On Sunday night, this family of five – including Madiha Salman, 44, her husband Salman Afzaal, 46, their 15-year-old daughter Yumna Afzaal and Afzaal's 74-year-old mother – were on their daily walk when the man mounted the curb and ran over them in what police described as a premeditated hate crime that targeted them because of their Muslim faith. What does a 20-year-old know of life to hate so thoroughly, to murder with such abandon? To plan for and enact such cruelty? To reflect and ponder and then destroy? We probably will not reflect sufficiently on those questions. But we should, because the condemnations and the “we stand by you”s and the “this is not us”es all ring hollow. They always have. Every shooting at a mosque, every mass murder at a black church, every bombing and defacement of a synagogue, is a product of hatred, of social media and technology companies profiting off this rage, of trans-nationalist political ideology that weaponises racism and inequality, and of siloed, broken communities and societies where runaway greed and wealth have obliterated civic duty, coexistence, sacrifice and decency.