Sweet Little Lies

As a facet of my enduring fascination (my family calls it obsession) with martial arts, I tend to do a lot of associated reading, in which ninjitsu and ninja are recurrent terms. But what are ninjas doing in books on martial skills?

Ninjas were, according to Western imagination, the ultimate warriors. They could be invisible, they had superhuman skill and strength... but the truth is, they were spies and assassins. They weren't warriors at all, necessarily. As much as we like spy movies and the James Bond franchise, we still don't much like the idea of spying. It goes against the grain to admit the need for duplicity, for betrayal as a given. And yet, we all do just that. We all lie – whether in shades of white or grey or black. Whatever the lie or the motives for it, it's still an untruth. And it's essential to nature, to life itself.

After all, what is a predator's camouflage if not a lie? The natural world, the animal and plant kingdoms are stuffed to the brim of little lies to promote the longevity of the individual and the species.

So maybe we should admit and even embrace the fact that honesty can be overrated, and the mouse's strategy of lying his way out of trouble in 'The Gruffalo' is a valid one.

Nothing Left To Lose

Freedom, if Kris Kristofferson is to be believed, is another word for having nothing left to lose. He’s not the only one to think so – the idea of not having roots in order to spreads your wings, of not having ties in order to be more reactive, more flexible – these are not new or even radical concepts. We stymie ourselves by giving ourselves things and people and commitments to worry about, to consider before we can choose a course of action.

This is why warrior caste societies went to very sophisticated lengths to avoid tying their warriors down with possessions while at the same time, giving them a sufficient stake in the society to want to fight for it. The entire Spartan world was set up around this idea.

Hollywood loves it – take away the hero’s love or family and watch him tear the world apart to get it back, or get revenge. He can be as spectacularly reckless as you have the budget for because he has already lost what he values most. He has nothing left to lose, and therefore the ultimate freedom to act.

The unemcumbered life is hard to pull off, in the modern world. We’re social creatures, we tend to nest, to put down roots and forge ties to people and places. Technology makes it increasingly possible to take these roots with us – the Cloud, portable hard drives, e-readers and iPods allow us to take our movies, music, libraries with us very easily.

Yes, that’s semantics: these are still things we have, however compact their form, and if we have them, we have them to lose. The question is how much it’ll cost us to lose them. You only have it to lose if its loss will matter.

Girls and boys

I recently spent an afternoon with my niece and 2 of her friends. Over supper, they were playing a game of a show of hands for likes and dislikes, and it occurred to me, listening in, that girls learn duplicity early on. I don’t know whether it’s innate, or if we teach them this, but even at age 7, they’re asking loaded questions, like “hands in the middle if you don’t like me” amid more innocuous ones about liking ice-cream and disliking tomatoes.

I don’t recall my brothers, my cousins or any of my male charges being this aware of the popularity stakes at that age. But I do remember being acutely aware, at that age, of who was popular and who was not within my own class – and that the girls in general were far more aware of social hierarchy than the boys.

It’s a worrying beginning of a lifelong trend – girls tend to be clique-y, tend to use gossip, trends and appearance as social litmus tests to assign each other into the relevant category and relate to them accordingly. Our social definitions of women – good girls, bad girls, tomboys, brainiacs, domestic goddesses – don’t allow for a lot of leeway, honesty or mercy. And girls learn early on that the best way for them to operate is to be ruthless and duplicitous and underhand. Unfortunately. 

What Little Girls Are Made Of

I saw an article in the Huffington Post about girls and our obsession with their appearance: the standard ice-breaker is a compliment on how pretty, how cute, how adorable.

The trouble is, however harmless a boost to their fragile little egos it may be to tell them they’re beautiful, the side-effect is that they grow up thinking their looks are what matters most.

Every year, the make-up threshold gets younger, eating disorders and cosmetic procedures go up while the age of patients goes down. Even the books marketed to little girls reinforce this: stories like Purplicious, which is about how girls’ clothing choices define their identities and social status. This may be the way our world works, but that doesn’t make it the way it should work.

When more young women aspire to win a reality show than a Nobel prize, and even academically and professionally successful women would prefer to be considered hot than intelligent, we have a problem.

When primary school girls openly aspire to be glamour models and exotic dancers in order to get boys more easily, we have a problem.

When the automatic opener to a conversation with a girl is to compliment her appearance, especially with a generic compliment, we have a problem. Sure, it’s a safe opener, but if you must go down that road, if you truly can’t think of anything else, surely it’s just as easy to pick a detail that reflects on her choices (where did that bracelet come from? What was it about those tribal earrings that took her fancy?) and might open new topics that respect her mind, her personality, not the accident of genetics that makes up her appearance.

Mass Warfare

Mass protest is back in fashion. Since 9/11, really, the idea that the people can influence the politicians by visibly banding together has had a new vogue. It’s been done before – in the 60s, in colonial India, in all kinds of places and times. These days, the internet, smart phones and social media have made it ever more possible to arrange flash mobs, sit-ins and marches. When these gatherings appear to be spontaneous, they’re hard to predict, prevent or police. It’s a kind of peaceful offensive by the masses against the officially empowered few – which makes it mildly ironic how often it’s used to protest against war.

Generally, every time mass protest makes a difference, or even makes the news, it inspires others to revisit the tactic for their own agendas. The Occupy movement, anti-bank and anti-greed, started in Spain, was inspired by the Arab Spring, which protested against tyrannical government.

Seems like these two aims have nothing in common – except that the behaviour of the mega-rich and the biggest banks borders on despotic, and the West’s governments seem powerless to discipline them even if they wanted to (which, it appears, they really don’t).

Mass protest works by sheer force of numbers – the general populace always outnumber the elite (whether that word is currently describing the rulers or the rich), it’s part of the definition of elite. And the elites know, on some level, that they are ultimately just as human as the masses, so when the hoi polloi rise up against them, they can either choose to surf the wave of public opinion or be drowned by it.

Occupy has been largely dismantled now, but that doesn’t mean the 1% has won. Just that the protest’s on hiatus – until next time.

Bravado

Rango: Warning, this blog contains spoilers.

Rango is a film about a pet lizard lost in the wilderness. I suggest you go see it, and count the number of other movies it references throughout (I lost count around 30).

Rango is targeted as an outsider and a soft city-slicker type who will never survive in the harsh conditions of a desert. So he does the only thing he can think of – ill-advisedly, he lies. And the audience cringes, because this can spell nothing but disaster. Rango creates, off the cuff, a persona and an alias a lot tougher than he is, as a front to intimidate his tormentors. He bluffs. It’s all bravado, bluster, boasting. There’s no substance to it whatsoever. Is there?

