Yet the denialism persists. A Pew poll in 2011, a decade after 9/11, found that a majority of respondents in countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon refused to believe that the attacks were carried out by Arab members of al-Qaeda. There is no Muslim public in which even 30 per cent accept that Arabs conducted the attacks, the Pew researchers noted. This blindness isnt peculiar to the Arab world or the Middle East. Consider Pakistan, home to many of the worlds weirdest and wackiest conspiracy theories. Some Pakistanis say the schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai is a CIA agent. Others think that the heavy floods of 2010, which killed 2,000 Pakistanis, were caused by secret US military technology. And two out of three dont believe Osama Bin Laden was killed by US navy Seals on Pakistani soil on 2 May 2011. Consider also Nigeria, where there was a polio outbreak in 2003 after local people boycotted the vaccine, claiming it was a western plot to infect Muslims with HIV. Then there is Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim-majority country, where leading politicians and journalists blamed the 2002 Bali bombings on US agents. Why are so many of my fellow Muslims so gullible and so quick to believe bonkers conspiracy theories? How have the pedlars of paranoia amassed such influence within Muslim communities?
Posted on: Sun, 07 Sep 2014 09:17:09 +0000
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