In his journalism days, Mushahid Hussain used to famously say, “We are the greatest conspiracy theorists east of the Suez.” The journalist-turned-politician had a point. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however, have proven that he had understated a fact. In the wake of 9/11, we have outdone the conspiracy theorists west of the Suez and beyond. We grabbed all the conspiracy theories and held on to them most tenaciously and never looked back.
Look at these public opinion polls conducted by wordpublicopinion.org and you will not have the slightest doubt that nobody can beat us in the realm of conspiracy theories. In addition, we have a massive persecution complex and an enormous capacity for living in denial. These talents immeasurably burnish our conspiricist credentials.
A poll conducted in February 2007 found that only 2% of Pakistanis believe Al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11. In contrast, 28% of Egyptians held Al-Qaeda responsible. A December 2006 poll found that 35% of respondents in Morocco held Al-Qaeda responsible. A poll done between July and September 2008, found that 42% of respondents in the Palestinian territories believe Al-Qaeda were responsible. A poll conducted during the summer of 2008 found that 77% of the Kenyans believed Al Qaeda were responsible. So people living west of the Suez are not as fond of conspiracy theories.
Here is a sampling of assertions that were made in the wake of 9/11. On September 15, 2001, the ulema organized a demonstration in Islamabad, saying that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy aimed at pitting Muslims against Christians. The Jews have done it because of the defeat of the Jewish presidential candidate Al Gore and for not including any Jews in the US cabinet. (Nawa-i-Waqt, September 16, 2001.) No reporter or columnist took the trouble of informing the venerable ulema that Al Gore was not Jewish.
On September 19, 2001, Nawa-i-Waqt published a front page story stating that 4,000 Israelis skipped work at the World Trade Center on 9/11. The story had been lifted from an obscure Middle Eastern newspaper called Al-Watan. Later, these 4,000 Israelis were turned into 4,000 Jews. Ostensibly, it was done to make the story more plausible.
Lt Gen Abdul Qayyum, the then chairman of the Pakistan Ordnance Factories Board, made his immense contribution to the raging debate by saying that 9/11 was a conspiracy by Hindus and Jews. (Nawa-i-Waqt, September 23, 2001) quoted him as saying, “In terms of death toll, it is a bigger tragedy than the Second World War. Pervez Musharraf’s selflessness, honest conduct and his policies that are rooted in the commitment to the country have moved the Pakistani nation out of the nerve-racking situation.”
Mr Majeed Nizami, the owner-editor of Nawa-i-Waqt, firmly believes that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy against the Muslim world (The Nation, March 7, 2004). According to him, American newspapers have written that on 9/11 no Jew went to work at the World Trade Center and no one has contradicted this story (Nawa-i-Waqt, June 10, 2004). None of his myriad fans dared ask him to name the American newspapers that had published this story.
Writing in Nawa-i-Waqt on December 18, 2007, Dr A R Khalid absolved the Jews by claiming that George Bush was the architect of 9/11. Lt Gen Khalid Lateef Mughal (ret) wrote in the same paper on July 15, 2008: “Now there is no doubt that the drama of 9/11 was staged in accordance with the script of Jewish Mossad and American CIA.” Mr Ataur Rahman, a columnist for Nawa-i-Waqt, on December 1, 2004, praised Bin Laden for exacting their revenge on the Americans by launching the 9/11 attacks. It was his ghairat (sense of honour) that prompted him to do so. Mr Rahman commended Bin Laden for thoroughly defeating the might and technology of the United States. In his column on July 15, 2005, he wrote: “Arab youngsters were responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept 11, 2001.”
Nobody bothered to inform him that in a collective statement, the Islamist leaders like Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Shaykh Ahmad Yassin, the Hamas founder, and Mustafa Mashhur, general guide, Muslim Brotherhood, had condemned the 9/11 attacks in the strongest possible terms, declaring them “against all human and Islamic norms.”
According to Rasheed Patel (Jang, July 16, 2005), 9/11 was “a deep-laid US conspiracy” to pin the blame on Muslims. He also calls the 7/7 bombings a deep-laid conspiracy. It was the Americans themselves who destroyed the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon through dynamite because from a security point of view, these buildings had to be torn down. As for the 7/7 London bombings, the railway stations that were bombed had to be rebuilt because of the 2012 London Olympics. Mr Patel did not explain as to why a bus was bombed in London.
Mr Abbas Athar, the group editor of Daily Express, declared on September 10, 2006: “In order to destroy Afghanistan, the fiction of Osama and Al-Qaeda was created.” Strangely, some of the best informed Pakistani journalists such as Ahmed Rashid, Imtiaz Gul, Hamid Mir, Rahimullah Yusufzai and Saleem Safi believe in this so-called fiction. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the then Jamaat-i-Islami chief, used to say a similar thing day in and day out. “Al-Qaeda is a figment of Americans’ imagination.” In its issue of October 13, 2002, Nawa-i-Waqt quoted Syed Munawar Hassan, the then secretary general of the JI, as saying, “Al-Qaeda leaders are our brethren.”
Last but not least, Noam Chomsky, arguably the biggest critic of the US foreign policy, is on record having said that the evidence produced by 9/11 conspiracy theorists in favour of their claims is “essentially worthless”. Similarly, The Guardian, no big fan of the US foreign policy, wrote on February 6, 2007: “A 9/11 conspiracy virus is sweeping the world, but it has no basis in fact.” The paper blasted Loose Change, a documentary film that purported to substantiate the 9/11 conspiracy theories, as a disease. Geo TV had shown Loose Change with great fanfare. “The film’s greatest flaw is this: the men who made it are still alive. If the US government is running an all-knowing, all-encompassing conspiracy, why did it not snuff them out long ago?”
The writer earned his Master’s in media and communications at the London School of Economics. He has done extensive research on Pakistan’s Urdu press. He can be reached at shakil.chaudhary@gmail.com