But that’s the thing – we all become whatever story we hear about ourselves most often. He tells a convincing story about his heroics to a crowded bar, and is treated like the tough guy he pretends to be – is now expected to be. And so what can he do, but live up to it?

The word bravado implies empty boasts, bluster, a front. But there’s a place for it when we bluster ourselves into a corner from which only actual bravery can extricate us. And that corner, back to the wall, facing off with the villains and the monsters, is exactly where the great stories come from – at least, as far as Hollywood’s concerned. 

Chi

The Law of the Conservation of Energy, as stated in the 1800s, tells us that total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be transformed and transferred. These are the scientific facts, in our universe. Which is interestingly similar to the position of Oriental philosophy, with the concept of Chi and how it flows. According to physics, everything is made of atoms, and atoms themselves are made of charge and empty space. Charge is energy – so everything is made of energy (generally chemical potential energy, if I recall my high school science correctly). If I accept this scientific information, then it’s not really such a stretch to get to the idea of energy flowing, as in Eastern practices from martial arts to Feng Shui. The law of the Conservation of Energy lends itself to a person being able to borrow energy from her opponent to then use against them (a central principle of yin or internal martial arts such as tai chi, wing chun and chi kung).

This idea is what enables a small woman to disable a much larger man, should she need to. It should also enable us to manipulate the flow of energy to avoid feeling drained – if everything is energy, and the total amount of energy remains constant, and energy flows, then all we need to do is find a way to put ourselves in the way of that flow and absorb as much energy as we need to emit: as movement, as heat, as whatever form is required.

We live on borrowed energy then – all of us, all the time. 

Treading Water

They say discretion is the better part of valour, that you should pick your battles. But when you’re under constant bombardment, it’s not exactly easy to remember that you have that option. You don’t have time – or don’t feel as if you have the time – to stop and think and strategise, and the problem compounds until you’re living in a purely reactive way, and your brain is so busy reacting, it doesn’t have the free capacity to strategise and get you the two steps ahead that you need to be in order to have the time to stop and think and plan… It’s a nasty, vicious spiral leading to implosion under pressure.

This  is one of the hardest things about sparring when you start learning martial arts: it all happens os fast, you don’t have time to think. You have to learn to think faster, or at least faster than your opponent, while at the same time, not thinking at all, and allowing your body to react and adapt until you see the opening and timing to score a hit. It’s not easy, and it’s disheartening, especially when sparring against those who are better than you, because they seem to do it so easily, so calmly, so effortlessly – while you get flustered and never land a hit.

When life gets hectic, it’s too easy to fall into this pattern of reacting, of trying to change up your mental gears in a frantic effort to keep up.  The trick, it seems, is the same as in sparring – stop thinking, stop trying to keep up and just let it flow – adapt, don’t fight it, go with it. And that should give you the mental space to see the opening, the opportunity, the way through. Easier said than done, but also easier than drowning. 

Ready, Steady...

Anger. Adrenalin. Satisfaction. Pain. Offence. Fear. There are many possible emotions in a fight, but they have no place there, according to traditional martial arts training. Certainly fear doesn’t – fear freezes you, slows you down. Your heart races, but your mind panics and stands still. Anger doesn’t freeze you, but it makes you reckless, which will ultimately only result in injury, in pain, in defeat.

How do you cut off your emotions in a fight? Well, fights happen fast. Very fast. Bruce Lee could reputedly punch at the speed of a bullet (this is fairly plausible – Wing Chun is known for its speed). You don’t have time to think, to consciously process what your sight, hearing, skin are telling you. Which is why you train your body to react, to think for you. It can do so much faster, and without emotion, than you can. The Japanese term ‘muga’ is a state of alert passivity – the calm before the storm – in which the body is aware, all senses working at full throttle, but the mind is calm and waiting. It’s not stressed, but relaxed. Ready. Not waiting because that implies expectation, and most traditional Eastern martial arts are born of philosophies that discourage expectation.

Developing this state is a slow process, but hardly a difficult one. We do it when we learn to drive, to throw, to catch. At first we have to go slowly, thinking consciously about the physical actions required. Eventually, our bodies know the procedures so well, they don’t need us to think about them. They just do. And while a fight is more unpredictable and therefore more complex than playing catch, the principle is the same: don’t think, don’t lock up your muscles with tension, just relax and be ready. 

Survivor

I read another tragedy last week – another teenager bullied to death, and once my blood stopped boiling,  I had to wonder: why and how the hell did I survive? Because I was that kid. Granted, we didn’t have social networking to nearly the same extent, so outside of the school gates, I got a slight reprieve. Still, the teasing, the harassment, ostracism and the physical bullying were fairly relentless.

I can’t remember a time I wasn’t the object of derision among my peers. I have very clear and graphic memories of the coping mechanisms I developed, from stoicism to silence, through substance abuse and self-harm. I remember the frustration, the way nothing I ever did was enough to make them stop, to make them just leave me be. I stopped looking for inclusion early on, and just wanted to be left in peace. I remember the frustration, the depression, the desperation for an end, any end, to the torture. I remember trying, more than once, to make that end happen. And I remember deciding (cold, calculated and yes, cruel) that it would be much more fun to make them regret the day I was born than regret it myself.

I’d always fought back physically, always tried to fight back verbally – I’ve always devolved to fight more than flight, largely because I’ve seldom been in a situation where flight was possible. From the tipping point of yet another suicidal depression, I just became more vicious, and less merciful.

I feel no regret: I did what I had to do survive. But it rips at my gut that so many kids don’t have the choices I did, and are somewhat more successful in their bid to end the pain.

Peacemaker

In the 19^th Century, Col Sam Colt brought out a handgun he named the Model P, or Peacemaker. We think of peace as opposite to war, and make up crude slogans to express how contradictory the concept of fighting for peace appears.

We forget that fighting isn’t necessarily about  bombs and guns and bloodshed. Often, but not necessarily. Fighting can be a more passive resistance, an occupation of strategic space (the central theory of Wing Chun is essentially just that – moving into the opponent’s space). And once there, refusing to relinquish said space. No matter what.

The Nobel Peace Prize was founded by the man who invented dynamite – reputedly in an attempt to redeem himself for making such a desturctive weapon. And it’s been awarded to three women: the Liberian Leymah Gbowee, a peace activist instrumental in organising the peaceful resistance against the warlords that ultimately resulted in the Accra peace treaty and the end of a civil war; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, another Liberian and Africa’s first elected female president; and the Yemeni Tawakkul Karman, also a peace activist and journalist fighting for both women’s and press freedom, in the face of threats and harassment.

We may glibly say that fighting for peace is a contradiction in terms, but in the end, refusing to back down in the face of threats and violence is fighting – it may not be an active offensive, but it requires all the strength of a warrior. 

