CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Mas S3lamat*, our not-so-friendly neighbourhood t3rrorist* has been recaptured, fourteen months after he escaped from the Whitley Road Detention Center. Everyone is cautiously optimistic about his recapture. Well, the papers actually said everyone was happy that he was recaptured and congratulatory messages are floating around, but every other article in the papers warns us not get too complacent or relaxed, and that the threat of terrorism has not been eradicated with Mr Mas’s recapture blah blah. It sounds so much like those economy and financial reports in the papers that I decided to hijack their favourite phrase. In these uncertain times, it is taboo to be happy. That’s like a bad word, with connotations of complacency all over it. Cautiously optimistic is in.

*In case anyone is wondering about the funny spelling, I learnt this from another blogger, after having been warned about goggle search functions. I’m not about to top the list in searches for the subject in question. What kind of traffic will that bring my blog?

Anyway, the recapture puts paid to the conspiracy theories that we have been weaving around at work since the Great Escape. One of my favourite theories was that Mr Mas had not escaped in reality, for, who saw him? We only had the authorities’ word for it, and well, conspiracy theorists never believe what the authorities say. Oh, and those of several witness who claimed to have seen him, but some people would say anything to see their names in the papers. According to our theories, he had actually been severely tortured by the authorities to reveal his secrets, but being conscientious Singaporeans, they were a little too enthusiastic…erm, sorry, efficient in their endeavours…..so oops, we have one casualty in hand. We had the authorities burying him somewhere in the dead of the night, because no one wanted a hundred and one of his brotherhood vowing revenge on us. That would really upset the F1 racing that was going on.

And so, the story of his escape was put about the next day after they buried him somewhere. We think that the authorities offered such a large reward precisely because they knew no one would ever get him, and so the million dollars could go into their annual D&D funds (imagine the lucky draw prizes!). And hopefully, as time passes and he didn’t surface, we would all forget about him, including his hundred and one brotherhood, and go about our cautiously optimistic lives.

Our theory was so neat and nice, that it was a pity, really, that it was not true. The authorities should really take a leaf out of the books of conspiracy theorists, and get a bit more creative at problem solving, because now we not only have to continue housing and feeding him, we have to supply him with free fish oil to keep his violent tendencies down! Know how much good fish oil costs? I do, and let’s just say I almost want to sign up as a jail inmate to partake the fishy goodness.

Some people boo-booed our theory when we first formed it, because it was hard to believe that our go-by-the-book, above-the-board, goody-two-shoes authorities would hide something this drastic from the world. To counter this, I usually tell people an anecdote about me and my little island in the sun, Tropico.

I used to be rather into computer games, and one of my favourite games was Tropico, where I played the El Presidente of my small, very flat tropical island, which had a lot of rain (sounds familiar?). I was a good El Presidente, with a good background in capitalism and just one unfortunate problem with flatulence (they didn’t have HCl supplements then). My people had lots of omega 3 rich grass fed beef and wild fish to eat. We had lots of corn too, but we mostly made high-frustose-corn-syrup from them for export to the States (it is astounding how much HFCS those Americans consume). I made sure there were plenty of schools and colleges, clinics and hospitals, churches, cathedrals even. Education level was high, and life expectancy had increased tremendously since I took over.

There was electricity aplenty (all palm oil fueled), and entertainment, boy, was there entertainment, from the lowest class dive bar to the highest level cabaret performances. Every one of my people had a nice house to live in, low rents, high salaries. I developed tourism, so that Tropican women didn’t have to work as maids in other countries (they could work as hotel maids in their own). I had casinos and theme parks all over the island to boost tourism. I can personally attest to the powers of the casinos in upping the coffers of the nation. My treasury was overflowing! Oh, and we had an airport! Sure, we had only one miserable terminal, but I swear that ‘em documents there on my table are blueprints for the second and the third. And look, I had trees planted all along the road from the airport to those large hotels at the other end of the island. I am environmentally conscious, I tell you.

