A survey carried out by Gilani Research Foundation reported that up to 59% Pakistanis firmly believe in the idea that the United States of America had executed the 9/11 attacks itself. In the same survey, 20 per cent believed it was Al Qaeda while, surprisingly, 14 per cent believed it was Israel. The national representative sample consisted of men and women from all four provinces making it a sizably large survey that provided a glimpse into the national mindset toward the attacks that occurred 12 years ago. However, the result indicates how disconnected citizens are from reality and how paranoid as a people we have become.
Conspiracy theories provide temporary gratification for those who with little grasp of reality; nations throughout the world have navigated through political discourses often with the help of baseless faith in hoax stories. Considering how fickle the human mind can be when a tragedy occurs, conspiracy theories and hearsay find easy victims, flailing to make sense of their surroundings. This survey is not the only one conducted in the country revealing such a prevalent mindset; dozens of other questionnaires also point toward a national tendency to become believers of falsities.
This paranoia serves no one, much less Pakistan, as it only limits our thinking capability, trapping us behind the fence and leaves us at a loss for realistic solutions to political issues. We live in a country where terrorist attacks have sadly become the norm; if we continue spending our time and energy on xenophobic pseudo-explanations of human loss, we will be left with nothing but embarrassing rumours and regression. The need of the hour – or the decade, in this case – is to regain our confidence and sense of logic for our very own stability and progress. Constantly turning to conspiracy theories will only stunt our steps forward as a nation.