Hard As Nail Polish

The other day, one of my sparring partners told me off for wearing nail polish. He accused me of going “girly” which is an interesting statement of position, because the last time I checked (and I had thought he’d have noticed by now) I am a girl. And while it’s amusing that he thinks that way, it’s also slightly worrying that there is such a widely held perception that female – or feminine, at least - and strong are incompatible. Regardless of the number of strong women in history, politics or even pop culture, we still seem to struggle, as a culture, with the idea that a woman can be both feminine and strong, can wear dresses and make-up and nail polish, and still think for herself, make her own decisions, stand up for and fight for her own convictions. And this in spite of celebrating women who do just that.

So, what’s a girl to do? In my case, punch him harder and walk out of class with my nail polish still intact and unchipped.

Mother of Nthatisi: African Boudicca

In the 19^th Century, in a place that would become South Africa, lived a queen at whose name men trembled.The stories that surrounded her have made her myth as well as legend: rumour had it she was a giantess who could command swarms of wasps – and other such impossibilities. She was the Destroyer of Nations

Her name was Mma Nthatisi. In peace, she judged cases and determined state policy; in war she planned all strategy and commanded in person.

She was born the baSia chief’s daughter. She grew up strong, skilled with the light battle-axe, and intelligent. She married her cousin, Mokotjo, chief of the baTlokwa. When he died at about 27, his son was still too young to rule, and his mother took on the regency, ruling in his name. This was an unusual move for such a yougn widow, especially at the time of the Difeqane/Mfecane wars.

These were caused by a number of factors, including climactic and geographic ones, however tempting it is just to blame Shaka Zulu. A successful leader in this period had to be politically astute as well as strong. Mma Nthatisi rose to the challenge, leading her husband’s people in several successful campaigns, including against her brothers-in-law, who hadn’t wanted her to rule. She was so successful, in fact, that a Hlubi chieftain begged her for asylum and protection in 1818.  After a series of clashes against the superior weaponry and tactics of the Nguni tribes, she moved her people west, invading the region of the baFokeng. Moving south, she clashed with Moshoeshoe, and the baTlokwa defeated the baSotho in the Battle of the Pots, before being defeated by the amaHlubi. Mma Nthatisi turned north, fighting her way towards the Vaal River, defeating several tribes en route and absorbing their arriors into the baTlokwa, ultimately settling in the Caledon Valley, when Sekonyela finally assumed the leadership, although still sharing it with his mother.  

Anonymous

Currently, the internet is still anonymous, and while I’m all for the safety aspects of anonymity, cowards use it to be bullies and trolls. Bullies are always weak, always insecure. That’s what makes them bullies: they target the things they don’t understand and don’t feel comfotable with in the vain hopes that belitting others will somehow make them feel better about themselves. Social networking allowds them to extend the old schoolyard bullying into cyberspace – and this week, that practice claimed another victim – Jamey Rodemeyer, an American teenager, bullied into taking his own life - for daring to be different (in this case, for being gay). A boy brave enough to use his own name on his blog, to be recognisable online, bullied to death by insecure little cowards. They hounded him on social networks, and undoubtedly made his life hell at school. The bombardment was 24-7. Putting aside the irony that social networks were invented by the kind of people who wouldn’t have been popular in high school, the trouble is exacerbated because these days, our online lives mean we have no respite from snide sniping from those who feel threatened by other people’s relative self-confidence. No wonder the targetted are losing all hope. No wonder these trolls, these clowns are taking full advantage of the chance to snipe and back-stab and bully from behind the wall of anonymity. Behind my key-board, I wish they could see my lip curl. Because really, the pack of you: grow up and grow some vertebrae.

And I wish I could say that it gets better after school, but it doesn’t. Bullying rife and inherent in office culture across the world. There are always the weak, hunting in packs, to tear down those strong enough to stand alone or be different. There always will be. And the irony is: they never see that it backfires. That which doesn’t kill us, makes us ever stronger. 

Weakness in Me

Know your enemy and know yourself. Since Sun Tzu’s Art of War, it’s been a basic principle of war, to know your enemy’s weakness, to know where to strike. It’s a basic principle of strategy to know your own weak point, to know what to defend. If we know only know the enemy or only ourselves, we will be defeated at least as often as we win. If we know neither, we will inevitably lose (blind luck notwithstanding).

So we have to know our enemy – as well as possible, because he will doubtless put his strongest defence at his weakest point – at the place he expects our attack to succeed, where he expects a breach. And we have to face up to ourselves, to the darkness and weakness that we deny exist, while knowing that denial itself is a weakness.

When we organise our defences, we automatically, subconsciously, concentrate them around our weakest points – around the things we’re afraid to let out, or afraid to lose. In short, around our fears.  This tells an enemy exactly where to strike, because if he can once break through our defence, he has not only taken out our strongest resistance, but has also hit a weak spot. Nasty. But strategically nice.

So: if we can know ourselves well enough to know the weakness within, we can turn it into – if not a strength – then a tactical diversion. After all, as Sun Tzu so blandly pointed out: All warfare is based on deception.

This is key when it comes to sparring – if I know I’m a kicker, and my opponent prefers to punch, I can use that to stay in kicking and out of punching range – but he will catch on quickly and move in, thus shutting down my preferred weapon and bringing his own into play. This makes the successful fighter the unpredictable one – the one who has no habits, and who adapts fastest to the tactics and style of the other: that is, the one who learns about his enemy faster. And to become that fighter? My first challenge is to identify and eliminate the weaknesses in me. 

The Day that Changed the World

There’s been a lot of ink, tape and type expended on the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. The focus is on America’s eastern seaboard, on Manhattan. The Pentagon in D.C. and the Pennsylvanian field into which Flight 93 crashed have once again been somewhat sidelined by the sheer scale and death-toll of the New York attacks.

For all the words and wars that followed that dreadful day, the day that political (and media) rhetoric would have us believe changed the world, we don’t seem to be doing all that much better.

In the West, we have obligingly put up with the erosion of our individual freedom in the name of security, while we deplore the foreign campaigns being fought in the same name by our armed forces. These campaigns – the politicians tell us the war is over, long since won, and so I shouldn’t use the word – are becoming grindingly endless attrition, quagmires from which extricating our soldiers is ever farther away. So I have to ask: was war, was violence, was “shock and awe” (aka blitzkrieg) really the best answer?

Back in 2001, it had the advantage of being definite, active, in tune with the rising cries for bloody vengeance. With the hindsight of ten years of war, fought on peacetime budgets (because we’re not calling war) it’s harder to see just what this vengeance has accomplished.

