Muhammad Ali (17 Jan 1942 – 3 Jun 2016): Champion of the Human Race
OBITUARIES, 6 Jun 2016
Daniel Horgan – TRANSCEND Media Service
4 Jun 2016 – Born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1942, no one would have known that he would not only become the Boxing Champion of the World 3 times, but also a champion of racial & religious rights as well as a champion of the struggle against armed conflict.
He is the greatest boxer who ever lived. More important is the fact that he did something 99% of us don’t dream about doing. He was sentenced to jail for standing up for what he believed in. Time as well as the historical record of human consciousness have proven him correct.
The story is simple. On April 28, 1967 Muhammad Ali made headlines for refusing to be drafted into the U.S. Army on the grounds of being a conscientious objector. Arguably never in human history through a single act of civil disobedience had a public figure wagered so much. Ali was stripped of his boxing championship. He could not compete in the ring for three years, and his entire way of life was threatened.
Martin Luther King, who was also a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War said that, “In the end we will not remember the words of our enemies, but rather the silence of our friends” Ali also heard this silence louder than any gavel that brought down his prison sentence.
Muhammad Ali Conscientious Objector Arrested. room.live-av.info
Muhammad Ali was as brave as any man who went to Vietnam. That is in no way intended to offend anyone who did. Many lives were lost in Vietnam and Muhammad Ali had a moral compass that guided him to the simple truth that it was not right. He was not astute academically per say but he was as fiercely intelligent as he was competitive and dominant in the ring.
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?
No, I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end.
I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here.
I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.
If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow.
I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.”
His grounds on religious beliefs not to serve in the U.S. Army also proves to bare out how utterly misunderstood Islam was (and still is) by many.
In 1971 The Supreme Court reversed his conviction. He went on to become champion again and again. Later in life, his demonstration of bravery once again shone brighter than his accomplishments in the ring by standing up to Parkinson’s disease with such determined optimism. People closest to Ali understood this every day. This courage and spirit was on display in 1996 when the former Gold Medalist lit the torch to start the Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. He was truly an ambassador to the world and was well liked by everyone everywhere.
President Barrack Obama, said of Ali’s passing, “Muhammad Ali shook up the world. – And the world is better for it.” Indeed it is!
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Daniel Horgan is former student at the European University Center of Peace Studies. He studied under Johan Galtung and the late and much beloved Dietrich Fischer at E.P.U. Dietrich shared the same desire for peace and the same generosity of spirit that Ali shared with the human race.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 6 Jun 2016.
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