A Nightmare Realised

This was a difficult piece of news to digest. It resonates across many aspects of who I am, what I do, and some of the things I am passionate about. But it took me some time to figure out how I wanted to approach this. Ultimately, I think it best to talk about this in my capacity as a Guro (Instructor) in the Filipino Martial Art of Pekiti Tirsia Kali. Pekiti is a blade-based system and our blade of choice is a Ginunting - which is essentially a specialised machete. So when yesterday, the 27th of January 2021, Channel News Asia broke the news:

”A 16-year-old Singaporean boy was detained in December under Singapore’s Internal Security Act (ISA) after making "detailed plans and preparations to conduct terrorist attacks" against Muslims, authorities said on Wednesday (Jan 27).

He planned to use a machete to attack Muslims at two mosques in the Woodlands area on Mar 15, the second anniversary of New Zealand's Christchurch attacks.”

Something hit home. My heart broke for the people who now can’t, quite reasonably, feel safe. It starts with incidences like this. We begin to eye those in our neighbourhood with suspicion, with fear - it’s the perfect recipe to create divisions in our society. And we can’t let that fear win - we have to strive to believe in the goodness of people and remember that the vast majority of people are, ultimately, good.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a glorified advertisement to start any manner of training. I would like to think that I am not so disgusting a person that I would hijack what could have become a national tragedy and capitalise on a climate of fear to make some quick dollars. And while it might not be a tragedy because he was caught early and no one died, this is, for many Singaporeans from different walks of life, a nightmare come true. He was self-radicalised - there was no secret group operating in our shores that recruited and groomed him. It is still horrifying.

I am relieved that he was caught before he could take action - and I believe in the process of de-radicalisation which our authorities employ. And while I have full confidence in their approach, I also believe that we as a society have to be vigilant and actively fight against this manner of radicalisation so that, ideally, de-radicalisation isn’t something we ever have to use. Moreover, I think that we, Martial Arts practitioners, especially instructors, have a moral duty to be especially active in this regard.

Radicalisation, fanaticism, zealotry aren’t isolated to religious groups alone. You can find them in some wellness circles (like some of the bigger essential oil MLMs) and you can definitely find them in Martial Arts.

I can only speak for my experience in Filipino Martial Arts - but there are many of us who engage in what has been called Military LARPing. We like to imagine ourselves as “badass specialist operator commando”-types with our blades. In fact, Tuhon Bill McGrath of Pekiti-Tirsia International has an excellent post on avoiding becoming a knife cult, which you can read, and I recommend you do, here. To quote:

“Knife work is inherently "dark" and it is all too easy for your students to go over to "The Dark Side" while training in it. While I want my students to take their training seriously (and the consequences of their actions VERY seriously), I don't want them to take themselves or even me too seriously. Here is the danger I am trying to avoid. What should be a defensive tactics class that simply focuses on one practical defensive tool, can easily be turned into "The Cult of the Knife.”

When teaching knife, it seems almost a natural inclination of some students (especially the young men), to turn the class into a cult built around what badasses they are because they train in knife work. Unfortunately, if an instructor actually wanted to turn his martial arts class into a cult, the knife class is an easy place to do it.”

And while he has excellent suggestions in his post, I feel we can do more.

When you train or teach a style/system that is seen as more tactical, it certainly has the propensity to attract certain types of people. People who might already have inclinations towards radicalisation, or people who already are radicalised and are seeking training - like someone who might search in Google, “how fight machete.” Now, in general, it’s not too difficult to tell who these people are.

And when one of these people turn up at your class wanting to learn “how fight machete”, we have two options. We can turn them away or we can attempt to reach out to them and create an opportunity for them to create meaningful connections - after all, meaningful connections are an excellent antidote to othering.

Now, I don’t think it is wrong of instructors to turn them away, because, “who wants to train with that weirdo - he feels like he’s going to stab someone one day.” I simply feel that the active role of reaching out is a more effective way of creating a better society. And of course, if we feel we aren’t able to help them and they might still pose a danger - then we’re in the right position to alert the relevant authorities. And we certainly shouldn’t be contributing to any sort of zealotry - religious or martial.