By Lubna Abdel-Aziz Poor Planet Earth! Is it not enough that it sustains daily the slings and arrows of an outrageously ungrateful populace?. Now, some wicked wizard must have cast an evil spell, which should be broken, posthaste. Is there a corner of the globe that is not plagued with unspeakable problems, with tsunamis here, tornadoes there, fires and floods, volcanoes erupting, epidemics spreading, not to mention wars and bloodshed everywhere, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan. How about that crushing economic crisis that is slip-sliding us all into total chaos? Are we living a nightmare, or witnessing a key moment in our modern history? Have we lost total control over our present? How will it all end? How did it all start? Have we reached our full tragic potential or is there more in store for us? The world is in dire need of a good fortuneteller. Prevention, it is said, is better than cure. If every government had in its cabinet a Secretary of Clairvoyance, or a Minister of Crystal-Ball Gazing, could we have prevented some major disasters? Would that chicken have contracted that NR1, or would that pig have been left to mingle indiscriminately while carrying that with that H2N1 strain? Superstition is an ancient part of our heritage; so ancient in fact, it goes as far back as our Neanderthal ancestors, some 50,000 years ago. The birth of spirituality bred superstition and in turn, superstition bred fortunetellers. Thousands of methods of predicting future events have been practiced throughout history, with Astrology topping the list. Despite all our advances in science and technology, how many among us consult our local paper to review our daily horoscope? How many believe that our destiny is written in the stars? Superstition, no matter how irrational, has managed conserve a place in our lives. Why? We all have fears. We have uncertainties about the future. In short, we are insecure. Astrology began in Babylonia, over 2000 years BC, and the Zodiac was first conceived in ancient Egypt. The Greeks and Romans developed the practice, and to this day the Roman names for the Zodiac are still in use. With Christianity, interest in astrology declined, but by 1100, it started to regain its popularity. Newspapers in England began publishing horoscope columns in 1930 and the custom spread like wildfire. Horoscopes are followed today, more widely than ever before. We believe the heavenly bodies can shape our destinies. Tens of millions base important decisions on the position of the sun, moon, planets and stars, and tens of millions have been spent on reading our fortunes in the skies, in tea leaves, coffee stains and in a myriad other ways. Another ancient method of fortunetelling is Numerology, used by the Chinese and the Hebrews. Names and birthdates reveal the past and the future. Numerologists believe all numbers vibrate and letters have numerical values. Palmistry is the practice of foretelling the future by examining the lines and marks of the human hand. It originated in India, and is considered by many as a true science, by scientists only a pseudoscience. With piles of redundant technology at our finger tips could it not be put to use in averting our predicaments? Could it not discover an omen, a sign of warning? Even primitive people could do that! Are you scoffing at all this superstitious babble? Many scholars accept some superstitions as having a scientific basis, and many a scientist has cherished a lucky pen or a lucky number. We sorely need another Michel de Notre Dame, better known to us by his Latin name of Nostradamus. His book "Centuries"(1555) was a series of prophecies written in verse, predicting future events till Judgment Day. When King Henry II of France died in 1559, in a manner predicted in "Centuries" 4 years earlier, Nostradamus won everlasting fame, and a position at the court of Charles IX. During the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy of the Twin Towers, many scholars concurred that it was all predicted by Nostradamus, What good was the prediction? We all seek the unknown, yet when the future is predicted, do we heed it? Did Julius Caesar heed the soothsayer who cried more than once to "Beware the Ides of March"? Could a present- day Nostradamus have helped Greece and Portugal avert their economic downfall? Could he have resolved the Palestinian catastrophe? Could he have stopped the under-sea motion of the earth and avoided a Japanese tsunami? What has History taught us? That we can learn noting from History? That History repeats itself? Can we never learn from the past and thus improve our future? Are we so fond of our mistakes we must repeat them again and again, ad infinitum? Man is destined to experience his present, to be shielded from knowledge of the future, and what is worse, to utterly forget the mistakes of his past. We must have an innate sadistic desire to experience the anguish, the misery, the passion and the grief. There is no comic relief from the painful drama that is our destiny? We shall willingly commit the same errors as did our ancestors, as will our children. Lovers never learn, leaders never learn, and tyrants never learn. We have no control over our past, present or future, and no amount of crystal-ball gazing will change our fortune, our fate, our karma, our kismet. The die is cast; our tragic potential knows no limits! Must it be? It must be! -- Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)
