Conspiracy theory is everywhere now
#381
Friend of Democracy,
“I’m very interested in politics,” the man has said, piquing my interest.
He was the host of our vacation rental, here in a national park in Montenegro, where he also runs a restaurant.
As a child in the early 1990s, his family was forced to leave Yugoslavia. His father, he said, was politically persecuted under Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. So they fled to Germany.
Some years ago, he returned to Montenegro, now an independent country, and started a business here.
From what I gather, it has been a good decision. Business seems to be flourishing. The small wooden huts he had built are fully booked, and the restaurant is busy. Tourism in Montenegro is booming.
So, this man, in his late 30s now, short hair (like every boy and man here), told me that he found it very sad that “the masses are not interested in politics”, and how important it is to know what was going on.
So I asked him: What was going on?
He started talking.
He told me that the Mossad and the Jews were behind 9/11. There was an advanced civilisation under China's surface. The US bombs on Serbia in the 1990s contained nuclear material, which is why the cancer rate was so high today (and that this was done so that the pharmaceutical industry could build clinics here to treat ailing people; that there used to be no cancer here at all; that people here used to live to be 800 years old). The CIA was murdering people in Kosovo to maintain tensions in the region (because the US had an interest in a fragmented, unpacified Balkans).
That's what the man told me while preparing his bar for the first guest on a summer day with a fantastic view of the southernmost part of the Dinaric Alps.
I've been thinking about this man.
Here are some simple lessons I might have learnt.
Neither engaging extensively with political issues nor having a past as a politically persecuted person per se leads to a differentiated worldview. Instead, our digital world provides explanations for everything you want to believe.
And this is what we want to believe: That the responsibility for everything that goes well (like the man's business in the Montenegrin National Park) lies with you. The blame for everything that goes wrong (politics!) lies with others. It's always someone else's fault. The Jews, the pharmaceutical industry, the USA.
They are evil, we are good. That is the narrative.
Perhaps it has always been this way. However, it has never been so easy to feel validated. The algorithm of the digital world flushes everything you want to see, read, and believe onto your screen, into every corner of our lives. Even in this pristine nature resort in Montenegro, within sight of the border with Kosovo and Albania.
It looks so peaceful in this valley. Some people's thoughts aren't. I fear that thoughts will be followed by actions.
See you in Democracy,
Johannes Eber