Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World
Matthew Gray, Australian National University
Monday 8 November 2010
Matthew Gray has been Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al-Maktoum Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Arab & Islamic Studies (CAIS) at the Australian National University, Canberra, since early 2005. Prior to that he worked in the Australian public service for many years, including on trade promotion, defence intelligence, and immigration policy. At CAIS he teaches and conducts research on the politics, political economy, business dynamics, and international relations of the contemporary Middle East. His first book, Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics (Routledge) was published in 2010, and he has published widely in journals and edited books on Middle Eastern tourism, constitutionalism, Arab politics, and oil issues, as well as on conspiracy theories and political language.
Conspiracy theories are common in the Middle East, and cover a range of topics from US policy to 9/11 to Israel’s Mossad to the death of Princess Diana. Foreign powers, local leaders, and societal actors all feature in them. But where do they come from, and what do they mean?
This lecture tackled that question, by examining several of the region’s most prevalent conspiracy theories and assessing, in the process, what each says about the region’s politics, social dynamics, and worldviews. Far from being rants by the fearful, paranoid or xenophobic, it is argued, conspiracy theories are instead a powerful and effective tool of political language that find their sources and efficacy in a range of historical experiences, political dynamics, and regional and global changes.