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Journalism of Courage
Tis the season of conspiracies. Or so it seems. This usually secret exercise has been brought to the public domain by our very own minister for minority affairs, A.R. Antulay. As humans, blessed with the capacity to think, we can broadly be divided into two groups: empiricists and idealists. Empiricists obviously want simple answers validated by facts and numbers to explain why a certain event occurred; idealists are somewhat easier to please; they simply yearn for the idea which gave birth to the specific event. In the absence of either facts or plausible theories, we tend to look for alternatives. The most pleasing one would be to create the subjective, to have your own view and espouse it over dinner conversations, for unfortunately Mumbai has become dinner talk. Chitter-chatter from homes across India to debates in Parliament have been tainted or romanticised with conspiracies; after all, there is a reason why crime fiction is one amongst the top ten on people’s Christmas shopping list.
If judged by sales, the most popular conspiracy theory (accredited to Dan Brown’s popular trilogy and H.G. Wells everlasting success) is the belief in the Illuminati or the Free Masons, now no longer as popular in common language. As average citizens struggled to keep up with the politicisation of the world and the growth in interconnectedness between nations, the Illuminatis of the 16th century took centrestage — with a new modus operandi. This time the term coined was the “New World Order”. Now, behind this supposed NWO is the hand of a few wealthy beneficiaries and a combined government effort to dominate the world, or ensure peace — apparently both are seen to be on the same side of the coin. The foundation of the modern-day NWO is accredited to Cecile Rhodes and to his prestigious Rhodes Scholarship on International Relations. Fortunately for Cecile and his gang they tapped into politics, through the creation of foundations that are commonly used as the most accurate forms of inquiry into politics. These include the Royal Institute for Foreign Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations. Any journalist or politician will cite CFR — from the horse’s mouth so to say — to validate facts and seek the truth. This truth, say conspiracy theorists, is collectively formulated in order to ensure that events progress as they have been planned out, by the “forces that be.”
But the date that set more conspiracy theories than any other in recent memory is undoubtedly September 11, 2001. How was it allowed to happen? Who was responsible? Did a government carry it out? Endless, invigorating, tiresome and questionable debates. This is somewhat of a double-edged sword: on the one hand people were glued to their screens watching a week’s non-stop coverage on what shook the world’s most powerful nation. The US in response to the attacks had to, needed to, guarantee security on its soil, and therefore multiple events unfolded. The invasion of Afghanistan, followed by Iraq, the elimination of extremist elements and beyond. Simply put, the world was astonished to see the most powerful nation emerge, challenged.
This is not to say the actions of Bush — which were miscalculated and have caused grave upheavals today — can be discounted. But in reality, this is how the US chose to act and that was that. The double-edged sword back in business is the counter-argument. Bush’s actions needed support from the United Nations. Now, those who believe in conspiracies need to be reminded that it was widely believed that the League of Nations was created by a few in order to maintain and preserve this “New World Order” by a previous leader, Woodrow Wilson.
Contemporary politics can be looked upon as pre-9/11 and post-9/11. The latter saw the emergence of new relationships and the breakdown of older ones. Conspiracy theorists on the recent events in Mumbai point to our new-found friendship with the US as one of the reasons behind the deadly attacks. Those within this bracket also target the Jewish lobby as orchestrating the attacks. This takes us back to another conspiracy theory tied in very closely to the NWO — the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This book, which may not exist but has been copiously quoted, espouses the desire of Zionists to achieve world domination, and observers are keen to point to a Jewish hand in almost all recent events.
Ultimately, unfortunately, it comes down to the lack of information. Yes, there are certain events, which will probably never be explained. Like, who killed JFK? Was it part of a wider plot? Was HIV created in a lab to wipe out the African population? Did UFOs actually land in Roswell? If all events could be explained where would we be today? The Right to Information Act has allowed us to access more information, given us more knowledge, for ultimately conspiracy theories are in response to the lack of readily available knowledge.
But, tying this in with Mumbai — is the US here in order to fulfil the NWO, are we a part of it? We can debate this, we should question actions, but not to the detriment of our state and our security. And, in fact, our sanity.
alia.allana@expressindia.com
