of the world

From Y2K to Armageddon, Heaven's Gate and the Halley's and Hale-Bopp comets, the end of the world has been predicted now for some time. . . .

The latest doomsday scenario, if you don't count the Mayan calendar,was Harold Camping's predictions that the end of the world would start Saturday (May 21). If per chance you are reading this blog, so far so good.

Yet, some people are disappointed. It's like the world didn't end and they have nothing to wake up to in the morning. No, wait, they actually had something to wake up this Sunday (May 22) morning.

Hallelujah. It just wasn't our time, yet.

Camping and his followers were looking forward to the end. They believed they were likely to be among the 200 million souls sent to live in paradise forever. They were referring to the end of the world as "The Rapture" - a term with Biblical references.

Camping is a religious or Christian radio star and president of Family Radio, a California-based station with affiliates or programming throughout the nation.

Deeply religious, he believes in the Christian concept of "The Rapture." The Rapture is a reference found in Thessalonians where reference is made to Christians getting "caught up to meet the Lord in the air." Problem is, the Bible doesn't really say when it's going to happen. Camping used numerology to pick out a date, it seems, out of thin air. Well, you know what they say about numbers, you can make them tell whatever you want them to tell. Silly numbers.

I like the Mayan prediction for doomsday much better. Good news is, we still have some time to get ready for this one. According to the Mayan calendar and Mayan lore, there will be a series of cataclysmic events that will occur on Dec. 21, 2012. A whole set of theories have arisen from this prediction. What we do know is that the date marks the end of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the calendar used by the MesoAmerican tribes. It's the end. Period. That's it. The date doesn't really mean the end of the world, I feel. I think it means the transformation of society or people in the world, sort of when the Spaniards and Europeans arrived in the "New World" of the soon to be named "Americas."

That arrival certainly did change the world the native inhabitants of the Americas knew. Maybe something similar will happen. Ah, but who would come to visit? A God? Our Lord? Aliens? The people lost in the Bermuda Triangle? Something has to happen. Can't wait. Let's get ready.

Speaking of things that are happening, it's time to revisit the Aztlán theory as seen by the Chicano activists of the 1960s and which many people believe is "right on!" Some say Aztlán will materialize as early as 2025 when the Hispanic population of the American Southwest becomes the dominant force in politics and the economy in this area. That will lead to the destruction of one group of leaders and propel the descendants of the Aztecs to a more prominent in a new era which they would have referred to as the Sixth Sun.

The Aztecs believed there had been four worlds, or "Suns", previous to the present universe, the Fifth Sun or Qunito Sol. These earlier worlds and their inhabitants had been created, then destroyed by catastrophic action. The present world is the Fifth Sun, and the Aztec saw themselves as "the People of the Sun," whose divine duty was to wage cosmic war in order to provide the sun with his "nourishment. Without it, the sun would disappear from the heavens. Thus the welfare and the very survival of the universe depended upon the offerings of blood and hearts to the sun, so the legend says. If the Fifth Sun was the era of a people called the Aztecs, the Sixth Sun, after the destruction of the leadership base that exists, will usher in a new people who will represent the new Aztecs. Those people, some believe, are in the American Southwest. It will take several years for the new people to find a new homeland. It should start with 2012 and then the transition will take place.

Aztlán is the mythical homeland of the Aztecs, a sort of paradise where their displaced people would end up sometime in the future, oh, like 2025. The Chicano Movement took this concept and put a whole new twist to it which sounds, actually, "right on, ese!" Chicanos believe that the sons and daughters of the Aztecs and other indigenous tribes that suffered atrocities at the hands of the Spanish have now relocated in a new land in "El Norte" - north of what is now Mexico - and are about to take over. Population figures certainly seem to affirm that concept.

Chicanos use the name Aztlán to refer to the lands of Northern Mexico that were annexed by the United States as a result of the Mexican-American War. Yep, that would be parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. Their theory is that the land ceded by Mexico in 1848 would be the new homeland of the sons and daughters of the Aztec. These sons and daughters would then take over this land and transform it into their new homeland. Throw Texas, which Mexico lost in 1836, into the mix and you have the basis for a very sound theory. There are millions of Mexican Americans in those states, millions....nearly 40 million it is estimated.

Mexican Americans - the sons and daughters of the Aztecs - now make up the majority of the people in portions of several states in the American Southwest, according to the 2010 census figures. During the next two decades, Hispanics (primarily Mexican Americans) will probably make up the majority of the population in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado. Mexican Americans will compose, at the very least, a major portion of the population in these states, and that would bring the end of Anglo dominance in the territory, politically and perhaps economically. The indigenous (Aztecs?) would again rule.

Some members of the Chicano movement proposed that a new nation be created called Republica del Norte (Republic of the North). It is ironic that in the 19th century, circa 1850, there was a rebellion in what is now South Texas and Northern Mexico to form a new country that would be called The Republic of the Rio Grande. It's old headquarters building and capitol still stand in Laredo. While that movement was ill-fated and politically-based, this movement to colonize the American Southwest is just a natural evolution of population migration and searching for a home. How else can you explain the millions of immigrants who seem to be magically attracted to this land. This evolution is, therefore, a natural occurrence predicted by the Aztec. Could these same people be the lost tribe of Israel? But, that's another story. For now, let's stay on the colonization effort.

That leads us to the concept of reconquista or reconquest. The concept has been advanced by Chicano nationalists of the 1960s and 1970s to describe the creation of this mythical Aztec homeland called Aztlán. They believe, as I said earlier, this place to be the American Southwest. They believe that soon - oh, let's say 2025 -the majority of the population in those American Southwest states will be Mexican American. Perhaps?

After the 2010 census, California was 38 percent Hispanic, Arizona 21 percent, New Mexico 46 percent, Texas 38 percent, Colorado 21 percent and Neveda 20 percent. In almost all these states, the majority of the school-age population is Hispanic, Mexican American to be more exact.

Consider this: The Hispanic birthrate is twice as high as that of the rest of the American population. That high fertility ratewill fuel the rapid Hispanic population boom in the coming decades. By 2050, the Latino population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. One in four Americans will be Hispanic by mid-century, twice the current ratio.

In states such as California and Texas, Hispanics will be in the clear majority by 2050. Nationally, whites will drop from near 70 percent of the total population in 2000 to just half by 2050. Hispanics will account for 46 percent of the nation’s added population over the next two decades, the Pew Hispanic Center reports.

The writing is on the wall - or census figures, anyway. These states are on the way to becoming majority Hispanic. Will that mean the end of Anglo domination in those areas and change how people view the world in those five states or nation? Is that the end of one era and the start of another era means in the predictions of the calendar and the indigenous? I think so. It is not so much, I believe, the destruction of the world. It is, rather, the development of a new structure of leadership that helps shape the world. The Aztec empire, for example, crumbled under Spanish rule. Likewise, in the American Southwest, those who are in charge now passing hideous legislation to try to keep the Hispanic out of their lands, will crumble. A new leadership will emerge and a new world will flourish.

We will find out circa 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030 . . . For sure, by then, someone's world will end.
c/s