Here's an interesting article by Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times, Hidden story behind conspiracies, about my favorite meme, conspiracy theories, through the filtre of a major and influencial financial daily newspaper.
"Conspiracy theorists have a bad reputation. They are usually portrayed as paranoid, isolated, deluded people, best avoided.
It is true that there are many sinister and unpleasant conspiracy theories. These are usually the ones that seek to blame all the world’s ills on a single racial or social group – Jews, Catholics, Freemasons.
But there are also conspiracy theories that are delightfully dotty. A friend in Ankara tells me many Turks are convinced that, during the cold war, the Russians infested the Sea of Marmara with a sturgeon-devouring predator that sent these valuable fish fleeing into the Russian bit of the Black Sea – thus allowing the Russians to control the world’s supply of caviar. That is a theory worthy of James Bond.
The idea that conspiracy theorists are an isolated bunch, on the fringes of society, is also wide of the mark. Some theories are so widely believed that they are now almost mainstream. A recent BBC opinion poll suggested that only 43 per cent of Britons accept the official verdict that the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, was an accident. The countless “9/11” conspiracy theories also have a surprisingly wide audience – even in America. A Zogby poll last year found that 42 per cent of Americans think the US government is “covering up” facts about the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001.
Why do conspiracy theories command such a wide audience? I have my own theory about that. There are four environments that help to create and sustain paranoia about secret plots. There are closed societies – typified in the Middle East. There are divided societies, such as the US and Spain. There are countries with a genuinely conspiratorial elite, such as Russia. And finally, even in government, there are certain types of people who are natural conspiracy theorists.
The Middle East is particularly fertile ground for people peddling theories about plots. Ahmad Ashraf, an Iranian academic, says that Persians “have relied on conspiracy theories as a basic mode of understanding politics and history”. Given their history, this is understandable to a degree. There really was a successful Central Intelligence Agency plot to overthrow the Iranian government in 1953. Other Middle Eastern countries have similar tales to tell. The Anglo-French Suez invasion of 1956 fits the narrative of a conspiracy theory very neatly – there was a secret agreement and the official reason for the intervention was a pretext.
But there is also something internal to Middle Eastern countries that may foster conspiracy theories. A friend who visited Egypt after 9/11 reported back that he could find almost nobody who believed that al-Qaeda had carried out the attacks. My colleague thought that it had something to do with not having a free press. If you start from the notion that the mainstream news is nonsense, then almost anything could be true.
But if censorship promotes paranoia in the Middle East, how does one account for the popularity of conspiracy theories in the US? Bumper stickers that proclaim: “I don’t believe the liberal media” reflect the deep mistrust and political divisions between liberals and conservatives. Who knows what The New York Times or CNN are concealing for their own nefarious, liberal reasons? Perhaps it is those UN-controlled “black helicopters” buzzing around in the skies.
In Spain, the wounds of the Spanish civil war lie just beneath the surface of democratic politics and left and right still seem capable of believing the very worst of each other. Both sides have given vent to some pretty scurrilous theories about the “real story” behind the Madrid terrorist bombings of 2004.
Perhaps the most conspiratorial places that I have visited are Russia and Indonesia. In both places, the legacy of dictatorship and the existence of powerful secret services have created a deep belief that there is always a hidden narrative behind the official story.
Russians of all political persuasions often seem to react to any news event by asking: “Who benefits?” So if opponents of President Vladimir Putin gain credibility and sympathy because some of them have been murdered, perhaps Mr Putin’s opponents have actually organised the killings themselves? And if President Putin launched the Chechen wars after terrorist attacks in Moscow, perhaps the Russian government itself was the hidden hand behind the explosions?
Many Russians and students of Russia believe these theories. This can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that the other side is engaging in nefarious conspiracies, it would be foolish not to do a bit of plotting and provocation yourself.
All this suggests that conspiracy theories flourish above all among the powerless or in undemocratic countries. But even powerful people in the free world can be drawn to conspiracy theories. A long career in the intelligence services can sometimes drive people slightly potty. James Jesus Angleton, a famous head of counter-intelligence for the CIA during the cold war, eventually came to suspect that the heads of several allied governments were KGB agents. He compared the effort to foil Soviet espionage with being trapped in a “wilderness of mirrors”.
When powerful people begin to see hidden narratives and plots around them, the consequences can be dangerous. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, one of my more conspiratorial pals told me: “Iraq did this. Take a look at Laurie Mylroie’s book.” So I bought a copy of Ms Mylroie’s work, Saddam Hussein’s Unfinished War Against America.
It attempted to prove that the Iraqis had been behind numerous terrorist attacks on the US, including the first assault on the World Trade Center in 1993. But even more interesting than the contents of the book were the glowing endorsements on the back – from people such as Paul Wolfowitz, then number two at the defence department and Richard Perle, then chairman of the Pentagon’s advisory board. The Mylroie thesis has now been widely debunked. But – at a crucial moment – some important American officials bought the theory that Iraq was the hidden hand behind terrorist attacks on America.
Many conspiracy theorists are convinced that there is a secret story behind America’s decision to invade Iraq. It is also possible, however, that America went to war partly because some senior officials had themselves fallen prey to a conspiracy theory. But perhaps I am getting lost in the wilderness of mirrors.
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