In poverty, in deprivation, in the gaping chasm between have and have-not, discontent breeds anger and resentment, which in turn make terrorist acts appear an option. While war and brute force may have ousted Saddam, killed bin Laden and decimated Al Qaeda leadership, it hasn’t done much to diminish the underlying cause. Now, people resent foreign occupation, weary of the constant violence, the lack of solid infrastructure (yes, the West tries to win hearts and mind, build schools and hospitals, but insurgents can then bomb them again. And again).

I don’t want to diminish the tragedy of 9/11. I just wonder what really changed the world – the hijacked planes, or the West’s reaction.

The Last Warriors

A name to conjure with: in literature, Cossacks are portrayed as free, independent warriors or cruel and ruthless soldiers. They are, perhaps, the last surviving European warrior caste or culture. Currently, they’re back in the media for a campaign they’re waging in the Ukraine, promoting a “united Slavic state” (read Russian Empire Mk 3).

Cossack boys are trained as fighters almost from birth. They are traditionally master horsemen – not surprising when they learn to ride from the age of three. Their initiation is harsh and violent – a hand to hand fight with a more skilled opponent – and their tactics are cynical at times: recently, several Cossacks confronted Ukrainian police in a long-running dispute over the (illegal) installation of a large Russian Orthodox cross outside a city, and were badly beaten (as they’d expected to be) which looked like police brutality to the Russian Orthodox community that supports the Cossacks. As tactics go, cynicism is an advantage – ever since Sun Tzu, this is an unspoken fact of military strategy

Despite very traditional values and distinct gender divisions, in some ways Cossack culture is pretty democratic – the Ataman/Hetman or leader is elected, along with other officials including clergy (which says interesting things about the place of religion in their society) at a Rada, or Band Assembly. This Assembly has the legislative power (such as it is for a culture that has no written laws, but lives rather by Traditions which bear more than a passing resemblance to Omerta), while the Ataman is the executive power and Commander-in-Chief in battle.

In Russia, things may be changing: Yulia Tkachenko is the Ataman in the Alexandrov area – the only woman to hold the title. She argues that these days, women are morally stronger than the men. Other Atamans aren’t happy about it, but it could be a sign of changing times for the last warrior culture in Europe. 

Strong Enough

Catching up on TV viewing, I’ve noticed something I didn’t expect – in television, strong men are rare. Men who can love and be foils for strong women without coming across as emasculated – well, the phrase ‘hen’s teeth’ comes to mind.

Like many women, I have fought most of my life. I have fought to be myself, to be recognised as an individual. I have fought bullying, assault, upheaval, addiction, and I am still standing. I have examined the cultural expectations for my dreams and my life, I’ve fought to make them fit me, and when I couldn’t make that happen, I fought to be allowed to make my own choices, good and bad. And yes, all of that has left a couple of scars.

That which doesn’t kill us, saccharine cliché though it is to say, really does make us stronger. The more we survive, the more we’re capable of surviving. There is a dark side though - the longer we fight, the less we remember what it’s like not to. (Granted, there is not much opportunity not to fight. Not for an unconventional woman, not in this world).

None of that means that strong can only be with weak. It takes a strength of character to allow someone to be strong, independent, make their own decisions and mistakes, because we want to protect the people we care about (on both sides of the gender equation). It may not be a great plot device for drama, but that doesn’t make it less valid in the real world. Let’s face it, in the real world, we’re not really looking for drama from our nearest and dearest. We generally get enough of that from work, from the world in general. At home, we’re looking for peace. Life isn’t scripted, doesn’t have easy answers. Fiction does. Pity we blur the line between the two.

It should be no surprise, then, to see headlines about the dangers of romantic comedies inflating expectations and ruining relationships, because reality doesn’t measure up to escapism. Maybe because escapism has so few examples of men strong enough to allow the women they’re in relationships with to be strong. No wonder I’m being invited to debates about whether strong women necessarily result in weaker men, even though the reverse is true.

Just a thought.

Hope Springs Eternal

While real seismic shifts repeatedly hit Japan, political one still shake up the Middle East. Overshadowed by recent events in Europe, the Arab Spring is rumbling on through summer. It has rekindled hope for many in the West who would like to see democracy spread east and south, across the globe. It worries many who don’t see how democracy would play with traditional regional cultures and social structures. The question becomes whether those traditional structures and memes are still relevant, still useful in the increasingly globalised 21^st century, or whether they too will need to adapt (or die).

How much will really change? It’s too soon to tell, but it might advisable for any new or potential leaders in the region to watch the women, from both sides of the political specturm. Women have formed the backbone of the upheavals – among the first to take to the streets (Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt); the ones organising the medical supplies, food and water deliveries to Tahrir Square that allowed the moment to become a vigil, a slogan, the powerful symbol of enduring anger against authority that it now is; opening their homes to treat those too scared to go to government hospitals (Bahrain) – the list goes on. In Libya, it was women who protested outside a courthosue in Benghazi after the arrest of their lawyer  - some even forgetting to cover their faces. Even in conservative Syria and Yemen, women have joined the protests. They are still supporting the protests, despite the danger of violence, rape and death.

While their countries try to get back to normal, they are at risk of being sidelined and pushed back towards their familiar place. I doubt they’ll stay there, however hard they’re pushed. These women may not exactly be burning their burkhas but it would be dangerously naïve to assume they will go quietly back to the age-old pigeon-hole of silent deferential domesticity the world is used to presuming for them. They are intelligent, determined and beginning to know their power. If Westernisation isn’t a palatable option, perhaps the traditionalists could look further back, to the warrior queens of the region’s history, for the role women can play in society.

Strength, Power, Control

Power is a funny thing. Its official definition is unexpectedly varied, but most often,

we equate power with force and strength. The looters on the streets of London (and across the UK) spoke of “owning this town” and made comments about the police being helpless with the looters in charge. They were there out of boredom and opportunistic greed, but the supposition of “people power” harks back to other, more politically focussed riots – in Athens, in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria. It echoes Martin Luther King Jr’s definition: “ A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.” And the unheard, in a democracy, are the disempowered.

The police, representing the government and the judicial power, were struggling to exercise control over the rioters, looking outnumbered and a constant step behind. So, where, in all this anarchy, is the power? With the official powers or the people randomly stealing from and vandalising their own communities? (To be fair to the police, they have to be reactive – if you shut down a city or arrest people before they commit a crime, you’re not using socially or legally acceptable policing methods).

Power, in martial arts, is not always about strength. In the softer arts it has more to do with chi and intent – the power in my punch has nothing to do with my musculature (thankfully) and everything to do with my positioning, footwork and skill.

In martial arts, especially yin arts, strength comes second to control. Control comes from discipline and is more important than strength. Control allows you to choose to use your strength for the best effect.

In Britain, policing is by consent. It should work on the same principle – that strength of is secondary to control. This can only happen if the public accept the authority of the police, which, clearly, many don’t.