I encouraged immigration but still took care of my native Tropicans (what do they call ‘em?...Oh yes, bumiputras.). Everyone had a job. I maintained good relationship with the US and Russia with a good mix of capitalist and communist policies, so that their gunships didn’t show up in my waters. I had TV and radio stations, and they were not playing propaganda all day, even though I could have made them. I had newspaper circulation and I encourage free speech. I had this corner of the island all prettied up and put up a small podium (overturned beer case) so that any one of my people could go up and say what they wanted. Sure, I had some of the police and military patrolling around, but they were mainly looking out for the rare drunken tourist. Low crime does not mean no crime, you know. Oh, and some of them were for crowd control at that posh hotel where a local women chapter was having their AGM. I learn a lot from other people, that’s for sure.

At this point, someone would usually stop me and ask me the point behind all the bragging. Slowly, slowly, I am coming to it. One would have thought that being such a wonderful El Presidente, I would have had an easy time of it at the elections, which come around on Tropico once every five years. At the very least, I should have enough support for a walkover. However, promptly at the five year mark, I was informed by my faithful adviser that I had an opponent in the elections, a red necked corn grower who was a secret militant wannabe! And as the months passed, his support grew. Initially, I did things the go-by-the-book, above-the-board, goody-two-shoes way. I handed out free T-shirts and caps, free food and distributed some of those HCFS originally meant for export (every one could use a sugar high now and then). I even gave my people new televisions, tax cuts and lots of Mardi Gras celebrations. I banned contraceptives (somehow the churches love that and my approval ratings with the religious sector increased). And still my opponent’s support grew.

Now I could probably let things go the natural way. At most, if I really got ousted, I could retire to another sunny island and live off my offshore account. Didn’t you hear that they are selling off islands these days? I had plenty to choose from. Oh, and don’t start on my offshore account. Didn’t you know that public servants need to get paid really well, so that we would not siphon off the fats from the treasury? I could have been a hotshot bank director, who gets paid big bonuses to lead my bank into bankruptcy, but I chose to service the population instead. I earned every cent in that offshore account, okay.

Now where was I? Oh yes, I could have been a nice El Presidente and let things run its natural course. At worst, my remaining loyal supporters could don red shirts and protest against that corn growing interloper on my behalf while I relax in my hammock on my new island. But I figured it was no use being nice if I ended up having no one to be nice to, except the wildlife on my new island (and besides, they don’t look good in red).

So ditch the nice, go-by-the-book, above-the-board, goody-two-shoes approach. I had my opponent thrown into jail for a long, long time on a trumped up charge, which involves some straw mattresses. While he was in there, I got the jailers to treat him very nicely. They got really enthusiastic about that, and we gave him a secret burial under the overturned beer case. We figured that was the safest place to do, since no one really goes there to say anything these days. I then put out the word of a Great Escape. His family got a little suspicious, but that is nothing new television sets cannot cure.

Needless to say, I won my election and went on to become the nicest El Presidente the island ever had. Then again, I was the only El Presidente they ever had, until I decided to resign and go into interior design and baby sitting a group of people who spend all their time having sex in the hot-tub (they call it woo-hoo, very politically correct, these people) and burning up their stoves in a place called Simsville.

So there you are. If even as nice a person as I am have to get my hands dirty in virtual politics, it is safe to bet that the real life go-by-the-book, above-the-board, goody-two-shoes authorities will have some deep, dark secrets of their own if they intend to continue their servile existence (no, I’m not insulting them, public servants….serve). So no, our conspiracy theory definitely holds water; just that it happened not to in this case, thanks to weird flotation devices.

A bit of digression for anyone who is interested, when I got tired of my Sims waving their hands at me and cursing me for making them clean their house when they were dead on their feet from multiple rounds of woo-hoo, I went back to Tropico for a quick visit. And finally figured out why I did not have perfect poll ratings despite what appeared to be the perfect lives my people were living. I did not have public transport. Tropicans walk everywhere, which is a real problem when one is late for work and it is raining.

So my final advice to the real-life authorities, fix the damn public transport. Or don’t blame the people when we start wearing red shirts.