True Left

We have the thread about present-day leftists re-embracing ahimsa:
https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/true-left-breakthrough-ahimsa/

Now let's look at the many examples throughout history of leftists applying ahimsa. The False Left has whitewashed history with the narrative of "peaceful protest" to make us forget the militancy and ahimsa historic anti-traditionalist movements had to use in order to achieve anything.

Suffrajitsu is a term used to describe the application of martial arts or self-defence techniques by members of the Women's Social and Political Union during 1913/14. The term derives from a portmanteau of Suffragette and Ju-jitsu and was first coined by an anonymous English journalist during March of 1914.

During the Edwardian Period, jujutsu was promoted as a way to foster women's self defence, autonomy and health, initially in the United Kingdom and then elsewhere in the Western World.

In contemporary usage, "suffrajitsu" describes the suffragettes' techniques of visible 'self-defence, sabotage and subterfuge' against the police and other aggressors, whilst promoting the benefits of jujitsu as a 'free activity' and a form of self-defense for dealing with both domestic violence in the home, and public attacks to women.[1][2]
[...]
Women in particular were seen as ideal to engage in Jujitsu, as their smaller on average builds allowed them an advantage in allowing their opponent to underestimate them based on their being the 'fairer/weaker' sex and then using their jujitsu to topple larger opponents.

Outside of the training suffragettes received related to ju-jitsu, weapons were also frequently taken into account by their practicality, to prevent attack on their persons, both domestically and by the police. Members of the WSPU Bodyguard (see below) were issued with Indian clubs for use as weapons. Women learned to defend themselves with everyday items of clothing such as the Hatpin, used by Edwardian women to hold their oversized hats in place which could at times reach up to 16 inches in length, either to disarm or maim. Flora Drummond, known as 'The General' for wearing a military style uniform, Helen Ogston, Teresa Billington-Greig and Maud Arncliffe Sennett were each known to carry around whips, to intimidate opponents.[4] At the Battle of Glasgow (1914), suffragettes engaged with police by deploying hidden barbed wire as a stalling tactic.[5]
[...]
In 1908, Edith Garrud took over women's classes at the Golden Square School when Uyenishi left England. Garrud also founded the 'Suffragettes Self-Defence Club' in 1909, a suffragettes-only Jujutsu club
[...]
The requirement for suffragette self-defence was reinforced by events such as the Black Friday Raid, wherein plain clothes police officers had allegedly physically and sexually assaulted unarmed women attempting to force entry to the House of Commons during a "Raid on Parliament" protest action. [12]

Even after the dissolution of the more violent tactics used by the WSPU in 1914, in 1918 when Christabel Pankhurst was running for office for the Smethwick seat at the General Election, her supporters used jujutsu to deter protestors rallying against her running for the seat.[13]
[...]
Jujitsu was promoted as a way not only to help defend women but to for their mental and physical health and well-being. The suffragette movement (like the feminist movement to other contact and non-violent sport later on[15]) promoted its recreational usage;[16]
[...]
 in 1913 Edith Garrud's dojo was used as a base for militant suffragettes fleeing from pursuing policemen; hiding their protest implements and changing into Jujitsu uniforms gave them the veneer of respectable sportswomen.[20]
[...]
Jujitsu was initially demonstrated and promoted as a style of self-defense, but after the death of women like Mary Jane Clarke and the Conciliation Bills fiasco, the WSPU began to employ more militant forms of protest such as midnight raids on parliamentarians homes as well as nationwide arson and bombing campaigns, albeit the latter two categories of action were only carried out against unoccupied properties. [23]
[...]
In response to the Cat and Mouse Act of 1913, the WSPU formed what was termed variously the 'Bodyguard', 'Jiujitsusuffragettes' or 'Amazons'; a group of about 30 suffragettes
[...]
The Bodyguards' most well known hand-to-hand combats engagements with police officers were the "Battle of Glasgow" on 9 March 1914, during which about 30 Bodyguards battled a much larger contingent of police constables and detectives on the stage of St. Andrew's Hall before a shocked audience of some 4500 people, and during their "Raid on Buckingham Palace" on 24 May 1914, when club-wielding suffragette Bodyguards fought police in the streets while attempting to access Buckingham Palace and present a suffrage petition to King George.
[...]
Most American suffragists tried to avoid any association with the militant tactics of the British suffragettes. There was no formal organization like the Bodyguard among suffragists in the United States. However, according to historian Wendy Rouse who has studied the origins of the women's self-defense movement in the United States, some American suffragists did advocate self-defense training for women and some groups of suffragists organized small groups to train in secret. Especially after their direct experiences with violence in the 1913 women's suffrage parade, American suffragists recognized that the police would offer them little protection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffrajitsu




Why wouldn't False Left historians and activists be filling history books and blogs with references to cool things like Suffrajitsu? Oh yeah, to keep leftists passive and ensure their protests never amount to anything.

Hmm, you mean the suffragettes didn't just hold cardboard signs and "raise awareness" until the public just spontaneously had a change of heart? The suffragettes had to do what to get their message across?
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffragette_bombing_and_arson_campaign
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suffragette_bombings

Included in the many militant acts performed were the night-time arson of unoccupied houses (including that of Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George) and churches. Suffragettes smashed windows of upscale shops and government offices. They cut telephone lines, spat at police and politicians, cut or burned pro-suffrage slogans into stadium turf,[21] sent letter bombs, destroyed greenhouses at Kew gardens, chained themselves to railings and blew up houses. A doctor was attacked with a rhino whip, and in one case suffragettes rushed the House of Commons. On 18 July 1912 Mary Leigh threw a hatchet at Prime Minister H. H. Asquith.