The theory was that policing could be based on respect rather than fear. For many years, it worked. Now that respect is gone, especially in a generation for the majority of whom respect is meaningless. Control and discipline are foreign concepts to those who aspire to a lifestyle of instant, effortless gratification and entitlement. This is not unique to the UK, but infects the whole of the Westernised world – which now includes far more be than just one hemisphere.

We talk of rights, but never of responsibilities. Political Correctness has drawn the teeth of authority – teachers, parents and police alike are too hemmed in by PC to instil in anyone the idea of discipline, responsibility or work before achievement. It has ensured we can no longer police, unarmed, by consent.

Oranges, apples and pears

On YouTube there are hundreds of videos featuring martial style A versus martial style B, and the comments beneath them range are incredibly partisan. On the forums as well, people argue over which style is the ultimate, best style – often coming to virtual blows. Why?

You might as well argue oranges versus apples or pears. Yes, they’re all fruit, but beyond that it’s pretty impossible to make any sensible comparisons. They’re different fruit. If you have a cold, eat the orange; if you need fibre, go for the apple.

I am a martial arts student, and yet I barely feel qualified to make judgements about the kung fu style I’m learning, much less any others. And what everyone forgets (or possibly doesn’t know) is that in a real fight, it’s not about style or grace. It’s about what works.

On the street, anything goes, anything’s a weapon and the only rule is: Don’t Lose. In a dojo or a boxing ring, one style may win against another: wing chun may defeat taekwondo, and in turn be defeated by hapkido – but when the stakes are more than pride, and the surface is harder than mats, the winner is the one who’s left standing at the end, not the one whose style is pure or graceful.

Nobody knows how they’ll react to real attack until it happens. I specify “real” because macho posturing to establish social order isn’t the same thing as someone actively trying to kill you. When it does happen (and it would be foolish to believe we’re not just as vulnerable as the next statistic), that’s when you find out how good a fighter you really are – when it’s not about any one style, but the whole fruit salad of whatever will stop him hitting you.

Valkyrie

I don’t wish to give airtime to the ravings of maniacs, but when they commit mass murder, they become hard to ignore.

I spent some time (far too much) reading Breivik’s “manifesto” and there was one logical inconsistency that screamed out far more than any others. Breivik claims to be fighting a war against the “Islamic invasion of Europe” – and in his manifesto he cites sharia law and Muslim treatment of women (I use Muslim because he does, but while ‘honour’ crimes may be cloaked in religious excuses, they’re just misogyny) as things the West should fear and fight. But he simultaneously blames feminism and the rise of gender equality for the “emasculation” of the West that is, as far he’s concerned, allowing this invasion in the first place.

The trouble with the 2083 manifesto is that it appears, at first glance, to be well-researched and argued. While it’s full of internal inconsistencies and random digressions (and stylistically appalling, but what did I expect) if you only scan it, and it’s so long most people will only do that, it could potentially be persuasive.

But back to the one inconsistency that jumped up and down screaming at me: Breivik comes from a culture that gave us the Valkyries, shieldmaidens and Unnur the Deep Minded (a wealthy woman who became a leader and chieftain in Iceland).  New evidence suggests Viking women accompanied Viking armies – if only because colonisation was as much a Viking aim as pillage. The Sagas tell of many strong women, causing, directing and diverting the action.

So Breivik, for all his “patriotism” seems to have forgotten, or chosen to ignore, large chunks of his own heritage in order to make the contradictory argument that feminism – especially radical misogyny-is-still-a-pervasive-global-problem feminism - is paving the way for the West to come under the most gender unequal interpretations of sharia law (am I the only one who cannot see the logical chain here?)

So I would suggest that now is the time for the Valkyries to ride again to battle, against all the myriad oppressors of individual freedom that are rearing their heads in this new crusading climate.

War and Peace

Fighting is brutal and uncivilised by definition, isn’t it? Fighters are aggressive – it’s kind of a requirement. Isn’t it? So why do traditional martial arts place such an emphasis on serenity and good character?

I’ve been studying the theory of martial arts, and a recurring theme is the philosophy of the warrior code – the idea that the true martial arts master must also be the ideal cultivated (or civilised) human. It seems almost contradictory to find such emphasis – in a martial arts manual – on pacifism. Part of most martial traditions is respect: when everyone can fight and goes armed, respect is the obvious way to avoid blood on the walls. So respect and cool-headedness is expedient, but it goes beyond that. In ‘The Art of War’ Sun Tzu places a high value on the general who plans rationally, choosing to fight on optimum ground and only when he will win. It reads as cold-blooded, but translates into effective strategy even today.

Calm confidence in the face of attack is unnerving for the attacker, which gives a psychological edge to the best poker face.

Fear freezes, anger doesn’t – this fact can save your life if you tend to rage over fright. But anger makes you rash and impairs your judgement. In a fight, you’re so marinated in adrenalin anyway, you may not notice your recklessness in time to reconsider it. Unless, of course, you can cultivate the serenity of the ideal warrior – something most traditional martial arts propose is a product of integrity and strong morals.

In the modern non-military West, we’ve lost contact with the idea of a warrior caste – and alongside that, with the warrior mindset. Martial arts have kept it far more alive, from the Japanese bushido code to the traditional Chinese salute martial artists use at the start of classes, forms and fights. Even Western fencing has its formal salute to the adversary.

As you learn to fight, you learn discipline and accountability. And surely those are cultivated, civilised traits – however at odds with our generic perception of fighting.

Pen, Sword, Words, Deeds

Do actions still speak louder than words? These days, with all the recording and playback technology available to us, words have a power and immortality long denied them. Before radio, what stuck in people’s memory was achievement – not what you promised to do, but what you did. Now, the speeches of politicians and leaders are recorded and quoted and pass into cultural vocabulary: “I have a dream,” “Never before in the field of human conflict…” and so on. So is it still true that actions speak louder and more memorably?

Why do we remember Churchill, Luther King, Kennedy, and Mandela’s words so well? Is it just a fine turn of phrase by the speechwriter, or the well-trained delivery? Is it the capture of a moment and a mood? Or is to do with timing and what happened next?

The truly memorable speeches came at turning points in history, and sometimes were – or at least appeared to be – the pivot on which events turned. Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ expressed the civil rights movement of the time with an eloquence that still rings clearly (although that may be because it’s still, sadly, relevant).

Churchill’s wartime speeches stiffened British resolve to keep fighting and keep believing in victory. If Britain had fallen before America joined the war, the outcome may have been vastly different.

So the great speeches incite action, and express popular sentiment with a view to affecting policy – in other words, inciting action. We remember the speeches that worked – that had an effect. In other words, the ones that could, arguably, actually be reclassified as deeds.

I guess it is still true that actions trump words.

