In praise of conspiracy theories

CONSPIRACY theories abound in the absence of transparent explanations of events big or small. But a conspiracy theory is also often dubbed so by people or sources it wittingly or unwittingly targets. In other words a fairly logical explanation for a political assassination, for example, can be dismissed as a conspiracy theory, say by the CIA, if the reasoning gets too popular or convincing for the comfort of the spy agency.

Sometimes a seemingly reckless conspiracy theory could nevertheless contain a grain of truth. A rumour used to circulate among the followers of Jamaat-i-Islami in India in the 1980s who thought that Indira Gandhi’s murder was of a piece with the deaths of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Mujibur Rehman. All three were one way or another responsible for the creation of Bangladesh. It was left unclear, however, whether the victims were sent to their maker by divine intervention or by the CIA, as is disturbingly popular to believe.

The Thakkar Commission investigated the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi by her bodyguards in October 1984 and the Jain Commission probed the murder of Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991. Justice Thakkar pointed an accusing finger at Mrs. Gandhi’s personal secretary and wondered whether he had a CIA link. Justice Jain was even less inhibited in naming names. He advised a further probe into the possible role of Mossad and the CIA, along with the LTTE, into Rajiv’s murder by a woman suicide bomber.

There were strong critics of both the commissions in the Indian media. But we don’t have the space here to discuss the conspiracy theory about the ownership of the media that targeted the commissions that blamed the CIA. Nor is it the purpose here to look at other circulating theories like holding the CIA responsible for the mysterious death of Gen Zia-ul-Haq. The questions that the much reviled conspiracy theorist poses are often too hot for everyone’s comfort. Did the Americans have a hand in throwing out Natwar Singh from the foreign minister’s post before President Bush’s visit to India, as Natwar Singh alleges?

Did the Americans use their proxies to similarly deal with Mani Shankar Aiyar, who was unceremoniously removed from India’s oil ministry that was negotiating a deal with Iran? Was Manmohan Singh foisted as a prime minister by a certain free-markets lobby that manipulated the Bombay Stock Exchange in May 2004 to deny Sonia Gandhi a chance at power? It is strange that the stock market went up after the devastating Mumbai blasts but came crashing down when Sonia merely flashed a victory smile. Is there some thing wrong with our values or does the flaw lie with the way we interpret the straws in the wind?

Sometimes the most obvious explanation for major events is blurred by screaming headlines and TV anchors who seem eager to give their pre-digested conclusions often too swiftly, hoping that their unsuspecting consumers would happily lap them up. Take the latest round of airplanes bombing conspiracy in London that has snowballed into a fresh war on terror, as it were. Simply put the story is a reheated version of one that has been circulating on the internet for close to a decade.

What exactly happened in London on August 10 that has become such a major issue for everyone? As The New York Times reported it, the story seems simple enough. “The British authorities said on Thursday that they had thwarted an advanced terrorist plot to blow up airplanes flying from Britain to the United States using liquid explosives that would have escaped airport security. The officials said they had arrested 24 men, all British-born Muslims, who planned to carry the liquids in drink bottles and combine them into explosive cocktails to commit mass murder aboard as many as 10 flights high over the Atlantic.”

Now check out the following website — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oplan_Bojinka. For those who do not have access to internet, what was Oplan Bojinka anyway? It was exactly the same as the operation that was allegedly scuttled in London this past week with the help of Pakistan intelligence and who knows who else. The basic difference is that Oplan Bojinka, which was unearthed in 1995 in Manila, aimed to blow up US-bound planes over the Pacific Ocean. This new plan aimed to do likewise over the Atlantic. Both plans were to use ordinarily undetectable liquids as explosives and wrist watch batteries as the charge. So why on earth did we not have an anti-dote to Oplan Bojinka after it was discovered, to use the intelligence calendar, millions of years ago? There is a seemingly deliberate confusion about when the conspiracy involving the Muslim men in Britain was first discovered. Some reports say sleuths had been chasing the leads for at least six or seven months. That’s enough time to have a drill in place for people not to carry any liquids in their carry on bags. There was enough time to simply change the rules and stop hand bags without causing any panic among the world’s already frightened travellers. Let’s try to see the entire episode through the allegedly convoluted mind of the much reviled conspiracy theorist. Or as some of the readers would agree, let’s see it all from a more logical angle. There are four dramatis personae involved in the latest round of fear mongering. They are US President Bush, British Premier Blair, President Musharraf and Israel’s Prime Minister Olmert.

