Polio vaccines in Nigeria are part of a Western plot to make African women infertile. Foreign zombies are replacing indigenous labourers in South Africa. Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim who hates the United States and wants to institute ‘death panels’ to govern the healthcare system. The United States triggered the earthquake in Haiti to expand America’s imperial reach.
These are just a small slice of the conspiracy theories floating around the global ether of rumour and innuendo. Such theories are hardly a new phenomenon in world politics. Athens fell victim to the politics of rumour and conspiracy during the Peloponnesian war. A century ago, Russian elites published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to suggest that Jews were trying to take over the world — making it easier to label them as the root of all evil in Europe. There is a long and distinguished history of conspiracy-crazed politics in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
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