Shades of conspiracy

Shades of conspiracy


Farrukh Khan Pitafi May 29, 2021
Shades of conspiracy

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Not a day passes by without a new set of totally crazy conspiracy theories reaching us. Now that Pakistan is making strides in vaccinating its citizens, you might have come across a video clip where someone is attaching a light bulb to various parts of his body and claiming that the microchips in the vaccine are responsible for that electricity. This one is easy. Microchips do not produce electricity. They consume them. And if for some reason nanotechnology and power generation had conspired to create automatically rechargeable batteries that could enter your body through a needle, I assure you, you wouldn’t need the heavy bricks you call smartphones with big batteries. Most of this propaganda can be dismantled through simple observation and deduction.

Similarly, at the height of the Covid-related oxygen crisis in India news broke that the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Rishikesh, was conducting a clinical trial to study the impact of chanting the Gayatri Mantra on critical Covid patients since February. The Gayatri Mantra is a religious hymn that is often chanted during Hindu religious ceremonies. Without prejudice to any faith a simple question to India's ministry of science and technology, the sponsor of the study, could have stopped further squandering of precious resources. When the smallest microbe known to humanity, a virus, lacks an auditory system and a brain, how do you propose to convey this message, this chant, to it?

It reminded me of an interesting episode in Pakistan where a televangelist, who is now an MP, inquired a religious scholar about killing lizards. If memory serves me correctly it was a what-if question about a djinn pretending to be a lizard. The said scholar told him without a trace of irony to shout out this line thrice before killing the lizard: “O lizard, if you are a djinn then go away”. Lizards neither lack auditory pathways nor a functioning brain, but I am not convinced that they are fluent in your native tongue. Otherwise, we would have known of a talking lizard. What’s more, if it was at all plausible what makes you think that this voyeuristic djinn who has taken so many pains to take the shape of a lizard to spy on you would be deterred by your threats or killed by your mortal instruments? Are they not supposed to be very powerful?

As I pointed out at the start, being ignorant misapplications of faith or direct products of superstition, these stories are easy to debunk. But not all are. They come in layers or levels. And like any steep climb the farther you get from the ground the scarier it gets. The first denial makes an entry. It is not easy to wrap your head around the suddenness and the scale of a black swan tragedy. You were never equipped to handle the shocking ingress of widespread pain and loss. Two tragedies immediately come to mind. The 9/11 and the Covid-19 crises. The former because it was truly a traumatic experience for anyone who lost a loved one or viewed it as an assault on his or her identity. The fact that the mastermind was living in a distant and downtrodden country and only 20 of his acolytes perpetrated this crime would not let the emotional closure come. So, what do you do? You look for conspiracies. And those who had initially failed to empathise with the suffering in the United States, dismissing it as somebody else's problem, were soon shocked to learn that war had reached their region. Hence, they also joined this conspiracy theory club. On its own denial as an emotional response comes with an expiry date. But more often it is co-opted by sinister motives. There always are groups out there to profit from your agitated state of mind. And they move in with the grace of vultures.

In the case of the Covid crisis, their presence was largely felt. Almost at the very start of the crisis the social Darwinists and staunch believers in the hierarchal society had already made their minds. The weak and the elderly are drains on the economy and the reason for the higher taxes the rich have to pay. Or so the argument. Why should the profitable businesses of the rich be closed to save them? Let them die. If you recall parties were organised with monetary rewards for anyone who voluntarily got infected. It is a test, right? Survival of the fittest. If you are not fit what is the point of your life. The lockdowns were an attack on liberty, those who supported it were either hyper-woke or then beta males and females. We all are exposed to some degree of corporate greed. But this, my friends, was the new, deadlier, and most despicable manifestation of corporate selfishness. From anti-maskers to anti-vaxxers you could see this selfishness rearing its ugly head again and again. The selfishness of the rich who sponsored these tirades, not the poor brainwashed johnnies who became the unwitting pawns.

