Where Will You Be When The World Does Not End In 2012

The Belize Tourism Board has launched a website to promote the Belize Maya End Of The World Events

The Belize  Tourism Board’s foreign marketing firms  have gone into overdrive over the Christmas and launched a publicity campaign aimed at luring tourists to Belize for the Maya End Of The World Event. The message has been repackaged to be an event celebrating a “transition” in the Maya Calendar. The Belize Tourism Board’s latest branding is ” Where Will You Be When The World Begins Anew Belize Maya 2012″. A cynic would say that a more appropriate if snarky slogan would be, What Will Be The Situation Of The Maya When Their Calendar Resets In 2012?

Now bear with us folks – this may be satire but there are some facts to be considered. The Maya in Belize are the most oppressed and poorest of the poor of our indigenous groups. The current United Democratic Party government has authorized oil drilling and logging in lands sacred to the Maya in southern Belize. It has hired very expensive private lawyers to launch court battles attempting to negate ancestral Maya land rights. And in a gratuitous smack down of the Maya, one of their leaders who has been nominated by non-government organisations to represent their interests in the Senate as the 13th Senator, has been unable to take his seat in the Senate. Why? Because government has refused to formalize a law approved by the House Of Representatives and the Senate to give voice to the NGO community.

Scientists have now debunked the Maya End Of The World Myth. And everyone knows this:

The Maya calendar doesn’t end in 2012, as some have said, and the ancients never viewed that year as the time of the end of the world, archaeologists say. But December 21, 2012, (give or take a day) was nonetheless momentous to the Maya.

“It’s the time when the largest grand cycle in the Mayan calendar—1,872,000 days or 5,125.37 years—overturns and a new cycle begins,” said Anthony Aveni, a Maya expert and archaeoastronomer at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.

The Maya kept time on a scale few other cultures have considered. During the empire’s heyday, the Maya invented the Long Count—a lengthy circular calendar that “transplanted the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself,” Aveni said.

During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began at what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period: August 11, 3114 B.C. The Maya wrote that date, which preceded their civilization by thousands of years, as Day Zero, or 13.0.0.0.0. In December 2012 the lengthy era ends and the complicated, cyclical calendar will roll over again to Day Zero, beginning another enormous cycle.

“The idea is that time gets renewed, that the world gets renewed all over again—often after a period of stress—the same way we renew time on New Year’s Day or even on Monday morning,” said Aveni, author of The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012. ” – Source: National Geographic 2012: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked.

“2012 will be a momentous occasion, not only for Belize’s large Maya population, but for all Belizeans. Given the amount of interest we’re seeing from around the world, it’s generating global excitement as well,” breathlessly expounds Yanick Dalhouse the foreign P.R .expert  embedded at  the Belize Tourism Board headquarters in Belize City in a press release  this week. The BTB Press Release suggests an explosion which we hope is more hyperbole: “Some believe this transition will be peaceful; others warn it will be nothing short of explosive.” The BTB does not give details on who the “others” are so perhaps we can safely dismiss this as merely an attempt to blow hot air across our collective reporter’s  notebooks.

Overall, we must say, sorry folks. We are not buying the BTB hoopla. The Maya  of Belize who today ride bicycles and commute on the local chicken bus and use printed wall calendars like all other Belizeans, could care less about this hackneyed Madison Avenue marketing strategy. 2012 will be as  momentous a year as any for the Maya as they go about their business of trying to scratch out a living exactly the same way they have been doing since the European Conquest destroyed their culture and way of life. Well, mostly.

A  few will be dancing and acting out scripted rituals at the many events planned in Belize (and Mexico and Guatemala) to cater to the End Of The World believers. When the world does not end in 2012 for sure another calendar will be pressed into service for the next apocalypse.

The Belize Tourist Board cannot be faulted for trying to drum up publicity for more tourists to visit Belize in 2012. Of recent it has been struggling to justify its existence and humongous tax payer supported budget. Budget figures show the PR budget alone running to approximately $1 million a month. There now appears to be a move afoot to downgrade the BTB from a semi independent para statal into a wholly government controlled entity. Be that as it may, Belize has a wonderful tourism product that rivals the best of those in other tourism destinations.

The tourism industry and its independent bodies such as the Belize Tourism Industry Association and the Belize Hotel Association are actively promoting several educational, tourism and plain fun events for Belize Maya 2012. Yes, Belize will be a great place to visit in 2012.

For those wishing to rent a tent near a Maya Pyramid to welcome the apocalypse,  those wishing to get hitched atop a long abandoned Maya ball court, and those wanting to listen to a Belizean archeologist  explain more about the Maya – well Belize will be the place to be. Just be sure to have your return airfare and real passport in hand to return home. The Maya Passports the BTB is selling at $25. a pop for Belize Maya 2012 look like real Belize Passports. But they are just expensive souvenirs. They will not get you through the Belize International Airport, much less Homeland Security.