African Women Do Too…

Of the ten worst countries in which to be a woman, 4 are in Africa, including 2 of the top 5 (or 3, depending on which UN/Amnesty International list you read). And yet the historical accounts of powerful and military women aren’t by any means a EuroAsian phenomenon. In Northern Africa, we not only the powerful Queens of Egypt (Hatsheput, Nefertiri, Cleopatra) but also the Nubian Candaces (or Kentakes) of the Kushites. Amanirenas, who took on the might of Rome after Cleopatra’s death, to oust them from Egypt. She failed to conquer, but did manage to negotiate a favourable peace after her defeat – which must have been quite a feat of political manoevring.

She was succeeded by Amanishabheto, who led the Kushites in a series of attacks against Augustus’s attempts to tax the Kushites. In the end, the harassed Romans sued for peace.

Amanishabeto was succeeded by her daughter Amanitore, the last of the great Kushite builders, restoring temples destroyed by the Romans, and building reservoirs to ensure the  water supply for her kingdom.

Yes, all this is ancient history, and historical references are thin oon the ground, coming mostly from Roman and Greek sources, with a couple of references in the Bible (the Queen of Sheba and Tharbis, wife of Moses being the obvious ones). Is there nothing more recent?

Well, in what is now Benin, the Fon tribe had an elite group of women warriors as recently as the late 19^th century. They called them the Mino, recruited them from the royal harem and imbued them with spiritual and religious significance as well as military prowess.

The Europeans who encountered them called them the Dahomeny Amazons, and recorded their discipline and ruthlessness in battle. In the end, it was superior guns that defeated them, but even the French Foreign Legion cited their "incredible courage and audacity." 

So how on earth did Africa go from this to having some of the worst gender inequalities in the world? Second thoughts, don’t answer that.

Hooves and Harlots

It surprises me how much ink has been spent (and how many trees have given their lives) in explaining the kinks in the Ancient Greek psyche that created the Amazons. I wonder why they bothered.
I can see the argument for the Amazons to be a myth, a fiction, because a tribe of a single gender is ultimately unsustainable. But that doesn't mean the myth is down to some psychological twist any more than the myth of Centaurs is. Surely there's some space for the concept of poetic licence and hyperbole?
The Greeks were contemporary with the Celts and the Botai. The Celts tribal territories extended through Illyria, with detours via Delphi. It's extremely unlikely that the Greeks wouldn't have encountered them, and when they did, they would have been struck by the power and prominence of the women - Celtic women fought in battle, and Celtic queens had real power. Is it so outlandish that this strange set-up would have grown in the telling?
The Botai were some of the south eastern tribes of what we now call Mongolia. They would have encountered the Greeks near Macedon, Troy and the area around Byzantium. They were horse-tribes, who virtually lived in the saddle, and who needed no words or whips to steer their horses. It would have looked like a creature of one mind to a Greek merchant. Again, is it so strange to allow for the hyperbole of wonder in the tale's re-telling?
Why do we feel the need to explain everything in arcane terms when common sense ones will do? Or does that just make a better story?

Deepest Palest Africa

I wanted to write about African queens: Africa has a wealth of powerful, uncompromising women through its history. But my research was hampered by the fact that almost all the potential resources I found had a very narrow-minded agenda.

I was born in Africa. My family has lived in Africa for 200 years. I grew up in Africa, and Africa will always have a hold on me – wherever I end up. There’s something about the light, the myriad people, languages, idioms, colours, cultures, scents and sounds that will never leave me. My blood will pulse to those beats all my life.

But the people who run these websites (often themselves American) are determined to call me a foreigner, an interloper, a tourist. For them, African is black.

For me, that is a racist concept. Especially when you consider that in northern Africa, the demographic is strongly Arabic. Africa has been subject to many waves of migration both out and in, in all directions. Cleopatra wasn’t a black African – she was racially Macedonian; Ptolemy was one of Alexander the Great’s generals.

I won’t pretend the injustices committed by new arrivals against indigenous peoples never happened or weren’t serious. But there isn’t a people in history that hasn’t, at some point, been enslaved, conquered, abused. It’s just that the African slave-trade was the most recent and publicised for the Western world. And at a time when the world we know now was being formed – including some of its injustices, and the different economic development rates in Africa, Europe, IndoChina and America.

Those who point to the lack of black commercial power in South Africa as evidence of an interim government “sell-out to the white European agenda” (for European, read Western Powers) forget that for 40 years, a deeply unjust system denied the majority of South Africans education and training. The only way for the country to emerge with its economy intact was to leave its infrastructure and industry intact and attract foreign businesses back in. Without a functioning capitalist economy, South Africa would have been another Zimbabwe – yet another economic (and subsequently humanitarian) disaster on Africa’s already long list of them.

(Oh, and capitalism isn’t a white concept. It’s something that works, probably because it’s in line with human nature. Some of these sites confuse race politics with political ideologies).

In order for South Africa’s legacy of racial imbalance to be properly redressed, the country needs to take the long view, and gradually move toward a more demographically reflective business powerbase. But to force it too soon would create an economic collapse because companies would be forced to hire into powerful positions people who have not been trained (because they weren’t allowed to be). So the company either holds thumbs and hopes for the best or “double hires” – getting in other people who have been trained as well as the “window-dressing” they’ve been told they legally require to “correct the imbalances of Apartheid”. Both cost the company far more than hiring one competent person. To a large extent, “affirmative action policies” required “double hiring”.

Unless South Africa wants anarchy, war and chaos, it will take the long view. So close to Zimbabwe, most South Africans can see the downside to policies of sudden rebalancing: land-grabs, expulsions and general slaughter of productive geese while the people starve and the politicians live like oligarchs.

Girls on Film

I went to see the movie ‘Hanna’ (warning: this blog contains spoilers) and I’ve decided I don’t get it.

Hanna is a young teenage girl trained by her father (ex-CIA) to be a very efficient spy and killer. He does this because another CIA agent wants to kill them both, and will attempt this as soon as she finds out where Hanna and her father are. It’s a good action movie – chase sequences, fight scenes, a fairly minimum amount of actual gore – and I did enjoy it, as a film. Despicable villains, sympathetic supporting characters and heroes. Given all of these ingredients, the whole Galinka sub-plot becomes a bit redundant.

Yes, it gives a reason why the CIA, particularly the villainess, want Hanna dead. But as the villainess is operating outside normal protocal, the reason could have a been a lot more personal and human. All the Galinka sub-plot really does is reinforce the meme that no female could be that good a fighter or killer without being genetically mutant in some way. Dark Angel worked the same meme. Why?

