Saturday Sermonette: Why Do People Believe In Conspiracies?

(Thirunavukkarasu Karasu) – Tommy Thomas must be having sleepless nights. He was brought for one purpose and one purpose alone – to find Najib personally responsible in the 1MDB fiasco. And if possible, to prove that his wife was complicit as well. Because the guy who appointed him AG doesn’t care if the evidence is there or not. Najib MUST be found guilty. So if Tommy boy cannot deliver, then he has to go.

So you can’t blame poor Tommy for wanting out after going from Hero to Zero. People clapped and cheered after he spoke 2 BM sentences in a carefully-crafted Raya speech. Now they’re booing and jeering after seeing Najib still happily joget-ing with people on birthdays and picnics. My guess is Tommy boy will soon resign as AG, citing “health reasons” while his sulking boss begs Gani Patail to come back.

But don’t judge Tommy, If you think his job is easy, consider the things Pakatoons expect him to prove:

1. That Najib paid people at the MACC office to dangle the late Teoh Beng Hock during interrogation, which then backfired when he fell.

2. That Najib paid people to poison the late P. Balasubramaniam in India after he signed a naughty affidavit claiming Najib had an affair with the late Altantuya.

3. That Rosmah hired some guys to blow up a Mongolian model with C4 explosives for behaving like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.

4. That Najib paid the King of Thailand to jail resident whistleblower Xavier Justo so he won’t get to reveal more lurid details about 1MDB.

5. That Najib hired some Indian gangsters to kill Kevin Morais and throw him in a concrete drum after he was about to file formal charges against him regarding 1MDB.

6. That Najib paid off prosecutors in 5 countries (from US to Switzerland to Singapore) to purposely hide his name so they won’t mention it but only go after the smaller intermediary bankers.

7. That Najib introduced GST to service 1MDB’s bad debts after he finished all the money in EPF, Mara, Felda, Tabung Haji, LTAT etc.

8. That Najib parked RM42 billion 1MDB money in undetectable offshore accounts and wanted to fly off and exile himself on May 10 – after requesting political asylum in some Banana Republic.

9. That Najib sent people to slash the aircraft tyres on Mamu boy’s plane to prevent him from winning in Langkawi and become PM.

10. That Rosmah Mansor wanted to destroy her handbags on the night of May 9.

The last one is the best. No kidding folks but a good friend and senior Sarawak PKR politician actually told me that. According to him, Amar Bhai raided Najib’s house hours after he lost because Rosmah was about to destroy evidence! This guy actually believes Rosmah Mansor took up an E licence from JPJ, borrowed an Alam Flora truck, filled it up with her handbags, and was about to drive to the Batang Berjuntai landfill to dump her ill-gotten loot. At midnight!

Yes I literally fell off my chair. In fact, I ROFLed, LMAOed, died briefly, went to heaven, got sent back, and died all over again.

Anyhoo, as ridiculous as Pakatoon conspiracy theorists get, the hardest part is the fact that they believe it to be all true. And nothing you or I (or Tommy Thomas himself) can say or do to make them change their minds.

So why do weirdos believe in conspiracy theories? Why do weirdos believe Lyndon Johnson shot JFK so he can sell 1000 Bell helicopters in Vietnam? Why do weirdos believe Apollo XI was staged inside a Hollywood studio so that the Americans can scare off the Russkies? Why do weirdos believe that George Bush flew two drones into the Twin Towers just to pocket a chunk of insurance money and bomb the shit outta Iraq? Why do weirdos believe Queen E killed Lady Di just because she was pregnant and about to hand the throne of England to an Arab?

Psychologists attribute these people’s love for conspiracy theories to 2 reasons. The first is because of their insistence of any explanation to justify their own prejudice about something. The second is because their self-worth is defined by the need to find answers that fit into their own worldview. It’s like this: I hate Najib so every wrong thing that ever happened in Malaysia must be connected to him. Period.

By definition, conspiracy theories are false beliefs. But all false beliefs are overturned by fact. This is what decides if you are normally-intelligent or not. A normally-intelligent person is only interested in revealed fact. Not emotional attachment to that fact. For instance, many people think Vancouver is the capital of Canada. But when I tell them it’s Ottawa, they readily change their mind without issue. A healthy mind recognises that it was simply misinformed and so, won’t try to defend an emotional investment into that misinformation.

But people who believe in conspiracies are not normally-intelligent. Because they need to put a lot of mental effort to defend that conspiracy theory, and then conjure up all sorts of suspicions, conjectures, hyperbole, logic-flaws, fallacies, gut-feelings or goosebumps to defend it.

So again, don’t blame Tommy Thomas for wanting out. He knows he is expected to prove shit that never happened. And that’s something God Himself won’t do.

And if God Himself won’t do that, what more then a normal Malayalee lawyer from Kerala who struggles to understand a charge sheet in Malay?