On 19 February 1913, as part of a wider suffragette bombing and arson campaign, a bomb was set off in the country home of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George, which brought down ceilings and **** walls. On the evening of the incident Emmeline Pankhurst claimed responsibility, announcing at a public meeting in Cardiff, we have “blown up the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s house”. Pankhurst was willing to be arrested for the incident saying “I have advised, I have incited, I have conspired”; and that if she was arrested for the incident she would prove that the “punishment unjustly imposed upon women who have no voice in making the laws cannot be carried out”.[22][23]
[...]
In response to the bomb Lloyd George wrote an article in Nash's Magazine, entitled “Votes for Women and Organised Lunacy” where he argued that the “main obstacle to women getting the vote is militancy”. It had alienated those who would have supported them. The only way for women to get the vote is a new movement “absolutely divorced from stones and bombs and torches”.[22]
[...]
On the evening of 9 March 1914 in Glasgow, about 40 militant suffragettes, including members of the Bodyguard team, brawled with several squads of police constables who were attempting to re-arrest Emmeline Pankhurst during a pro-suffrage rally at St. Andrew's Hall. The following day, suffragette Mary Richardson (known as one of the most militant activists, also called "Slasher" Richardson) walked into the National Gallery and attacked Diego Velázquez's painting, Rokeby Venus with a meat cleaver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Social_and_Political_Union#Hunger_strikes,_direct_action

Ueshiba did not understand Ahimsa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikido#Religious_influences

After Ueshiba left Hokkaidō in 1919, he met and was profoundly influenced by Onisaburo Deguchi, the spiritual leader of the Ōmoto-kyō religion (a neo-Shinto movement) in Ayabe.[18] One of the primary features of Ōmoto-kyō is its emphasis on the attainment of utopia during one's life. This idea was a great influence on Ueshiba's martial arts philosophy of extending love and compassion especially to those who seek to harm others. Aikido demonstrates this philosophy in its emphasis on mastering martial arts so that one may receive an attack and harmlessly redirect it. In an ideal resolution, not only is the receiver unharmed, but so is the attacker.[19]

Fortunately the Wikipedia page accurately does not attribute his foolishness to Buddhism. Correct understanding of Ahimsa according to Buddhism should lead to ideals such as:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikken_hissatsu

Ikken Hissatsu (一拳必殺[1]) is a term used in traditional karate, meaning "to annihilate at one blow".[2]

In fact, this has been covered before:

http://aryanism.net/blog/aryan-sanctuary/illridewithyou-in-action/comment-page-1/#comment-173973

http://aryanism.net/blog/aryan-sanctuary/illridewithyou-in-action/comment-page-1/#comment-173977

http://aryanism.net/blog/aryan-sanctuary/illridewithyou-in-action/comment-page-1/#comment-173983

Is that necessarily leftist though?

When starting this thread I was thinking more along the lines of historic left-wing activists/organizations who did not conform to the "hold up a cardboard sign" style of protest.

Was Hirohito a leftist who supported the Japanese military actions or just a figurehead for military generals?

"Japan's actions towards Hong Kong and China could be framed as a non-Western rightist approach."

"Rightist" implies pro-Western by definition. Recall:

Rightists believe that non-Western societies should feel fortunate and grateful for all that Western civilization brought them
...
Leftists, on the other hand, believe that non-Western societies justifiably feel wronged and resentful for the ideas that Western civilization forced them to adopt

So I suggest the accurate terminology would be "Japanese cultural supremacist", which would not be a form of rightism so long as "Japanese" refers to Japan in contrast to the West. Only if Japan were presenting itself as more Western than Britain (and hence more beneficial to Hong Kong than Britain, but hence taking the position that Britain was beneficial also) could it be described as rightist. But the text appears to suggest the former narrative rather than the latter:

Their propaganda also pointed to the pre-eminence of the Japanese way of life, of Japanese spiritual values and the ills of western materialism.

"surely rightist traditionalists within Japan would also have supported dismantling Western colonies and removing Western influences from them?"

As per what was explained above, rightists would not have supported removing Western influences from colonized lands. They would have wanted Japan to take over the colonies, but to then apply the Meiji Restoration approach to those colonies:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/shimabara-rebellion-the-christian-revolt-that-isolated-medieval-japan/msg13827/#msg13827

which would mean adding Western influences. A good example is what was built in Taiwan under rightist Japanese rule:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Taiwan#Period_of_Japanese_rule_(1896%E2%80%931945)



















"Since Japan lost, we never truly got to see whether the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere would have been a nationalist-socialist anti-Western alliance, or merely Western colonial hegemony replaced with Japanese hegemony."

I would divide it into three possibilities rather than two to make things clearer. If Japan had won, we could have had:

1) Japan promoting each former Western colony's local culture in each respective former Western colony (now independent countries)

OR

2) Japan promoting Yamato culture in all former Western colonies (now Japanese territories)

OR

3) Japan promoting Meiji culture in all former Western colonies (now Japanese territories)

While 1) would seem to correspond to what you call "anti-Western alliance", both 2) and 3) would probably fall under what you call "Japanese hegemony". However, only 3) can be accurately called rightist.

As for whether 1) or 2) is better, this depends on how we qualitatively judge the content of the cultures in question on a case-by-case basis. There is no requirement that we always support the more indigenous culture purely because it is more indigenous. We support whichever culture is qualitatively superior by our standards. This is also why we frequently defend folkish imperialism:

https://trueleft.createaforum.com/true-left-vs-false-left/true-left-breakthrough-folkish-imperialism/