Decolonizing Martial Arts (Patreon)

Leftist: Why do you commies always gotta make politics about tanks?

Same Leftist: Here's all my guns

Me: Why you always gotta make politics about guns?

Same Leftist: Here's the best martial art for killing

Me: Why you always gotta make martial arts about killing? Enough with the killing talk

I sent out this tweet:

"How Americans decide whether a traditional martial art is "fake" isn't based on how authentic it is to the culture in which it came from but rather, how much killing it can do. That's a problem that also assumes Americans are the experts on the authenticity of non-American arts."

Later on, it became apparent that this tweet needed to be unpacked because this is a new concept for many people, even on the Left.

My tweet was about decolonizing martial arts. Most martial arts in the US originate from outside of the US. They've come here via neocolonialism and therefore framed through a colonialist lens. This is now so deeply rooted that decolonizing martial arts is a completely foreign concept despite its neocolonial history. Even the naming of these arts as "martial" was decided by the colonizer, and I'm forced to express these concepts in the colonizer's tongue. This, however, does not delegitimize decolonization but puts these normal oppressions into context.

Many Korean kids take taekwondo not because of self-defense or anti-bullying; that's for suburban white kids. Like my parents, many Korean parents enroll their kids in taekwondo for Korean cultural exchange, especially in lieu of access to a Korean language school. This also applies to other Asians and their cultural arts. Likewise, the Black karate and kung fu schools that sprang out of the Black Power movement have a different cultural context than commercial gyms in the suburbs or traditional academies found in Asia.

Some martial arts focus primarily on forms as a way to keep alive and pass on folk/cultural dance, mythology, and storytelling. This also applies to the uniforms. Not to mention martial arts as ritual and expressions of religion and philosophy. (This isn't exclusive to East Asia but applies to Indigenous and African arts, as well as arts found throughout the Global South.)

Consider how Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism have been colonized to mean Western Stoicism, rugged individualism, and Christian residential/boarding school discipline and emotional suppression.

To insist effective killing is the only purpose for martial arts still upholds Western colonialist values and toxic masculinity as the default. This has become such a fixture of reality, even for "conscientious" progressive men, that some can't even conceive of longevity or joy as the default. They will compete over who gets to be the most toxic alpha male art. Then, is premeditated murder the highest expression of martial arts? What about mass shooting? Is a serial killer the best martial artist? Because those would be the most effective forms of killing. (If your mind is already working on better methods for killing, that is part of the problem I speak of.) Not feeling the suffering of others would also be of use here. 

Yet if ultimately our cause as liberation martial artists isn't about longevity or joy, what's the point to all this? How is a Left martial artist any different from a fascist?