The Nam-Shub that Started a Revolution

It's not often in this material realm that a book is found which transcends time to combine the complex intricacies of ancient Sumerian religion with the futuristic technological extra-dimensionality of cyberpunk. Lucky for we readers, Neal Stephenson is on the case! Snow Crash, Stephenson's 1992 masterpiece, covers the life of Hiro Protagonist, a struggling master-hacker. The world has been divided into city states; the federal government existing as nothing more than a myriad unit amongst a plethora of other controlled territorial sanctions.

Hiro's world stands upon the brink of a massive meltdown of communication. Snow Crash, a cognitive virus created through extensive research into the Ancient Sumerian language, is running rampant. This virus can be spread not only through a bitmap image over the internet, a common hacker hangout, but also through a street drug peddled under the same name; drugs being a well-known hacker hobby. Its Binary expression, a coding language comprised of ones and zeros which hackers read on a daily basis, particularly aims the virus toward the destruction of hackers. With the destruction of the hackers of the world, who work mostly as third-party information hoarders for the CIC (Central Intelligence Corporation), information flow will cease. This event, linked to the events of Ancient Sumerian lore, is meant to send the human race backward into a state of primitivity; a complete and utter breakdown of communication. Da5id, a famous hacker and friend of Hiro, exposes himself to Snow Crash and instantly falls into a babbling fit. This nam-shub, or linguistic brain command, passes through the normal filtration system of the brain into a cerebral "base program" which humans are forced to follow without question. Da5id speaks in tongues, his brain still fully functional. His actions are sporadic. He can neither think nor act by his own volition; he must follow the orders of his programmer.

The suggestion that Glossolalia, or speaking in tongues, is a hard-coded program that each human being shares is quite interesting to me. Below our conscious mind, the part of our head that thinks, is a base programming language that was once used by the Gods of Sumeria to control and teach humanity the means with which to become civil. These God's have been suggested by Zecharia Sitchin, a Sumerian researcher and author, to be an ancient alien race, The Nefilim, who come to Earth every 12,500 years by means of the binary star of The Sun, the Planet Nibiru. The Nefilim come to harvest ores from the ocean, and at some point in our past were our creators and rulers. Stephenson concludes that the Gods of Sumer must have been extraordinary human beings who rose to the status of god-dom due to their mastery of the Sumerian language; human binary. Either way, the Gods of Sumer seemed to be happily in control, disciplining their race (Sitchin suggests the Nefilim genetically altered humanity to perfection) into a thriving civilization. From a tribal disorganization, dominated mostly by meandering about primitive Earth in search of food, the Gods sculpted a creature which could complete organized tasks, understand and follow commands, and be pleased in serving the Gods with all their essence. Of course, every good thing must come to an end. In the instance of Ancient Sumeria, the end's name was Enki.

Enki, the Sumerian God, is referred to as a "neurolinguistic hacker" by Stephenson. In ancient times, Enki created a nam-shub which caused human beings to be thrown from their world of commands and lose any interpretive power involving the Sumerian base language. The unique nam-shub of Enki, which is available via the internet [http://deoxy.org/alephnull/nam-shub.htm], blocked the effects of all previous nam-shub, causing humanity to enter into a confused panic. Without the commands of the Gods dominating their minds, the humans learned that they could not understand one another. The Gods no longer had the ability to control the humans, and thus lost their most immediate power. Most communication amongst the humans was expressed through body language, facial expressions, or simple chants. Before the nam-shub of Enki, a human was never commanded to think for himself! This confusion forced the human species into the creation of language, if for any other purpose than to tell the tale of the grand Gods. These languages, which have obviously passed on through time, would eventually grow to relay the true expression of the human mind; the true expression of their individual freedom from slavery.

Enki's nam-shub is directly relatable to this post! I sit here before you, hidden behind a vast network of internets in my slumped internet posture, thinking for and expressing myself to you; another perfectly capable, understanding human being! Without the nam-shub of Enki, our thoughts would be completely vacant! Every moment of our thoughtless, blissful existence would be dominated by the base code of our brains, forever entrapping us toward the will of our great masters. It is due to Enki that I am capable of being interested; interesting!

Whether you are privy to believe in Sitchin's view that the Sumerian Gods were aliens, or Stephenson's view that these same Gods were extralinguistic masterminds, Sumerian culture and its ancient language are very interesting topics. I highly suggest picking up a copy of Snow Crash and perhaps, if you are feeling squirrely, a copy of The 12th Planet; book one of Sitchin's ten part Earth Chronicles series. Just be careful if you choose to do your research online; you never know where a nasty nam-shub could be hiding!