Covid-19 and conspiracy

Why is it that people, many of them extremely intelligent people, fall for the most bizarre conspiracies attempting to explain a variety of phenomenon. The sudden onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and the manner in which it has paralysed the world has generated a whole host of conspiracies. There are suggestions from men who call themselves qualified physicians that hot air be blown up the nose in order to kill the virus; others suggest swallowing huge quantities of garlic and a whole variety of other substances have been touted as cures or preventives.

This is not surprising. It happens frequently, and is quite often simply a way to earn money. ‘Miracle cures’ have been touted for cancer and a range of other incurable diseases for decades. But in a world where more and more people are well educated and well informed by a media and social media which now reaches almost every corner of Earth, why do people continue to believe blindly in conspiracy theorists?

An answer lies in the fact that the best conspiracy theorists build on ideas and prejudices that are already embedded in human minds. On occasion, they can be dangerous. David Icke, a former footballer who played for Coventry City, after leaving school at 15, and moved on to a career by the 1980s as a conspiracy theorist, has created disquiet globally by using the Covid-19 pandemic to put forward a combination of theories he has expounded in the past. He suggests that the virus is spread by 5G towers, as leading physicians point out without any scientific backing at all, and that this is in fact an attempt to take over the world by the Babylon Brotherhood, a consortium of powerful politicians and institutions.

This is the same man who told large British television audiences in 1988 that he had seen the eyes of former UK prime minister Edward Heath go entirely black, turning into two black holes while waiting for an appearance alongside him. He also propounds the extraordinary theory that most leading and influential figures of our time have descended from a race of reptiles.

Yet, while this may seem like complete gibberish to most people, there are many who believe him. Icke’s 5G conspiracy theory, linking it to the coronavirus, led to people in Britain burning down towers, with his videos removed from YouTube to quell growing public anxiety. Icke in fact suggests that anxiety is a tool used by the Brotherhood to drive humankind towards what it sees as the final aim, a world controlled by this unusual setup. There are also other even more bizarre conspiracy theories, some spouted by so-called doctors, with some suggesting Bill Gates is behind the unleashing of the virus and that the CDC and WHO are also conspirators.

Of course, there are dozens of other conspiracy theorists everywhere in the world. The question as to why people believe them is more relevant. It has combined with a change in patterns where people are less willing to believe political leaders and institutions including organizations such as the WHO and the US CDC which usually put out accurate and fact-checked information on Covid-19 or other diseases. But people are not fools after all. They have a reason not to believe leaders.

According to fact checks by The Washington Post, the New York Times and other leading publications, since Donald Trump came to power after the 2016 election, he has told literally thousands of lies openly and without remorse. Some accounts suggest he averages around 14 major lies a week. These include his insistence that the number of people present at his inauguration was far larger than the media stated, a detail that was quickly challenged. He has also claimed that Barrack Obama placed a spy within his team to work against him and ensure Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election.

On Covid-19, Trump has first claimed in the winter months the virus would vanish by April as temperatures rose. He has also spoken of a Chinese conspiracy to unleash the virus on the world. In another speech, he said that as food shortages and hunger grew, more people in the US would die as a result of suicide rather than Covid-19. Forty-one thousand persons have already died after being infected by the virus in the US, and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands more are likely to die.

But Trump is not alone in his mendacity. India’s Narendra Modi has been accused of twisting statements by a former chief minister of Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, to fit his own purposes and even distorting the words of Jawaharlal Nehru. His lies ahead of the Delhi election in January this year, swept by the Aam Aadmi Party, have done the rounds in many places. In our own country, Prime Minister Imran Khan and ministers in his cabinet have also been accused of twisting the truth as they jump from one opinion to the other, sometimes within days.

This is how the world operates. We have all heard the statement by the Nazi propaganda minister under Adolf Hitler that if you told a lie often enough, and if the lie was big enough, people would believe it. We have seen this happen before our eyes in our own country and in others. The human mind thinks along curious lines. Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in their 1988 masterpiece ‘Manufacturing Consent’, a book devised 20 years later and still considered a classic detailed how politicians, giant corporate interests which back them and institutions could effectively conspire to make millions of people believe what were essentially lies.

At our present moment in history, more lies are possibly being told than at any other time outside a period of major war. Social media drives these forward to some extent. But it is shocking that people would spend hours researching conspiracy theories rather than researching more plausible reasons behind outbreaks such as Covid-19 or looking into strategies that could be used to overcome it and put the world back on track. The gullibility of people makes it too easy for leaders and conspiracy theorists to lie and be believed.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com