There, of course, was a political context too. Most of it was happening in the Trumpian era. You can blame Russia for his victory all you want. But he was probably the worst example of the allies, not the enemies, getting greedy and selfish. Russia did not profit much in Donald Trump's time, but Israel and India did. Also a few Arab countries and Turkey. Every ally wanted to maximise its gains and Trump let them. In exchange, they would let Trump harvest their soft power. Notice that conspiracy worlds like QAnon are products of the very same soft power. Be as anti-Semitic as you want. Just don’t be anti-Netanyahu. Be as anti-Asian you want, just be kind to Modi. Be as anti-Muslim as you desire, just be nice to the Muslim strongmen. All such affluent countries would spend what mattered the most. Something from the theme song from Trump's The Apprentice show. Money, money, money. And these allies would take the abuse and exploitation of their diasporas to the breaking point. In Nikki Haley's obsession with China, the origins of coronavirus, and attempts to court Israel you can see this sad trend playing out. What is the way out? When democratic correction comes in these countries, do not stop it.

And despite all factors above, there is one element that can fix these problems like no other: transparency. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, which destroyed the Arab world and was ostensibly undertaken to deprive Saddam Husain of his non-existent weapons of mass destruction, could have been a very different story had it not lacked transparency. Another test is the ongoing inquiry into the origins of the novel coronavirus. The lack of empirical evidence and the provable causal chain has spawned a million conspiracy theories, all of them deadlier than any truth can be and is always benefiting the worst lot possible. A logical and satisfactory closure of this story can help the world heal faster.

COMMENTS (1)

Rebirth | 3 years ago | Reply We were led to believe for 4 years that the Trump administration was all that was wrong in the world. Did we get that wrong or what Intolerance hasn t gotten any better in the so-called West. Society has become even more divisive. There are no significant anti-Russia policies or positions because well like the first Cold War can t take on two Eastern powers all at once. Sanctions on NordStream 2 were lifted. Do we now assume that the Russians brought the new administration to power possibly as a part of some kind of a larger papal conspiracy The author ignores the Placebo effect in the first 3 paragraphs although it probably has a very insignificant impact on viral infections but may still have the desired effect of slightly improving immunity. QAnon and the Proud Boys versus BLM and Antifa isn t even the tip of the iceberg. That s all that is relevant to mention in that regard for now. The author also points out the supposed contradiction between domestic antisemitism and pro-Israeli policies by completely refusing to acknowledge evangelical apocalyptic theories about the second coming. However that s only to court 15 of the population and their consequent voting bloc. The geopolitical reality is that the country is very important to maintain a naval presence in the Mediterranean which has always been a body of water that all powers throughout history even the Babylonians wanted to gain access to. The Russians wouldn t give up their bases there either. The Muslims had always been important players there including in the Black Sea through Crimea although it was only the Turkic people. In the Mediterranean Arabs Kurds Mamelukes and Turks had consistently been the most important players. In fact had the Mamelukes not defeated Genghis Khan half of Europe would ve been Khans like us. Today we only see two powers in both bodies of water and a third but to a lesser extent. Saddam s attempts at trying to extend his influence in the Mediterranean alongside the Ba athists got him screwed. He was a softer target compared to Assad Tartus . Finally understanding where the virus came from cannot possibly help the world heal. Being made aware of the origins of the virus won t expedite any treatment or cure. For that you need it s genetic sequence. We know that s been uncovered considering how many vaccines have been produced. Knowing such a detail doesn t even equate to being a placebo hypothetically. It s like saying I got food poisoning and if I found out which food stall caused it I would recover quicker. There s no scientific explanation or study to back this analysis till date nor is there likely to be any luck in the future. A virus is not like a baby that finding out who the original father is will make it easier to manage it. It can only help you prevent anything like that happening again by being more protective of your body and hoping that the progenitor s will take responsibility.
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