Osama bin Laden was a US agent, who perished long before the raid on Abbottabad three years ago. Malala Yousafzai is the offspring of Polish missionaries who, according to forensic evidence procured from earwax, was shot in the face by an Italian hitman. Most of the country’s troubles and travails are in fact not homegrown, but the result of an omnipotent Jewish lobby — also known as a yahoodi saazish. And if it’s not the Jews stirring up trouble, it must be the Indians.

Here in Pakistan, we love our conspiracy theories. Bored of mundane explanations for the country’s problems, such as mismanagement, poor governance and political instability, we eagerly come up with alternative theories to keep things exciting – and, more often than not, the media also joins the conspiracy chorus. Does this tendency stem from inherent paranoia, heightened imaginative powers – or perhaps, having been let down by our rulers for so long, a genuine desire to independently discover the truth? Whatever the reason, no phenomenon, not even natural disasters or medical epidemics, is safe from the creativity unleashed by our conspiracy theorists. For Herald’s upcoming issue, a number of writers and commentators sound off on the following question:

What has been the wildest conspiracy theory pertaining to Pakistan?

Dawn.com invites its readers to join the conversation by answering the question above. Selected comments will be published in the Herald’s June 2014 issue.