h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

All right, a rather depressing entry this time. Here in South Africa we're witnessing an alarming amount of murder ... the nation as a whole has some 20 000 murders each year, comparable to that of the USA despite having far fewer people. A group which is getting murdered at an especially high rate, is farmers - farm families, often farm workers, or people on isolated rural homesteads. Most of them (but not all) are white. About 2 000 farmers have been murdered since 1990 ... it's difficult to get precise statistics. The police and government are not eager to release the figures ...
But we do know a huge number of people are getting killed, and it's not just the murders as such that are horrifying, but the tortures the people are subjected to prior to being murdered. Women are routinely raped, and everyone is tortured for instance with boiling water, power drills, or other 'refinements'. This seems to show that there is an immense amount of hatred and anger involved. Yet, the government insists that there is no motive for murder involved, these things being carried out during 'routine' robberies. Many white people think that actually it amounts to a campaign of terror specifically directed to farmers.

Why? Because a major issue in this country is ownership of land. The government for instance sends out a great amount of propaganda about how white people have stolen all the land and that it should be returned to its 'rightful owners', the black people. They're trying to do this using legal means, but in the eyes of many, progress is too slow. We have 'leaders' like Julius Malema who insists that all whites have to be dispossessed of their lands, without compensation. What is worse, Malema and many other politicians, including our president, Jacob Zuma, regularly sing songs like 'Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer', which were popular in the apartheid days, directed against the Boers (what many Afrikaners call themselves). But also farmers, because of the land issue. So is it strange that some people should take it into their heads to literally go out and kill farmers? Again, there is much obfuscation but there are serious signs of this being an organized campaign of extermination and intimidation, to remove or drive white people off their farms, so that they can pass into black hands. The government and the police both are not showing interest in this as a serious national problem.

Well ... to bring the matter to greater attention, including that of the government and the police, there have been protests in this country recently. It was all as far as I can tell very peaceful and organized. But then some journalists, reporting in the media, showed protesting people burning the SA flag, and flying the old, apartheid-era South African flag. So of course, immediately, people in the government said that the protests were coming from racists who still yearn for apartheid and want to make the government look bad. So, so many people subsequently leapt on this to detract from the issue at stake or the legitimacy of the protests. Some politicians flatly denied that there are farm murders at all (though so many cases are on record) and that the whole thing is just a smear campaign to make the government look bad. Many ordinary non-white people have no sympathy for these old-flag-waving and new-flag-burning racists who don't want to be part of the country or work towards justice for everyone. The image of the people waving the old flag and burning the new flag is now seared into national consciousness. Ministers and politicians have scrambled to unreservedly condemn these protesters because of that.

Except ... it never happened. The images of the people waving the old flag, and burning the new flag, did not come from the farm murder protests. The photos were taken at different protests years ago, but then been published by reporters as having been taken during the recent protests. One journalist actually came forward and explained and proclaimed regret for having done it. But NOT A SINGLE politician who condemned the protests and the protestors for the flag business, subsequently withdrew his or her condemnation for this thing which actually didn't happened. And the image of the farm murder protestors waving apartheid flags remains in the national consciousness. Which of course means the murders can keep getting denied, and sympathy for the victims can keep being blunted. It doesn't matter that the facts were never there ... the images are vivid and are impossible to remove. Farm attack protestors = old-flag-waving/new-flag-burning racists. No sympathy for them. And so, vulnerable families (and as I've said, not all white) keep getting attacked, raped, tortured and murdered, and the government has an excuse for doing little or nothing.

This is exactly why 'fake news' is so dangerous. Rumours repeated as facts can get innocent people hurt or killed.

This sucks on so many levels.

Hi Dmitri and Superfrenchie! Yes it does suck. And the issue is indeed very, very complex. There *are* some outright racists who are trying to use the farm murders towards their own agenda, but mostly the protesters were ordinary concerned people, and there were black and other non-white folks also included in the protestors, so it wasn't a racist thing as such. The issue of land ownership really needs to be addressed and WITHOUT propaganda either from one side or another, and with sensitivity and regard for nuance.

But anyways. Yes, Dmitri, this fake news thing is far more ominous than many people realise. Another thing I'm seeing a lot, is fake news of supposed Islamic atrocities. There was for instance a photo going round of a preacher being burned alive for preaching Christianity, in Iraq or Syria ... I can't remember which. It actually showed a thief in some South American country suffering from vigilante justice; he got burnt feet but a local priest intervened and saved his life. So it had nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with what's happening in Iraq or Syria. Another horrible photo showed a number of charred bodies; it claimed to be of Christian children burnt alive also in Iraq or Syria or Afghanistan or somewhere. It was actually a photo of the aftermath of a huge explosion (an accident) somewhere in Africa. Again, nothing whatsoever to do with Islam or with ISIS or Afghanistan or anything. Once again, though, these are images which get associated with certain groups and are uncritically accepted by so many folks.

Now ISIS are bad enough, they're absolutely awful, and some of what is happening in Iraq or Syria or also in some Islamic countries here in Africa, is indeed atrocious, but NEVER should you use lies against anyone ... not even against the Devil himself! The truth is that humans everywhere have the potential of being extremely awful. Most people manage to not be awful ... awful things however tend to happen more in places where the restraints of normal civilization break down, as is the case in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and a few more places, including some African countries. The problem is that civilization is straining in many places ... this strain is perhaps going to worsen, even in affluent countries like America. Under this strain, this fake news can make people believe there is a kind of war against them and that they should strike back ... so providing fuel for conflict so that soon those wars can indeed become real.

There was a ridiculous business on Twitter last night. The Mall of America - a huge complex in Minnesota, said to be the world's largest shopping mall, or some such - had a stabbing incident. It was about shoplifting, but for a couple of hours, Twitterers tried to make it into a terrorist attack.

One person tweeted, 'Mall of America has long been a prime ISIS target.'

I couldn't tell if they were being sarcastic or not.