St James Beach Huts

How sad it was to read about the colourful and historic St James Beach huts burning down! My first engagement with this unfortunate event began with the news screaming something like “Unbelievable, St James Beach Huts torched”. From this message, it was reasonable to deduce that the huts, and possibly all of the huts, were deliberately burnt to the ground. Armed with the misinformation, one could even have built a scenario where the torching was politically motivated or driven by malice and hate. Thankfully, as it turns out, only three of the huts were burnt down and it seems to have been an accident. A group of homeless people lit a fire in or near these huts and the fire got out of hand. The whole event is sad off course but the outcome, the cause and how to avoid such an unfortunate event in future are all very different to the original message I received.

That word torching is loaded as it suggests an intentional act of burning of something. This is how fake news begins, with some fact that is indisputable like huts were burned down. When I passed by the other day,   I was surprised to see that not all the huts had been burnt. It is this fact that made me search for a more accurate media report which I am pleased that I quickly located.

What really did concern me is that my original source (which has since been removed) was on social media and the originator was from a community of people that I suspected would know better. I assumed the originator would’ve made more effort to verify the accuracy of story before distributing this news. I was also quite shocked at the vitriol of a number of respondents to the news who must have also assumed the story to be an act of malice and aggression. It took more than 10 responses before the first questioning respondent pointed that the burning was in fact an unfortunate accident. Well done that person and shame on the rest!

 

Spot the missing huts

Please can we all be ultra-cautious to confirm a story before distributing it? We know bad news sells and our journalists are often guilty of flavouring a narrative to present a more saleable story. I suspect that everyone I know supports the idea of good and accurate journalism. There is so much accurate bad news out there.

Moving to solution thinking. Had the burning been an act of malice, we would need to focus on security and policing. While the perpetrators must be identified and appropriately dealt with, the approach is likely to be notably different knowing that the burning was an accident caused by homeless people and not an act of malice or aggression. In the circumstances, the more sustainably effective solution probably requires a great deal of community engagement rather than a mere policing and punitive approach. For example, the perpetrators could be identified and be part of a rebuild. Please be sure that I am not suggesting that the perpetrators, no matter how unfortunate they may be, should simply be forgiven. I am also well aware that the wider Kalk Bay and St James communities already do an enormous amount for the homeless and do not wish to belittle this. It is however clear that on that evening something went wrong and policing alone is not the solution.