Pirates and 'black shirts'

With thousands upon thousands protesting in Luneta and EDSA, who would have imagined that a small group of approximately 500 “boys” and men would end up grabbing everybody’s attention, including local and international media.

- CITO BELTRAN

They were noticed for two things in particular - their violence and their symbolic outfits. Small in numbers, their choice of black shirts, black balaclavas (ski masks) and their black Jolly Roger pirate flags mixed with reckless courage and anger, certainly forced us to watch!

How do you ignore such outfits that bring up images of Hamas and ISIS fighters and, for the Boomer Filipinos, the “Black Shirts” of the early 1970s, a Muslim defense group that waged a bloody and bitter war against Ilagas.

But more importantly, that flag, the toothy pirate flag that was prominent in the Indonesian protest marches, carried by many in the Nepalese uprising, is now seen in protest marches in the Philippines and France.

You can’t be blamed if you were thinking of the Pirates of the Caribbean or the Houthi rebels in the Straits of Hormuz. But why did that pirate’s flag seem comical, grinning more than menacing?

With a few Google clicks and AI assist, we are introduced to the world of “Gen Z Warriors.” The pirate flag referred to in all the conflicts has an unlikely origin. It begins in the Manga world created in Japan.

It is part of an anime or Japanese animation series entitled “One Piece” that came out in 1999 and has set or broken records in publishing, even garnering a broadcast slot on Netflix with millions of devoted followers, most of whom are Gen Z.