Why aren’t there any black angels?

In Muhammad Ali, many South Asians found a kindred spirit though their circumstances were different, even opposite on occasions. In a rejection of the narrow zeal many of us in the media flaunt, including the incorrigible TV journalist in Delhi who seldom fails to underscore her love of the army, Ali showed the way of a less passionate nationalism.

In this respect, I must confess to feeling relieved when stories surfaced recently about prospective Indian soldiers who were made to strip to their underwear to write their entrance exams. The men could cheat to get into the Army, the newspapers suggested. Explaining why the aspiring jawans took their exams but surrendered their dignity, the papers spoke of the official worry that the men might carry answer papers concealed in their clothes. Were the men planning to cheat to serve the nation or were they merely desperate to land a coveted job?

Which, to my mind, would make the prospective soldiers that much more human. Another raging issue concerning men in uniform has found former officers clamouring for higher retirement benefits. It’s a valid human need not to be confused with selfless service to the nation. In Pakistan, Army officers are assured of a plot of land among other generous retirement benefits, all in appreciation of their exclusively patriotic duty. Human needs deserve everyone’s indulgence, but must its recipients usurp the nationalist pedestal?

Ali’s humanist urges were different from ours. The military craved his services and he responded with a very firm “no”. “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?” he famously said. “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…”

Muhammad Ali was secure with his lofty moral compass. However, we can still pick a bone or two with his transition from Christianity to Islam. Was it essential to his humanism rooted though it was in concern for fellow African Americans? “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.”

There was a fine point that Ali may have missed here. Much of the white world was in ferment over the Vietnam War just as it was against the pervasive racism in America. It wasn’t the Beatles or Bob Dylan or Jane Fonda alone who stood up for Ali’s cause, there was the entire hippie movement of primarily young white men and women who stood with him. Besides, there was always the example of the ideologically seasoned civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King, a Christian preacher who felt no great desire to swap his religion. Nelson Mandela was in a league of his own as a fighter against injustice who was rooted in his own beliefs.

I am not suggesting which faith is better than which and I doubt there can be such a competition. I am only trying to point out facts relevant to the question: Why the transition of faith? As far as slavery was concerned, Muslims, primarily ruthless Arab traders, have competed nearly equally with Europeans in inflicting pain on the African people. As to the question: Which Muslim country had spoken out against American brutalities in Vietnam, I must confess to not finding a single leader of eminence between Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia who opposed Washington.

Be that as it may, it is a mocking fact of our times that Ali passed away precisely when a Muslim-baiting Donald Trump’s stars were on the ascent in America. On the other hand, his death followed the rise of Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi as a self- proclaimed champion of the religion Ali had embraced in good faith. This will be debated even after his deeply mourned passing away.

Of the boxers of Ali’s time, some of us had greater admiration for Cuba’s Teofilo Stevenson over him. Of course, Ali was a greater entertainer, always. I remember once joining a group of joyous Pathan and Malayali cabbies in Dubai just to shake hands with the legend. They lauded him as a Muslim hero. To me, he was a great symbol of dissent. A sizeable crowd of South Asia’s hoi polloi had tracked Ali to a nondescript shop in the emirate. It was a lazy afternoon in the 1980s and a few Sri Lankan office clerks had deserted their posts to be part of the moment. Ali was a guest at the inauguration of a wristwatch or some such. The shopkeeper was a friend of a friend Ali had mumbled about the pro bono mission. He hugged and mingled with ordinary people and the ordinary people were forever his ardent fans.

Unlike Ali, however, Cuba’s Stevenson was not a product of an industry that boxing had become. He was a three- time Olympics champion and an ardent fan of Fidel Castro. Who knows what the outcome would have been had Stevenson not refused millions of dollars for a match with Ali.

Ali asked questions to which there was often no answer. He asked his mother during their church visits why Jesus was white and why weren’t the angels black? His mama said the black angels were in the kitchen preparing a meal with milk and honey. Did this curiosity lead him to the Nation of Islam? Whatever the truth, the angels are still mostly white.