There is obviously no end to conspiracy theories, long convoluted sagas of misprision, duplicity, connivance, and the rest of it. They often result in profound anxieties and political insecurity. Indeed, some of you may remember last week’s column where suspicion and insanity were stirred into a careful cocktail that resulted in the arrest of a stork. In my childhood, the stork was the bird that brought babies, although, in adolescence, a number of us spotty hormonal louts proposed some rather bizarre, distinctly unprintable possibilities as to how that process might have functioned biologically.
And I recall an old joke about a couple of parent storks worrying about the whereabouts of their offspring, given that he was still too young to be delivering babies. He told them that he wasn’t delivering babies but just flying around university campuses scaring the hell out of students. In those days, of course, pregnancy was the worst fear. Nowadays, it seems to be the least of students’ worries.
Anyway, back to the conspiracy thing. Last week, I presumed that the arrest and detention of a stork on the grounds of spying was about as absurd as neurotic security forces could get. But, as you might expect, I was wrong.
In the Maldives, floating hundreds of kilometres to the south-west of Sri Lanka, they take threats seriously. One of them is that, given the highest point on the islands is scarcely more than two metres above sea level, they might well be inundated, even obliterated by some viciously large wave. More serious, however, is the threat that confronted the populace during the recent elections. There were rumours of evil spirits being corralled into the service of unscrupulous political candidates seeking a parliamentary seat. What a prospect: witchcraft controlling the polling booth. Do such spirits have human rights under their constitution?
The evil spirit was traced to one of the most frightening apparitions ever to invade politics: a coconut. Seriously, the sort that tumbles from trees! It was duly arrested and is now incarcerated under heavy guard. Democracy is quite clearly the domain of nuts.
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