Tribute to Muhammad Ali
Michael Dingake | Tuesday June 7, 2016 16:06
He was black, American and the world champion boxer. The fascinating story about him was the bouts with the German, Max Schemling or some such name. In his first bout staged in Germany during World War II, he was knocked out in the early rounds by the German. In the return match in the US, the Brown Bomber dispatched the German in under three minutes. The story that spread in youth circles was dramatic in tone: Late-comers to the stadium met the punctual fans exiting the stadium. It was, game over! I relished the story of a Niger humiliating an Aryan in the boxing ring.
A black knocking out a white racist in the ring implied blacks would one day overcome white oppression. It was a good omen for oppressed blacks; that was my interpretation of the event. Our boarding school was ecstatic. We started hoisting self-made punching bags on tree branches on the school premises to practise boxing skills, until the principal discovered the bags and ordered them to be dismantled! Later when I went to live in the township, I made new friends who had genuine punch and pedestal bags on residential premises.
Though still a boxing fan, I had other hobbies. I stayed friends, however, with guys who were consistently at it. Whenever the Brown Bomber or another prominent black boxer featured in the US boxing, where most of the boxing championships were staged, we would arrange to listen to the ring commentaries over a wireless set. There was no television then and the radio was the ‘wireless’ before it became today’s radio! Due to the time difference between the US and SA; we had to sacrifice sleep and huddle around the wireless to listen to an 8 pm match in Miami, at 3 am in Johannesburg. We kept in touch with boxing events and boxers’ profiles by religiously reading the Ring Magazine!
Enter Cassius Clay, before he shed the name for the Muslim one, of Muhammad Ali! Clay was the family name inherited by his forebears from their slave master, who happened to have been an abolitionist. It was at this match against Sonny Liston where he wrested the boxing heavyweight championship that we developed infatuation with boxing and Ali.
Previously our allegiance was to Sonny Liston, the champ; not the little known challenger. During the fight Cassius hardly endeared himself to Liston’s fans by his verbal taunts, telling his opponent of his ugliness between punches and counterpunches. Ali not only threw physical punches but psychological jabs as well: “You are ugly. I float like a butterfly and I sting like a bee,” Cassius’s dual-pronged assaults went in step throughout the fight! His agility and verbal taunts won him the title and new fans. He was smart to combine physical skill with mental intuition. From that day on, Cassius Clay, alias Muhammad Ali was unstoppable, until the Establishment stripped him of the title for refusing induction into the national army to fight the Vietnamese.
Black youth in SA, among whom I was one, critical of US imperialistic adventures, mobilised intensely against white bigotry in South Africa inspired by Muhammad Ali’s stance against invasion of Vietnam. Ali claimed an exempt status as a Muslim minister, moreover he had no quarrel with the Vietcong! The invasion of Vietnam by US was repugnant to peace-lovers throughout the world. The US was vilified; Muhammad Ali was idolised. The anti-war sentiment gained ground; US aggression was condemned until she withdrew from Vietnam, tails between the legs and body bags stuffed in military aircraft holds. Innocent American youth had been sacrificed on the altar of white American world supremacist ideals.
We viewed Muhammad Ali resisting army conscription as heroic, not cowardly. He demanded that the Vietnamese be left alone and that all humanity should rally to resist tyranny wherever it reared its ugly head. Regardless of vocation, occupation or profession, humans remain political animals, not political pawns. Attainment of personal celebrity status needn’t be the be-all and end-all of human endeavours; Muhammad Ali sacrificed his personal status for nobler objectives of a better world for all. For this, he was revered by the progressive world, while reviled by the reactionary world.
Sentenced to five years imprisonment, later the sentence reversed on appeal, Muhammad Ali pursued his boxing career, winning back the title he had wrongly lost. He later lost the title to Leon Spinks but won it back on a return match, thereby rewriting the saying, ‘they never come back again’ (meaning heavyweight boxing champions, once defeated never regain their titles), he went on to snatch back the title from Spinks!
Ali was internationalist, fighting in the US, Manila and Zaire in a historic match dubbed a ‘Rumble in the Jungle.’ Visiting Nelson Mandela on the eve of a democratic SA the two soul-mates posed for a shadow boxing picture; the picture should have a high market value not only in financial markets but in the hearts and minds of freedom fighters around the world.
A fiercely independent fighter, Ali took no instructions from his trainer once he had entered the ring. What a role model for Muslim suicide bombers and Muslim-haters of the ilk of Donald Trump who interestingly when he heard of his death, spoke glowingly of his life. The gospel according to Muhammad Ali, should be read far and wide. R.I.P comrade Ali, you were an exceptional human specimen!