Martial Arts as a Political Movement
Henry Ford said "history is bunk" but lessons from history can
be gleaned, which are relevant to the present day. The Tom Cruise film "The Last
Samurai" deals with the downfall of the warrior class at the end of the
nineteenth century in Japan, due to changing times, industrialisation and the
emergence of the Emperor of Japan as the titular head of government. Changes in
Japanese society caused the decline of the Samurai, as in the west centuries
before the "Black Death", with subsequent population crash and the internecine
struggle of the "War of the Roses", caused the death of feudalism as a concept.
The democratisation of warfare with the wide availability of gun powder, why
spend money training, equipping a fighting force, and maintaining it for years
when a conscript peasant army could be trained in a few months with as great a
capacity for killing due to firearms; which do not discriminate who they kill
prince or peasant it is all the same.
All kings or presidents are unhappy to have a group of
individuals trained in the martial arts which pose a threat to the state, the
status quo. The "Boxer Rebellion" in China is a case in point. The kung fu
fighters were originally secretly encouraged by the Dowager Empress as a force
to remove western influence in China, especially the hated Christian
Missionaries, they were ruthlessly suppressed when they failed and challenged
her authority. The Shaolin Temple was destroyed by imperial forces when they
were perceived to be a threat to those in power, the trained fighting monks were
needed in time of national peril, from some external threat. The burning of the
temple the escape of the five ancestors, the fighting monks to survive, are said
to be the founders of the majority of the Chinese fighting systems today as well
as the Triads, Chinese Mafia Clans. The founder of modern China, Sun Yet Sen,
needed the Triads to come to power, he was even one himself. The late
generalissimo Chang Ki Shek needed the Triads and was a founder of one of the
biggest gangs, the 14K. In the west the influence of warrior monks is not the
same, but freemasonry has influence in our state. What is the freemason's
ancestor but the Knights Templar, an order of warrior monks, charged with
guarding the remains of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem during the crusades? The
order was prescribed by Philip the Fair, king of France during the middle ages,
he owed them too much money and coveted their wealth. The modern freemason
movement may owe its existence to the age of enlightenment in the eighteen
century, but the secret rituals mirror the movements origins.
You will ask what has this to do with modern times? A movement
with millions of acolytes, the Falun Gong movement, since nineteen ninety-nine
has been proscribed in the Peoples Republic of China. The government of Jiang
decided this was a threat to the regimes authority that they had to be dealt
with. This should not surprise us in the west, as we saw on television the
suppression of the Democratic Student Movement with tanks in Tenniman Square in
Beijing in the early nineties. China's human rights record is not relevant to
modern democratic governments today as China is a large untapped market of
consumers for our western goods. Politically no one wants to offend China,
therefore the awarding of the Olympic franchise to Beijing after the Athens
Olympics.
Yours
in budo
Ian "Lurch" Durie.