The doom boom

Karachi: Ever hear of the end times belief known as the Rapture? In the version preferred by fundamentalist Christians in the US, this is when Jesus Christ will descend from the heavens and lift up believers to heaven in the “twinkling of an eye”.

Those left behind will either have to bow to the antichrist (who will have dominion over the earth during this period, known as the Tribulation) or face severe persecution until the army of the righteous descends from heaven to slay the Beast and usher paradise on earth. There are variations on this, but this is the basic upshot.

Given the popularity of this belief, and given that Americans are an enterprising lot; it’s no surprise that something of a rapture industry has sprung up. There are countless websites, the Left Behind series of books, there are videogames, T-shirts and bumper stickers that read: “In case of rapture this car will be driverless”. But then someone asked the obvious question: what happens to the pets of those who have been raptured? Enter www.aftertherapturepetcare.com which claims to be “building a network of non-Christians who have agreed to care for our members’ pets if we all disappear”. For a one-time $10 fee, these folks will initiate their rescue plan for pets immediately after rapture occurs.
Think you can’t bet on the end of the world? Well the British betting firm Ladbrokes offered odds of 666,666/1 that Rapture would occur on May 21, 2011, as predicted by US televangelist Harold Camping.

The end of the world does not mean the end of free enterprise, especially when the said enterprise is aimed at surviving the end of the world. Here we have the burgeoning survivalist movement in the US. Adherents of this camp have a belief that the federal government is going to arrive in black helicopters to take away their lands, guns and freedom. So naturally, there is a whole industry here selling everything from bunkers and survival items to slots in a self-sustained community of like-minded people.

This trend, while always present in the right-wing fringe of America, has again picked up steam thanks to changing demographics, the election of Barack Obama, and gets a boost every time there is a financial crisis, school shooting, pandemic scare or when the Daesh upload another of their “we’re coming to kill you all” videos.

While some catering to this market may be true believers and others are simply savvy businessmen who turn peoples’ political beliefs into sales opportunities, there are also some prominent scammers. These include the ex-convict who advertised a survival commune called “The Citadel” and also the people behind “food4patriots”, which used false information and fake testimonials to sell overpriced “survival meals” to a demographic described as “55+ years old conservatives in ‘red’ states with a strong sense of self-reliance”.

But the greatest doom boom in recent memory took place just three years ago when the dreaded Mayan apocalypse was around the corner. Books like The complete Idiot’s Guide to 2012 flew off the stands and fake experts proliferated. People like Chinese entrepreneur Yang Zongfu even built a globe-shaped “Noah’s ark” in order to survive the 2012 apocalypse. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he reportedly received about 20 orders for his craft, the most expensive model costing a million dollars.

And how can we forget the millennium bug and Y2K? Here, apart from the usual survival guides etc, we also saw offers of bogus insurance against false billing caused by the computer errors the new millennium would usher in. Think people don’t fall for this? Well the Australian National Securities and Invest-ment Commission even created a fake online “Millennium Bug Insurance Company” to see if people would bite. Not only did they offer insurance against Y2K bug-related losses but they also called for investments from people who visited the site. At least 233 people offered to invest a total of $4 million in the company before finally being told that it was just a prank.

It is, of course, true that many businesses use fear to sell their products, but this is different from outright exploitation. Then there are also those businesses that simply react to changing times. For those of us in Karachi, a fine example of these was the emergence of arms dealers sandwiched between designer boutiques and mobile phone shops on Zamzama. Then there is the mushrooming of private security companies and sellers of bullet-resistant glass. But then there are those who clearly believe that your apocalypse is their opportunity. For them, the End of Times isn’t just a TV show, it’s a sales pitch.

By arrangement with Dawn