The Piper System Blog

Hi all

I want to thank those who responded in various ways to the previous post, it left me with much food for thought. I have the intuition that this is a subject that I will refer to again in future. While I’m pondering some Piper-related thoughts on knife-duelling (or Proportional Armament, or Symmetrical Combat, or whatever the latest buzz phrase is) that I want to publish, I want to revisit this topic. One response I would like in the comments is for those who read this to let us know exactly what you mean when you say you are African. I believe this will go a long way to clarify our understanding. Comments and input are invited and always welcomed.

The feedback received has helped to explain the difficult reception Piper has had in various circles, seeing it is African - and African martial arts are often not well received by the mainstream, and many of those those punting African martial arts are not the most open of sources. I’ve had many who are completely unwilling to speak, those who are unwilling to share their name and those who will only tell us about their sources in exchange for money, without providing information on what the value of those sources is. In my view this secretiveness only harms the African systems being promoted. It also reinforces my discomfort with the experience I’ve had of black Americans not teaching their fighting traditions to anyone other than black people, white people being excluded from learning. This is unfortunate, as here in South Africa we have had to learn to integrate and accept our countrymen of all shades, and we teach what we know openly to all who want to learn, and assist those we can’t help directly in finding avenues of learning.

For the guy who’s somehow become ‘The Druid’ , we’d like to say thank you for the really educational response on your blog, answering questions about the impact the Zulu have had on Western/American consciousness, and on the search for identity and a place to belong. The article can be found here: http://jianghu.wordpress.com/2006/12/22/searching-for-authenticity/. I recommend it as a read, since it has relevance to my thoughts here, provides answers to questions I raised in the previous blog, and I don’t want to repeat what has been so well said. I did unsuccessfully try to post a comment on your blog, however I don’t think they are enabled.

Fahness Lutalo from Zulu Kai wrote to me, and I learned a great deal from him, and it echoes what I have learned from The Druid and Mushtaq Ali (The Traceless Warrior). I’m glad to be speaking with him, and what he said has been humbling. I feel a genuine connection with what he says, and the thoughts expressed below are a distillation of his insightful response to me. If the writing is disjointed sometimes it is because I am inserting someone else’s words and thoughts with my own. Fahness’ words to me were elegant and heartfelt. Any inelegance is my own.

Many thoughts have arisen out of this last exchange, yet I hadn’t originally intended to go down this road (I was just idly browsing), however it is perhaps relevant. It is an existing issue in the (martial arts) world at large and it may be an opportunity to contribute positively to the development and credibility of African martial arts.

From what I have learned, black Americans, torn from ancestral roots, transplanted into a new culture where they still are made to feel like second class citizens, where their ancestry and culture were stripped from them, losing their original cultures and identity, losing the connection to their ancestral root - have suffered a destructive influence on communities and on their concept of self that few of us can relate to. There has been a powerful consciousness movement attempting to offset this effect, which created a new search for legitimacy, for belonging, for a spiritual home and acceptance by the continent and people that spawned their ancestors so long ago.

When one pauses to think about the other cultures that are resident in the US, they have a link to their ancestral roots - be they Chinese, Japanese, Middle Eastern, Indian or Caucasian. Black people in the US have borrowed names and a borrowed culture, much like Coloured people here in South Africa have a culture and names borrowed from Western society, without reference to their indigenous origins. I do need to state that the terms ‘Coloured’ and ‘Black’ are not contentious terms here in my country - they are accepted as normal, even though they are reminders of our racist past. We have learned to forgive, to move forward and to embrace the future, and we as a culture would prefer to move forward and not backwards.

Seeing other races in touch with their culture, the close ties with friends and family and the land of their parents and grandparent’s birth is a hurtful reminder of how their culture was stripped away and replaced with someone else’s during a period of slavery. Calling oneself an African American returns a sense of pride, a sense of knowing that you come from somewhere, somewhere you belonged, where you aren’t the hand-me-downs of slave ancestors.

