Is the gold mime spying on us? In Pakistan, it’s not a strange question

The street performers first appeared a few years ago along busy intersections of Islamabad. Coated head to toe in eye-catching gold paint, they stood perfectly still, leaning on glimmering canes and tipping their top hats open. Some cracked a smile or offered a slow nod when they earned tips from passersby.

Some trace Pakistan’s embrace of conspiratorial thinking back to the Mughal emperors of the 16th and 17th centuries, whose reigns consolidated Islam in South Asia and were full of palace intrigue. In more recent decades, fantastical notions have sprung from the mythology that has built up around the Pakistani military and the main intelligence service, the seemingly all-seeing forces guiding the country’s politics from behind the scenes.

“I’d have to see them doing something obvious, like taking pictures of the cars on their phones, to be sure,” Batool said.Pakistan’s security services not so subtly hint at their vast powers to keep politicians and others in check. One of the buildings in the so-called red zone, a high-security area that’s home to government ministries and diplomatic missions in Islamabad.For most of Pakistan’s 76-year history, the surveillance was a routine – if slightly resented – facet of daily life. But in recent years, frustration with the military’s role in politics has exploded, making its ever-present eyes and ears less tolerable for many people.

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