I have not the least idea whether the bomb in Bali was the work of al-Qaeda but of this I am sure: if Washington, Downing Street or the British and American news media are minded to imply a link, then they will have not the least difficulty in doing so.

Whether or not the theory has any useful meaning they will in the end create what they claim to see, and justify their own prophecies. This they will be able to do without fabricating any evidence or telling any palpable lie.

My grandfather was a Freemason. Were an investigative journalist to break into my London flat and conduct a thorough search he would find, hidden away in a bag in a bottom drawer, a Freemason’s Bible, Grandpa’s, inscribed to Brother Francis William Parris.

One of my best friends is a Mason, too. When he was going through the Masonic initiation ceremonies I helped him over many hours learning his questions and responses. We stalked up and down his flat parroting the lines while he tried to remember the accompanying actions. I now know some of the ceremony by heart.

I have been invited to join and never remotely wished to, but in conversation I have always stuck up for people’s rights to be members of such societies if they wish, and tended to pooh-pooh the conspiracy theorists who see a sinister web of Freemasonry behind every planning application unexpectedly approved or criminal charge suddenly dropped. This is not because I suppose these things never happen but because I think we tend to get their prevalence and significance rather out of proportion. I have written as much and my views have been published.

What am I, then? Just imagine that a great international scare about Freemasonry were to arise, politicians and the press were to become super-sensitive to the influence of this secret organisation, and an urgent hunt for information about it were to begin; and imagine further that I were to be fingered. The media would be able to say the following about me:

Matthew Parris is linked to the Freemasons. He is an apologist for Freemasonry. He comes from a known Masonic family. Secreted away in his home a Freemason’s bible has been found. He associates with prominent figures who are known by the authorities to be Masons. He has been overheard reciting Masonic texts. Privately he has a well-attested history of sympathy for the Masons’ cause. He has used his position as a journalist to defend what he calls their “rights”.

Known sympathiser, apologist, fellow-traveller, associate, collaborator, useful idiot, mole ... the words and phrases tumble on to the page, forming so easily into scary headlines. The exercise looks ridiculous rather than disturbing only because Freemasonry has not flown aeroplanes into the World Trade Centre, killing thousands.

For those with eyes to see and minds to discern, these early months after that atrocity are a fascinating and continuing case study in mass and worldwide gestalt — the imposition of pattern on to perception. We are puffing al-Qaeda into a vast, mysterious and formidable spectre: fiendishly capable, fabulously rich, incredibly cunning, a hidden hand behind innumerable horrors. Al-Qaeda is becoming the Dark Side, the Darth Vader of the modern world.

And the picture we are creating has a terrible allure. Do you not see the danger: the self-springing, self-vindicating trap? We ourselves, we in the West, are creating an icon. Osama bin Laden and his legacy are becoming a legend, and soon it will not matter if he exists, or ever existed, because he will be a symbol to millions — no, hundreds of millions — uniting their own myriad and diverse frustrations behind the image of one charismatic figure: a fist in the face of imperialism, wealth, perceived injustice, Christian capitalism, government; a fist in the face of ... us.

Of course it is possible to link al-Qaeda to that bomb in Bali. Of course it is possible to link al-Qaeda to anti-Zionism in Iraq, Syria, Palestine or anywhere else. Of course it is possible to link al-Qaeda with Islamicist mutinies in the Philippines or Indonesia.

Soon it will be possible to link al-Qaeda with disaffection and violence of a broadly anti-Western kind anywhere in the world, including in our own countries. The very act of linkage — by us — serves to build links where none existed. Osama bin Laden is becoming the new Che Guevara. Al-Qaeda is cool. “Shadowy” is a tremendously exciting word. Against George Bush and, to a lesser extent, Tony Blair should be levelled a grave charge: they are glamorising “Terror”.

All over the Third World there are now Osama T-shirts on sale in street markets, displaying that strangely beautiful face. The face alone, like Che’s, like Castro’s, has become a statement. I found the T-shirt this summer in São Tomé e Principe, peaceful African islands in the Gulf of Guinea. I saw Osama dolls in the market in Kiev last month. His face, and his “network”, are beginning to represent, in the imagination of the poor, the aggrieved and the oppressed, defiance made flesh. And we are helping to do this. We are constructing an enemy. We are inventing a focus.

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