So if using the name Shaka Zulu makes for better people, heals wounded psyches and uplifts communities then I can only support that. If seeking to bond with and associate with the root of black American’s African ancestry helps a people find a home, find a place to put down their burden and gain an identity, a sense of belonging to something more and it gives them pride and a sense of ‘family’, I support that. If it helps them find a greater attachment to their history to research their ancestral martial arts roots (as martial artists), then I can only endeavour to assist that process. Enthusiasm, dedication and passion of that nature is what we need to see the African branch of the world’s martial arts traditions blossom and become widely known - and we can all benefit from that achievement.

However I do ask that African Americans learn that Africa is a highly diverse continent, with many countries, many languages, people of many complexions, many religions, many widely different ways of life; and to understand that Africa is not a museum. The Africa that you return to now is not the Africa of the time when the first slave ships took away your ancestors to the US.

Many black Americans who come here fail to understand how ‘American’ they are, and how ‘un-African’ this makes them. Please understand, we mean no disrespect, however we see Americans when we see Americans of African descent - we don’t see Africans. However, it does not mean we do not acknowledge the association to the root that you have in your blood. We are glad you choose to associate to the root, still, I have experienced too much frustration and hypocrisy from visitors to be comfortable. We have different values, different ways of perceiving the world, different influences and do not necessariy share your way of perceiving the world, your political views or racial outlook. Yes, there are commonalities, yet there are also differences. Genealogically you are of African descent - this we do not deny, however your values and world view are different, you were not formed by forces on this continent, but by forces on yours.

The oldest human settlers of the African continent were brown skinned, like the Khoe (previously spelled Khoi). The name is derived from the Nama word Khoekhoen (and the adjective Khoekhoe) meaning people, and the San (pronounced Saan, replacing the term Bushmen). They weren’t black, many people in Africa are not black skinned. I have had hints that seemed to say that because I am not jet black I am not true African, as well as statements that because I do not practise African traditions from 400 years ago (traditions from cultures far away from my home) that I am not African. To that I must say that Africans ‘practice Africa’ in many different ways. There exists a romanticised view of Africa, a foreigner’s concept of how he thinks they should be. The only place where that view of Africa will exist is in works of fiction, in novels and movies. Again, please understand Africa’s diversity and evolution.

On the topic of slavery, which has also arisen, Dr Francois Verster at the National Archives in Cape Town has original slave registers, Nigel has handled some that date from 1669. My family name appears in the records, the earliest dated March 1689. My family on my father’s side were slaves who took their owner’s name. Maybe we have more in common than we realise?

A 100 000 years ago the earliest modern man lived in this province, having originated here in Africa. The earliest modern fossils are from Klasies River and Border Cave, not far from my home city. The first true humans are found at Sterkfontein and Olduvai - and new evidence to support the origin of man in southern Africa, a missing link, was recently uncovered a few weeks ago.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20070112014337485C491040

The Western Cape, the province I call my home, was home to the Khoe and the San people. The Khoe were cattle herders, the San were hunter-gatherers. They were brown-skinned, not black. The first settlers and the earliest explorers here in the Cape met the Strandlopers (it translates to walkers on the beaches) and the Khoesan, the indigenous people of this area, who were brown-skinned. Today, the brown-skinned people in the Cape are called Coloured, or Cape Coloured, as a specific ethnic group.

I know I have expressed annoyance in harsh terms, I have expressed my frustration at what I perceive as ignorance and arrogance, at hypocrisy, pretence and efforts to usurp a culture without understanding it. I will let those comments stand, though I may remove one or two of them. In my country we have learned to get over our anger, to forgive, to embrace and accept diversity, to evolve. Those who read my views now will hopefully see those qualities. I hope these words go a long way to forging fresh links to those wishing to build bridges to the continent of Africa and to her people, and makes friends and partners on a lifelong journey.

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