Just two days before the latest terror alert was sounded Ned Lamont, a Connecticut millionaire whose candidacy for the United States Senate soared from nowhere on a fierce antiwar message, won a narrow victory in the Democratic primary over the incumbent, Joseph I. Lieberman. While Senator Lieberman, Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000, conceded defeat he also gave a combative speech to his supporters. The senator declared that he was not dropping out of the race, but would instead run for re-election as an independent this fall. The anti-war hero Lamont could not be allowed to become a mascot for America. The London terror would be a handy tool for President Bush as depicted by Michael Moore in the celebrated documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

On the Israeli front, the day before the London alert, Ehud Olmert’s ratings had dropped drastically. A Haaretz survey carried by Reuters on August 10/11, showed 48 per cent of Israelis were satisfied with their prime minister’s performance compared with popularity ratings of more than 75 per cent in polls taken in the early stages of fighting against the Hezbollah. Public support for Defence Minister Amir Peretz fell from 65 per cent to 37 per cent. The poll found only 39 per cent of Israelis supported a decision by Olmert’s security cabinet to send troops deeper into southern Lebanon to battle Hezbollah. Another report said only 20 per cent believed Israel was winning the war.

The London terror alert also came within four days after Israeli opposition leader argued in London, on BBC, that if England had reduced Nazi Germany to rubble why was Israel not being allowed to do likewise with Lebanon. Pat came the endorsement from Bush. America was fighting Islamic fascists, he said, equating Lebanon, and Iran no doubt with Nazi rule.

As for Tony Blair, also known as America’s European poodle, he has been in the doghouse with his own cabinet for too long. He needed a terror alert to heave a sigh of relief. That leaves us with President Musharraf’s role in the unfolding of the London terror trail. How much it will help him in the promised electoral makeover of Pakistan next year we will know only next year. In the meantime, as conspiracy theories go, it all may yet help him get the international community, euphemism for the United States, to mount pressure on India to come back to the discussion table to talk Kashmir.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Karachi vs Dubai and Kuala Lumpur

A colleague is incensed at city fathers’ repeated assertions that Karachi has become or is on the verge of becoming a city comparable to world’s top-class megalopolises. Instead of comparing it to Dubai and Kuala Lumpur, he says, it should be likened to Katanga, an African country devastated by years of civil war.

He says: One was dumbstruck to read a rain-related analysis that there were some people in Pakistan who dared to ‘liken’ Karachi with Kuala Lumpur or Dubai!

Karachi cannot be compared with either of the two cities. Some points are presented to illustrate the difference: During the past 20 years, Duabi has suffered only one power outage lasting more than eight hours. Its sewerage lines never overflow, guaranteed uninterrupted supply of water, electricity and telephones, roads are cleaned every morning, its people (local and expatriates alike) respect the rules (even the traffic laws) and know that the law applies to the members of the royal household and themselves without any discrimination. It has two major underpasses, which actually pass under the sea and there is not a trace of moisture in them.

And Kuala Lumpur isn’t just a city with the Petronas Towers. It is a city well taken care of. It rains day and night in Kuala Lumpur but even its secondary and tertiary roads are never congested by stagnant rainwater. Its only problem is smog, which is one of the problems affecting any industrialized urban area.