I’m sure the writers weren’t deliberately thinking that way, and will doubtless point to impeccable gender-equality credentials if confronted, but the fact remains that when the hero is a killer boy, he doesn’t need to be a GM experiment. When it’s a girl, there seems to be a need to explain away her skills. This supports the patriarchal status quo in which we live, which is probably why we do it, but why support and perpetuate a lie?

While there is no hard evidence for it (due to lack of reliable records from the period) most Wing Chun practitioners accept the story of it’s founding by the nun Ng Mui and Miss Yim Wing Chun. Most Shaolin kung fu sources accept Ng Mui as one of the Legendary Five Founders. And, as I’ve tried to illustrate on this blog, there are other legendary female fighters with dazzling tactics and incredible skills – so why does the 21^st Century supposedly equal West feel the need to negate the idea that girls can be that good a warrior naturally?

Just wondering...

Liar Liar

I saw a study recently about just how inherent to our species deception is (conducted by the Psychology Dept of Univeristy of Portsmouth). Even babies lie, apparently. It's a reasonable conclusion - the animal kingdom lies as well. They say it's a sign of intelligence, which is a little bit worrying, when you think about it. But all in all, it seems Sun Tzu was stating the obvious when he said "all warfare is based on deception." According to the conclusions of the study, you can pretty much say everything is based on deception, or at least the ability to deceive.

Survival can be seen as warfare, for any species. We've pretty much removed ourselves - in the developed world at least - from the knife-edge of survival margins. We've used this inborn ability to lie to create fiction and explain the vast mystery of the universe in stories we can understand, and talked ourselves a load of pretty prose and philosophy about peace and generosity, about the value of honour and integrity (rarity value, but we deceive ourselves and gloss over that), but when the chips are down, and the battle is joined, all of that goes out of the window and we revert to natural, combative, deceptive type.
We laugh when we say that All's Fair in Love and War, but we're only half joking. We use it as an excuse for the most underhand and ruthless behaviour, because we want something so much we don't, by comparison, much care about anyone or anything else. We pay the price without hesitation, regardless of how many other people's pain that price involves.
In love, this generates rom-coms and business for therapists and agony aunts. In war, the picture isn't so pretty. It may be overly optimistic, but it would be nice to think that if we recognise the inherent deceiver in all of us, we might then learn how to mitigate her.

Wild women do - ride V-twins

In the West, the idea that women can drive cars is so common it's not an idea so much as a given. But when it comes to two wheels, it's a  different story.
A friend (female) and I went on a 3000 mile round trip across Europe on our motorbikes. We're used to being looked at, talked about. Two women on big, powerful motorcycles is an unusual sight, especially travelling as a pair, not part of a larger group (ie, travelling with men).
As a biker, I know a lot of women who ride their own machines, from scooters and mopeds to big V-twin cruisers and powerful Ducatis, Blackbirds, Ninjas. Within the biker community, there aren't many raised eyebrows at the fact the keys in my hand are to my own Harley, or that it's not just a show of participation in my boyfriend's hobby (hell, women like that ride pillion).
Half of all new motorcycle sales are to women. The stats on used bikes are probably the same but are harder to compute. Most of the big bike manufacturers, like Honda,  are "watching  the market" to see how strong this trend is, while a few other companies, like Harley, are targetting it. Harley's strategy involves redesigned models for the shorter, lighter rider and clothing designed for the riders seat rather than the pillion, with advertising campaigns to match.
But after days of getting the same stares in six countries, in all weather (especially driving rain) i have to wonder just how far we've really come and how far we still have to go, if even in the largely liberal, equal, democratic EU, a woman on her own two wheels is still  looked at askance; because she's something wild, something free.
And it's disheartening that we still find something somehow strange and almost inappropriate in a  woman's personal freedom and power to control her own ride, and choose her own road.

Wild Women Do (whatever they want, really)

I ride a motorcycle. More and more women do. So why is it still so outlandish of me? Not to mention unfeminine. Some reactions are so extreme it’s all I can do to stay on the bike for laughing. Others have lost various motorcycling outlets my custom, because I do not appreciate spotty teenage moped-riders assuming that I must either ride a scooter or be a pillion because I’m a girl. Actually, you zit-ridden little ignoramus, I have been riding a lot longer than you, I am better at it than you and there is no way in hell you would even begin to be able to handle my bike. Clear? Good.

I recently had an older man view the bike I was selling and attempt to patronise me because I’m a girl. Also to bullsh*t me into dropping the price to less than the bike was worth by listing a host of non-existent mechanical problems on the assumption that, as a girl, I’d not know any better than to believe him. Newsflash, idiot: I have a higher IQ than you do, and that’s not hard.

I prefer the other reactions, from the women who cut me up, then realise I’m not a boy-racer and just about stall in sheer shock to the men who are so busy looking at the bike and me at lights and trying to work out if I really am a woman on that big heavy noisy Amercian bike that they forget to go when the lights change, or else veer distractedly into the car on the other side. While, of course, I sail smoothly on.

Motorcycles are cheaper and more economical to run than cars. They get through city traffic more easily too, and they’re a damn sight easier to park. This isn’t why I ride, if it was I probably would be on a scooter, but when you look at it that way, the idea that women don’t or shouldn’t ride becomes somewhat ridiculous.

I ride because it’s exhilirating. I’m planning a major biking trip soon and when I talk to people about it they’re incredulous, because I’m going with a friend – 2 girls, 2 bikes, a couple of thousand miles of asphalt calling. Where, they want to know, is the support vehicle, the protective company of men? Sorry, what? Where should they be? It’s not an off-road inter-continental trip that would require spare parts and DIY-mechanics. It’s just a holiday.

WAGS to witches - women in power 2

The recent referendumm got me thinking about government. Women in the UK lost the vote in 1832, and only some got it back in 1918. Universal suffrage didn’t come in until 1928. That’s frighteningly recent, but perhaps not as firghtening as the misogyny of Britain under Queen Victoria. Still, before they could elect MPs, women could stand for election to Parliament, in one of the less logical moments of British government.

Nancy Astor is perhaps the most famous of these pioneering lady MPs, because of her wit (some of her one-liners can still be devasting, if used well). She first campaigned for her husband’s Commons seat in 1919 after he inherited a title and therefore had to move to the House of Lords. In the beginning of her career, she was a formidable force, and taken seriosuly by her peers (possibly partly because of her husband and social connections, but nonetheless). Unfortunately, as time went on, some of her views went out of fashion, and her heavy involvement in Appeasement branded her a Nazi-sympathiser. It probably had more to with the horror of the Great War, during which she had worked in a hospital for Canadian soldiers, but despite her subsequent patriotism, she never escaped the taint.

She was the first woman to take up her seat in Westminster, but not the first to be elected. Contance Markiewicz was elected in 1918, but didn’t take it up because of her Irish Republican politics. She went on to become a Minister in the Irish government in 1919.

