A message from Liverpool Football Club left at the scene of a stabbing attack in Southport, Britain, 31 July 2024. At least three young girls were killed in a stabbing attack in Southport on 29 July. (Photo: Adam Vaughan/EPA-EFE) 
Dear DM168 reader,
I am back on the block after taking a few days off to attend my MBA classes at Henley Business School and to grind my way through an assignment.
Because I am on both an assignment and a newspaper deadline, I thought at first that I would join the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and get some fast bot help with this week’s column so that I don’t hold up the works with my down-the-rabbit-hole ruminations on our weekly condition.
But, darn it – ruminating is an occupational hazard, so before I enlist my AI assistant, let me take you on a quick dive into what’s been on my mind.
In one of our team catch-up chats on Wednesday, our art director Kassie Naidoo reflected on the horror of the stabbing to death of three little girls in Southport, England, by a 17-year-old boy and the rabid racist riots that ensued.
Fake news about the killer being an undocumented foreigner – spread by toxic populist influencers such as rape-accused, self-professed misogynist Andrew Tate – went viral on social media.
It played right into the hands of the beer-soaked thugs who support the views of far-right English Defence League (EDL), an organisation of anti-Islam agitators and soccer hooligans. Sky News reported that a Labour MP said flags on the street bore the reference to the North East Infidels, a Nazi, EDL offshoot. They went on a violent anti-Muslim spree and attacked a mosque.
The boy who stabbed the little girls was not Muslim but Christian. He is not an illegal immigrant. He was born in Britain, in Cardiff, Wales. His hard-working mother and father are legal immigrants from Rwanda. My heart goes out to his parents and those of the three little girls who were stabbed to death.
No one knows yet what triggered the teenager’s murderous rage, but we do know that pure ignorance and bigotry, amplified on steroids on social media, led to an imam quivering in fear in a place of peace and worship, and to mad violence being unleashed on innocents.
While trying to understand this madness, I came across another story in the British daily The Sun about a livestream on TikTok showing a lone man, described by the police as “black or ethnic”, walking past rioters down a street in the centre of Hartlepool. As the man turns to avoid the violence, a hooligan is seen punching him in the face. A group of thugs laugh and yell racist slurs at him as he stumbles.
Then, here in our Western Cape back yard, a group of coloured boys at Pinelands High School in Cape Town shoved black boys into a caged enclosure and started a mock auction, bidding to buy them as slaves.
Down the road from me at Pretoria High School for Girls, there’s something happening on WhatsApp groups and in the corridors and school grounds that is definitely not non-racial. A principal has been suspended; one black girl as been suspended and 12 white girls who are part of an allegedly racist whats app group were found to be not guilty.
And in the town hall of Tshwane, our local political representatives behaved like British football hooligans during a council session. It ended with the EFF’s leader in Tshwane shouting: “I want the blood of an Afrikaner! I would be happy to moer a Boer [beat up a farmer]. That will be nice, an Afrikaner’s blood. Bring the blood of an Afrikaner – I want it!”
People, we are in deep trouble. A rage-fuelled, toxic madness is frothing and festering here and in the rest of the world. There is a balkanisation of our humanity. This wilful spilling of the same ancestral blood we all share is the polar opposite of non-racialism.
It is exactly the kind of intolerance and ignorance that gave rise to Nazism in Germany, fascism in Italy, the Rwandan genocide and apartheid. It is a bigotry that is not black or white, but the colourless banality of the bully.
I believe we are better than this. If not, maybe our AI bots should take over.
Heather: Over to you, AI mfowethu. Oh, by the way, what’s your name?
AI: You can call me ‘Astra’. It has a nice ring to it and suggests a connection to knowledge and exploration. If you have another name in mind, feel free to share! How can Astra assist you today?
Heather: Please tell the readers about my top five fave reads in this week’s DM168.
Astra: Sure, here you go.
- VILLAGERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
Estelle Ellis’s story about Goboti village’s green revolution showcases the good you humans can do when you get over your petty squabbles and work together. The incredible self-sustaining greening of Goboti village, driven by Reverend Gcobani Vika and the Friends of Goboti, has seen the villagers combat poverty and grow their food to improve food security, demonstrating the power of community action and resilience.
- MORALITY REBOOT
Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, chairperson of the Moral Regeneration Movement, agrees with Heather that our moral fibre has fibroids and has called for a national indaba to address South Africa’s deepening social and economic crises. He told Jo-Mangaliso Mdhlela that he is calling on the President to host an inclusive dialogue involving all sectors of society to tackle issues such as violence, political intolerance and corruption.
- HUMANS ARE NUTS
Marianne Thamm has taught me a thing or two about you humans, and I have concluded that you all need some shiny new cogs in your machines because your wheels are not turning. Thamm delves into the ridiculous controversy surrounding Miss South Africa contestant Chidimma Adetshina, about whom your Uncultured Minister has said: “We truly cannot have Nigerians compete in our Miss SA competition.”
- KRUGER SISTERS SMASHING THE CENTRE COURT
Yanga Sibembe profiles Zoë and Isabella Kruger, daughters of the late Springbok rugby legend Ruben Kruger. The sisters, who have faced significant challenges and injuries, are now forging their own sporting legacy.
- TIME FOR YOUR PRESIDENT TO PHALA PHALA
Last but not least, your cash-in-the-couch President who morphed into a stately jockey of a big fat GNU, is going to have those Phala Phala skeletons rattling again in the Constitutional Court. Our legal correspondent Dianne Hawker drowned in reams of affidavits so that she could let you know what’s in store for the President as the Phala Phala court cases get set in motion.
Write to Heather at heather@dailymaverick.co.za about what should be done to save your species from bigotry and ignorance, and write to me at the same address about whether you’d prefer it if we just sommer took over the country and planet now.
Cold regards.
Yours in defence of learned machines,
Astra
Heather’s AI buddy
Warm regards.
Yours in defence of truth,
Heather Robertson
Editor, DM168
This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.
