HAARPing on about a tragedy

New Zealanders associate our country and its history with earthquakes, in a way that, say, Australians do not, but we tend to expect to expect quakes to strike only quite restricted parts of our islands - Hawkes Bay, and the obscure mountains west of Nelson, and our ill-sited capital city. We also expect a decent interval between the 'big ones' which flatten buildings and shift hills. It is no wonder we are shocked, then, by the two destructive quakes which have hit Christchurch, a city not usually considered to sit on a major faultline, within the space of a few months.

Some Kiwis are trying to deal with the shock of the Christchurch quakes, and the fear that the quakes may be repeated again and again, by turning to conspiracy theories. Here's an excerpt from a long message a reader named Te Hatapihopatapui Olson left at this blog in the aftermath of the first major Christchurch quake:

Modern warfare tactics have developed way beyond the foot soldier, tanks and guns etc... This is why the USA has pulled back in regards further development of nuclear arms. They have a silent and more deadlier weapon - HAARP [High Frequency Active Auroral Research Programme]. I won't go into it here but would like anyone reading this to google it and then perhaps we can dialogue. My city and region has been shattered by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that shouldn't have happened here as there were no faultlines under our region...

Some of us who are aware of HAARP and who have backgrounds in broadcasting are concerned that there may be US military pressure being brought to bare in retaliation for our anti-nuclear stance and the refusal to allow nuclear ships into our ports. The build up of radio wave technology structures around Canterbury since the ex Prime Minister David Lange days seems too deliberate to be co-incidental as the need for such a proliferation of towers and receivers is more than would be necessary simply for ordinary radio/satellite transmissions...

Olson's explanation of last September's quake might seem eccentric, but it popped up in a number of other corners of the internet, as Matthew Dentith, who monitors conspiratorial thinking, noted in a typically thorough blog post. A facebook group set up to promote the theory that humans were behind last September's quake has well over a hundred members.

Now Christchurch has been hit by a second earthquake less than six months after September's shocking event, and the conspiracy theorists seem to be further encouraged. Uncensored, the Auckland-based website and magazine which blames Jews for 9/11 and regards the Holocaust and global warming as elaborate money-making scams, has hosted absurd claims about seven United States congressman making a secret visit to Christchurch shortly before Tuesday's earthquake. The Yanks were apparently fine-tuning an earthquake-making device they had installed near Birdling's Flat, a fishing village on the bleak coast south of Banks Pensinsula. Uncensored has previously claimed that the 2010 earthquake which levelled much of Haiti occurred after American operatives aimed a HAARP weapon at Iran but got their coordinates wrong.

It's rather hard to understand how seven of America's highest-profile citizens were able to disappear from their nation's capital and reappear in an isolated place at the bottom of the world with so little fuss. It's also hard to see why the US would want to devastate a city which contains the only US-run military base in this country. Logic and evidence, though, have never greatly bothered the conspiracy theorists who run Uncensored and similar publications. They are far more interested in connecting every one of the world's problems to a sinister cabal of Jews. The danger is that, in the confusion caused by Tuesday's shocking events, the conspiracy theorists will win more dupes like Te Hata Olson, and thus, potentially, more recruits to their irrational and anti-semitic political cause.

Humans didn't destroy Christchurch but, as Chris Trotter noted yesterday and as I argued last September, people acting in solidarity with one another and supported by an activist state can rebuild the city.

Footnote: I've just received this message from Dougal McNeil...

All of you in New Zealand will know of the disaster in Canterbury already, and many of you overseas will have learnt that Christchurch and the port city of Lyttleton have been very badly damaged following another, terrible, earthquake earlier this week. Over 70 people are confirmed dead and the number is expected to rise. Many are very badly injured, still more unaccounted for. The Port of Lyttelton is closed.

Our brothers and sisters in the Maritime Union of New Zealand have set up a relief fund to support maritime workers and their families. Please pass this link, providing details for how to make a donation, through your contacts and friends in the trade union movement.