3 - 9 January 2002
Issue No.567
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 3 - 9 January 2002 Issue No.567 |
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Limelight
Ring the new!
A band of musicians blow their trumpets and beat their drums, as Pharaoh is carried to his royal barge by panther-skin clad attendants led by the temple high priest. The mighty River Nile had flooded again, enriching the land with the silt needed to grow the crops for the coming year. The annual spectacular procession was under way, as the great Pharaoh set sail on his grand journey from Karnak down to Luxor, where he will remain for 24 glorious days of feasting. Egyptologists believe this majestic ritual ushered the new year in Ancient Egypt - the period during which the earth completes a single revolution around the sun.
We shout, sing, dance, toast each other, blow our horns, let our hair down and revel in the first few hours of the newborn year. We have done that since time immemorial.
New year is the oldest of man's holidays. It was once a religious feast as were all ancient celebrations. Derived from "hali dai" or "holy day", the oldest record we have of an authentic New Year celebration was staged 4,000 years ago in the city of Babylon, capital of Babylonia, near the modern town of "Hillah" in Iraq. It was celebrated in late March at the vernal equinox, the beginning of the spring season. The celebrations lasted eleven days of wild babel, continuous merry-making; of food and wine, music and dancing and total indulgence in all that is pleasurable. Boisterous parades followed the high priest as he washed in the sacred waters of the Euphrates. Another ancient New Year feast was Hogamany, a Gaelic pagan practice, worshipping the sun and fire gods in the dim cold of mid-winter. The Vikings celebrated Yule-dag for twelve days, which later became Daft days, or the twelve days of Christmas. Both celebrations have been kept up in some form till today.
The Romans, who continued to observe many pagan customs well into the early Christian era, celebrated their New Year in late March. As in the case of many such feasts, the church was compelled to hold its own celebrations concurrent with the pagan ones. Even today some Christian denominations observe New Year's day as the feast of Christ's circumcision. The Greeks, dating back to 600 BC, celebrated their god of wine, Dionysius, by parading a baby in a basket symbolic of the annual rebirth of the god of fertility. The Church reluctantly allowed the baby to symbolize Jesus. It remains a modern day symbol of the new year. The Roman god Janus, for which the first month January is named, was represented by two heads, one looking backward and the other forward, and so do we all, look backward in sorrow and forward in hope, this time of year.
With the calendar regularly tampered with, January 1st was established as the official New Year day only some 400 years ago. Various cultures however, including Muslims, Jews, Iranians and Chinese, still celebrate their own new year, adhering to different calendars. But as Charles Lamb wrote: "No one ever regarded the 1st of January with indifference. It is the nativity of our common Adam". It brings us together as one human race.
Food, that indispensable, comforting ingredient, is a common factor in all human celebrations. While varying from culture to culture, it remains an expression of security and pleasure to all; even the purveyor of good luck. In many parts of the United States, 'black-eyed peas' is an essential dish on the New Year table. In Mexico 'tamalés', corn pancakes rolled up in crepe-like fashion stuffed with meat, are a must on New Year's Day. The Dutch eat the ring-shaped 'donuts', symbolic of the completion of a full cycle. 'Cabbage' with its many green leaves, representing green paper money, is a favourite in several countries; and 'rice', a sign of bounty and plenty, is a lucky New Year food in some eastern regions.
Even our New Year resolutions, neatly tucked away by early spring, are descended from our forefathers. While their popular goals were paying off debts, or returning borrowed equipment, the conventional resolutions of today are to 'lose weight and stop smoking'. We constantly reach back to our ancient roots in our joys and our sorrows. At this time of hope and renewal, our joyful exuberance, our extravagant indulgence in sumptuous foods and abundant drinks, our rapturous music and elaborate costumes are all part of our pagan past and our modern present. Crowds gather in private homes, clubs, hotels and ballrooms, or out in public squares, clinging to each other for warmth and support, unconsciously expressing their insecurities and inadequacies.
At the stroke of midnight, the hugging and kissing begin as they always have, millennium after millennium. In Time Square, New York, the traditional Waterford crystal ball drops as the midnight countdown begins in a towering event full of sight, sound and special dazzling effects, watched via satellite by millions around the world. The British gather at Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square as Big Ben rings in the New Year. They hold hands and burst into the one song that most of the world now sings, the familiar and beloved 'Auld Lang Syne', or "old long ago". Written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in the mid 1700s to an old Scottish tune, it's simple expression of fidelity and loyalty has come to symbolize true friendship and lasting devotion. It has become everyone's New Year anthem!
Filmmakers, strangely enough, have not been greatly inspired by the drama of the New Year festivities. While hundreds of films centre around a Christmas theme, the New Year seems sadly eclipsed. The gaiety and pageantry have appeared on celluloid repeatedly, but not in any memorable fashion. The midnight hour has been often used as the perfect timing for a heist, as in the original version of Ocean's 11 (1960) with Frank Sinatra and his rat-pack and as recently as in Entrapment (2000) with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Billy Wilder's touching climactic scene in his delectable film, The Apartment (1960), has the aspiring corporate climber, Jack Lemmon and the helpless elevator girl Shirley Maclaine, peacefully playing cards, finally finding happiness together New Year's Eve. A popular response as to a memorable New Year's Eve on film is Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally (1989). Its poignant depiction of the pain and solitude that can be felt in a big crowd of noisy revelers, brings a tear to every eye. The heart cannot rejoice when there is no one to share joy with.
It must be an inherent need to unload accumulated events of the past that burden us; to drive away the demons that harass us; "the slings and arrows," dealt us. At year's end, whether Gaelic, Greek, Chinese or Egyptian, New Years Eve is a noisy, boisterous, tumultuous, ongoing revelry, with hoots and horns, paper hats and balloons, necessary tools helping us ring out the old once and for all!
Out of the dark sad days of winter, comes a promise of hope, a new adventure as mysterious and frightening as it is bright and exciting. The New Year offers a new clean page for us to write on, a new challenge, a new chance! This year we will get it right. Meanwhile, "Be merry all, be merry all" as we ring out the old and ring in the New Year. May we find the courage to dream great dreams. Dreams do come true. Happy New Year!
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