The honour being poured out around the world for a heavyweight boxer is on parallel with that which took place upon the death of Nelson Mandala a couple of years ago.
The legacy left by great Mohammad Ali transcends the ring, where he single-handedly transformed the entire sport by setting the bar so high that only time could ever beat him. Given back those three years he spent in jail and away from the ring and having his championship belt stripped for not wanting to “kill people that have done nothing to me or my family,” it’s hard to imaging what he could have, and should have accomplished in the ring.
But that was only the stage building part of his life — a platform from which he could speak against racial and social injustice, and the much hated Vietnam War he refused to fight in.
Most people today will have heard about Ali, but I am one of the lucky Baby Boomers who watched this phenomenal man break all the rules, virtually invent sports trash talk, who could string rhymes together like a rap star long before rap existed, become an icon of hope for countless black and underprivileged kids around the world, and a person people from Pope to pauper clamoured to talk with or even catch a glimpses of.
What would happen in Trumps world if Ali were to come up through the ranks today, at a time when the Republican presidential candidate wants to ban all Muslims from the U.S.? How would Trump view the most famous black man of this era? Friend or foe. How would Ali, the bridge builder, feel about building a wall at the Mexican border?
The contrasts are too numerous and too obvious to even put the names Trump and Ali in the same breath, but here we are. It’s 2016 and our neighbours to the south have gone crazy.
Ali was a great boxer and maybe the best that ever was, but even that was the least of his accomplishments and his influence world-wide.
This is the real Mohammad Ali. I am fortunate enough to have lived at the right time.
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’
“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.”
“Cassius Clay is a name that white people gave to my slave master. Now that I am free, that I don’t belong anymore to anyone, that I’m not a slave anymore, I gave back their white name, and I chose a beautiful African one.”
“A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”
“I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.”
“To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way that you will be truly rich.”
“Terrorists are not following Islam. Killing people and blowing up people and dropping bombs in places and all this is not the way to spread the word of Islam. So people realize now that all Muslims are not terrorists.”
“Hating people because of their colour is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which colour does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”
