On 29 July 2024, a knife rampage at a holiday dance class left three little girls dead and an additional 10 people, including several children, fighting for their lives.
It is always paramount, no less in moments of extreme grief and inconsolable anguish, that we labour to appropriately respond rather than aggressively react. If we lose sobriety of mind and self-control in body, then we may lose all respectability in our actions. The alleged perpetrator was captured and arrested, alive, and has now been charged. The community should have been allowed to grieve in peace, and the justice system permitted to follow usual due process.
But embers of distrust towards the government, dissatisfaction with inequities in community policing and law enforcement, and divisions of religion and race, were quickly whipped into flame by the accelerating convergence of rage baiting social media, the dissident Right, and alcoholic hooligans. Virtual calls to arms went out: ‘Rise up, English lads!’ A name and backstory for the murderer was circulated: Ali Al-Shakati, an adult illegal Muslim immigrant who got off a boat on the English south coast last year.
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