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.