“Battling Bessie” Braddock may have been elected after women’s enfranchisement, but at least she had no fear of taking on the old boys at their own game – like Astor before her, she had a reputation for using wit to get her way with the likes of Churchill.

They paved the way for Thatcher to gain the PM position a few decades later. One thing all these women have in common, despite wildly different politics, is that they are strong. Iron-willed, determined, bordering on ruthless. But when you get right down to it, so are the men that history remembers equally.

WAGS to witches - women in power

There is a perception of women in power as being hard, ruthless and heartless. Yes, a lot of them are. They had to be to get the power. And oddly enough, a lot of the names we all know come from East – not the officially liberal and equal West (apart from Thatcher, and lately Merckel). Benazir Bhutto, Western-educated and twice Prime Minister of Pakistan, springs to mind. She may or may not have run a corrupt government and it may or may not have been a sham democracy – depending on your political views, but there is no denying that she proved it possible for a woman to rise to the highest political office in a Muslim state. Between her terms in power, she was Leader of the Opposition – also not a post for the shrinking violet the West generally assumes Muslim women to be.

In Burma, we have Aung San Suu Kyi  - possibly the most famous opposition figure in modern politics. Her many years of intermittent house arrest have ensured the kind of global attention to Burma the ruling military junta was probably trying to avoid. She has been influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and Buddhism, and went into politics to promote a democratic model of government. When she was first placed under house arrest, she was offered the alternative of exile. She turned it down.

She has no qualms about making bold statements about the nature of power, fear, corruption (as in the famous “Freedom From Fear” speech) and governmental myopia.

As an Opposition figure, she has not held the reins of power, so it’s difficult to know what kind of leader she would be. But an idea can be formed by the fact that after so many years of struggle, she’s still not discouraged. Finally free (for now), she is still working for democracy and human rights in Burma.

Indira Gandhi remains the longest serving female prime minister, thanks to her 4 terms totalling 15 years in power, during which India went from relying on food aid to exporting food.

But these ladies are just the latest in a long tradition of local queens. After all, when the Roman Empire collapsed, it was Queen Zenobia seized control of the Eastern half.

The Prophet Muhammed’s wife Aisha had enough political clout to lead an army into battle againt someone she thought was trying to usurp Muhammed’s place in Islam. Razia  ruled in 13^th Century India, Amina in 16^th century Zaria (Nigeria). In the 17^th century Ottoman empire there was a group of such powerful women they were known as the “sultanate of women.”

All of which just goes to show that if you want it enough, there’s nothing stopping you.

WILD WOMEN DID (AT LEAST, THEY DID IN EUROPE)

If you’ve read Pauline Gedge’s “The Eagle and the Raven” you will know the names Cartimandua and Boudicca. Both were historical figures, both were queens. And always, one has been reviled and one praised. (Which one’s which, though, has changed). In Roman Britain, Cartimandua ruled the Brigantes with her husband Venutius. They were one of the tribes that dealt with the Romans and became a client of Rome. When Cartimandua divorced Venutius and replaced him with his arms-bearer Vellocatus, who then became king (king, in Celtic terms, being a word for Queen’s consort. She had the right to rule and the power, not him). Venutius, probably influenced by Roman patriarchal culture, rebelled against this decision, and Cartimandua had to call on the Romans to aid her in crushing the revolt. (Unfotunately, they didn’t help her during Venutius’s second attempt).

Boudicca, meanwhile, was Queen of the Iceni, ruling with her older husband Prasutagus. They were also clients of Rome, until Prasutagus died. He left half his belongings to Rome and the rest to Boudicca and their daughters, but the Romans had no concept of women inheriting, so attempted to seize the sovereignty of the Iceni. Boudicca resisted this attempt, and so the Romans, thinking to subdue her, flogged her and raped her daughters. This may have been a mistake.

She killed her daughters (I'm thinking coup de grace), and led one of the most famous rebellions of history. Her forces destroyed Camulodonum, routed the 9^th legion and headed for Londinium. Nero was seriously considering Rome’s complete withdrawal from Britain when Boudicca was finally defeated.

Meanwhile, on the continent in Galatian territory, the fierce Scordisci tribe struggled against famines in their land. None of their chieftains stepped forward to lead them to a better life or propose a solution, so it fell to a woman – Onomaris – to combine all their wealth and lead the tribe across Europe to the lower Danube. She led them successfully through Brennus’s attack on Delphi in the 3^rd century BC and subsequently into war against the Illyrians. Having won, she founded a city (now Belgrade) and ruled the re-settled Scordisci as queen.

Across the Celtic world – most of Europe and some of the Middle East – queens ruled, priestesses led and women fought alongside their men. History generally remembers only those few the patriarchal cultures met (and usually fought) because the Celts had an oral, not a written tradition, so it was up the Greeks and Romans to write their exploits down.

WILD WOMEN, WILD - WELL - MIDDLE EAST

It’s not just the Orient that has a history of fighting and formidable women. The Assyrian records from the 8^th Century BC cite a line of four queens who reigned over one of Assyrias vassal states in succession – Zabibe, Samsi (who led an armed rebellion against the Assyrian overlords. She lost, but at least we know she actively fought), Yatie and Te’el-hunu.

Semiramis of Assyria was a legendary queen even in the Ancient world – but it’s very hard to separate myth from fact. But the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were built in her name.

Stateira I of Persia is perhaps more interesting, because more factual. She was Darius III’s wife, and accompanied him to war – as was the custom for royal Persian women (this alone is significant, given where Persia was and the politics of what’s there now). Darius was defeated by Alexander, who then appears to have usurped his position in his own family as well.

Queen Tomyris ruled over the Massegetae in the 6^th Century BC, and during her reign defeated and killed Cyris, the Persian King after he had invaded her land in an attempt at conquest.

In the 5^th Century, Artemisia, Carian client-queen of Persia, counselled Xerxes to coordinate a land-and-sea attack on the Greeks, hitting both their army and navy. He ignored her advice, and attacked the Greek fleet at Salamis, ignoring their army. In the Battle of Salamis, Artemisia commanded five ships, and after the defeat, advised Xerxes to retreat. (That time he listened). She was held in such high regard, the Iranians named a destroyer after her in the 20^th Century.

And who could forget Dido of Carthage, who famously tricked the local North African tribes who had given her refuge after she fled her homeland – her brother had usurped the throne they were supposed to share – into granting her far more land than they’d anticipated. She asked for only the land she could enclose with a bull’s hide, and when they agreed (probably laughing up their sleeves), she cut the hide into thin strips and encircled an entire hill, upon which she founded Carthage. This required a knowledge of geometry as well as sheer chutzpah. (No wonder I’ve always liked her).