When the leaders of the Boeremag were tracked down and arrested last year, investigators came across a document describing how the organisation planned to take over SA. Among the institutions the plotters wanted to seize in the first stage of the coup were television and radio channels, power stations and abattoirs. Why abattoirs?The plotters wanted to trick blacks into abandoning the interior of the country for the east coast. So they planned to line all eastbound highways with raw meat. The blacks would follow the trail, the plotters believed, and once they were all in KwaZuluNatal, the borders of the province would be closed. Trapped in the eastern lowlands, they would be herded northwards, at gunpoint, into Mozambique. Think about it. And once you have gotten over how staggeringly stupid the plotters were, think about it again. How on earth did a group of men, most of whom grew up in rural SA, cheek-byjowl with black communities, learn so little about their fellow human beings during the course of their lives?