A harvest fails. Saboteurs are blamed. A well-know personality dies tragically. A secret plot is alleged. Another well-known personality dies tragically. Rumours circulate that he has faked his death and has been seen in a supermarket near Basingstoke.
I have written several times in this blog about conspiracy theories. Now, if you don’t mind hearing someone murdering the Turkish language, you can watch me talking on the same subject. I made the video last year when I was practicing for my Turkish exam, for which candidates have to make a 5-minute oral presentation. So it’s a bit out of date. But I hope most of it makes sense, at least to Turkish speakers.
For English speakers, listen out for my reference to “Sod kanunu” – sod’s law.
What about those earlier blogs? Careful listeners will detect that the video is based loosely on my blog of June 2014 Reptiles, fairies, conspiracies and cock-ups, which included the conspiracy theory that many world leaders are in fact shape-shifting reptiles. I said that a strong country like Turkey didn’t need conspiracy theories to explain its destiny.
My January 2015 blog Turkey 2023: why the UK welcomes Turkish success imagined a powerful and successful Turkey in 2023 and explained why the United Kingdom would welcome this. I said that, “all too often in Turkey, I hear re-cycled 100-year-old conspiracy theories that the UK somehow does not want Turkey to get stronger. Or even, weirdest of all, that somehow by invisible means of which evidence mysteriously can never be found, we have a secret agenda to “weaken” Turkey.” I pointed out that if this were true, the job to which I have devoted the last three years of my life would be a cruel joke against me.
Finally, my March 2015 blog James Bond, conspiracy theories and the Welsh Secret Service revealed that the Welsh Secret Service could, possibly, exist. I noted that you could try all you wanted to find out about them. But such was their tradecraft that you would never find a single piece of evidence to support their existence. On the logic of conspiracy theories, that would make them the most successful and powerful intelligence agency on earth.
Conspiracy theories. Think twice before you believe them.
Follow Leigh Turner on Twitter at @leighturnerFCO