Last week’s “incident” at a Krugersdorp school in which an 18-year old student killed one person and injured several others was fantastic news for the South African press. Yes, because not only was this an incident at a “white” school, the student in question dressed up in a mask and used a samurai sword to do his dirty work.
But if only there was another angle to this, something outlandish and sensational to make it the perfect story (especially after the sharks failed to eat those tourists).
Wait! There is! Slipknot!
Yes, standing head and shoulders above the allegations of bullying, satanism, drug-taking, poor parenting and failing teachers comes the blindingly obvious cause of this attack:
Community leader, Pierre Eksteen, who is in charge of a school support network for children, told reporters outside the deserted school grounds that Satanic music was probably the cause of the attack.”He came here camouflaged as the guys from ’Slipknot’. We know the wrong kind of music, and drugs have bad effects. Young people need to be informed of the effects of bad Satanic music,”
I’m right with you there, Pierre – bad Satanic music is rubbish. Some of the good Satanic music out there is pretty listenable though.
And, as Andrew Donaldson remarked in his great Eish! column in The Sunday Times, it’s always a good idea to get your facts straight before talking to the press:
“Satanism,” Eksteen believes, “is in all the schools in the country; it just hasn’t manifested itself yet. Young people need to be informed of the effects of bad satanic music.”
True — just as young people need to be informed of the effects of bad preachers.
Donaldson also notes:
In August last year, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Adolf Hitler’s musical tastes. Apparently, a crate of his favourite records was looted from his Berlin bunker in 1945 by a Red Army officer and these only came to light after the Russian’s death. The discs included works by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Rachmaninov.
I mention this only because, as far as I’m aware, there has in the 63 years since Hitler’s death been no suggestion whatsoever that any one of these composers and their music had any bearing upon or in any way influenced his behaviour.
Of course, he’s right. The Slipknot angle in this case has been leapt upon by an eager press looking for sensationalist issues where there really are none and has naturally been happily accepted as a rather handy scapegoat by those who failed Morne Harmse and his victims.
That said, I wouldn’t advise you to play Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto if you ever find yourself feeling a little mentally vulnerable and near anything sharp or pointy. Or Jewish.