If one wants to compare our beloved city, Katanga (in the former Zaire) would be more appropriate than Kuala Lumpur. And maybe not, as the chaotic situation in the region could be dismissed on decades-long civil war. In the city of the Quaid, chaos could not be blamed on the ills affecting the city as there are people who ‘govern’ its affairs. They could not be excused just because they insist as the author of the analysis wrote “like a five-year-old ‘It wasn’t my fault!’”

In Karachi, the emphasis is on cosmetics rather than practicality. Here one can see ‘development’ of sidewalks rather than roads, building of ‘hypermarkets’ without any care for adequate parking space, Las Vegas-like hoardings pockmarking the metropolitan skyline without any care for the aesthetics, and the people always ready to vent their anger for happenings thousands of miles away while their own localities go without water and electricity for days, roads remain submerged for days after rains and get ‘cratered’ just weeks after being ‘renovated’ by the civic agencies.

A wise man once said: The biggest injustice is tolerating injustice. This is what the people of Karachi have been doing. They have rarely protested over the absence of amenities or raised their voice for the provision of their rights (like good roads, safe drinking water, sanitation, lack of standard education and protection of life and property and honour). Since 1985, what has been going on is just exploiting public sufferings and frustrations to blackmail the federal or the provincial governments and the powers that be that run the country without a single thought for public welfare.

Water tank collapse

How indifferent and careless can a civic authority be is best illustrated by the collapse of the huge water tank behind Block 25 of Seaview Township, whose maintenance is supposed to be the responsibility of the Defence Housing Authority.

The residents of the locality had seen that the water tank, which was as tall as a six-storey building, was in a state of disrepair. The plaster had peeled off from the pillars holding the tank, and the iron rods were exposed to the humid and salty sea breeze. They brought the condition of the tank to the notice of DHA and the cantonment board many times but all in vain. Coming from a body which is hounding (quite justifiably) the owners of Seaview apartments whose apartments are in a dilapidated condition, the failure to repair the water tank is surprising. 'Physician heal thyself’ is a proverb the maintenance department of DHA has not heard, it seems.

When the tank, placed on dilapidated pillars, fell like a pack of cards, the residents thought that there was an earthquake. Fortunately, there was not a soul near or below the tank. Some kids, who were playing in the lane almost below the ill-fated tank, had left for home a few minutes earlier. The slabs that fell on the lane knocked down three garage doors of Block 25.

The DHA chief engineer was sadder but wiser because he ordered alternative arrangements of water supply to be made on a war footing (he is from the Pakistan Army). His staff worked round the clock and restored water connection to the apartments and bungalows that were fed by the tank. The wall between the lane and the premises of the water tank was rebuilt. Meanwhile on TV channels DHA officials were insisting that there was nothing wrong with the tank or its pillars, it was just that the earth below had become softer because of the rain. Incidentally, the underground tank often overflows and the water drains out in the vicinity. This often happens in the early hours of the morning when the staff members on duty are not fully awake.

Complete apathy is being shown by the staff in charge of cleaning the choked sewers. The overflowing sewage has blocked the way to the DHA school behind Block 24 and one wonders how will the children taking that route enter their school premises. What is worse is that any child might step into the manhole. Children living in the ground floor flats of Block 24 are in greater danger because the manhole is right next to their gate. A few months ago a child fell into it but was saved by a servant from drowning. When the boy’s father went to the DHA office the gutter was cleaned and the manhole plugged with a cemented cover, which didn’t last too long because school bus drivers drive over it and it breaks into pieces.

At night the manhole becomes all the more dangerous because the street lights don’t function. The lights in front of Block 24 as also some other blocks have stopped functioning since the last spell of showers. The street lights section of the Clifton cantonment board makes promises all right but the promises are not fulfilled. When you phone them, they assure you in the politest possible language that they would be sending their staff in the evening but no one would turn up and the problem would remain unsolved. You may like to concede that inefficiency combined with politeness is at least better than inefficiency combined with curtness.

This much for a supposedly posh locality of Karachi!

— Karachian

Email: naseer.awan@dawn.com