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.