intelligence and depth
Gavin Evans
It’s in the nature of those who attract epthets like “great”, “the greatest”, and now, of course, “the greatest of the millennium”, that a large proportion of the population should at least have vivid recall of how, why, and where this exalted human being came to their vicarious attention.
I remember my first Muhammad moment: Kalk Bay, 1966, the day after he had carved up Henry Cooper in six rounds. “What we really need is a Joe Louis to give Cassius Clay a good hiding,” said my father, and his clergyman friends concurred, with much muttering about “teaching him a lesson”.
As a six-year-old I was a little confused as to why this Clay (by then, in his third year as Ali) inspired such passion among men as liberal as my father, but the moment stuck and over the next decade I absorbed everything I could about him. From Muhammad (or his many biographers) I discovered the Nation of Islam, the Klan, Malcolm and Martin, “hell no we won’t go”, “motherfuckers”, “cocksuckers” and so much more. Next to his ridiculously handsome portait I placed a poster on my bedroom wall saying: “Black is Beautiful; white is white” and I acquired a not altogether realistic ambition to emulate him as heavyweight champion of the world
Fast forward 26 years, from Kalk Bay to the former Jan Smuts Airport, April 1993, and you reach the morning of Muhammad’s only visit to South Africa. As I was about to leave the office, the sports editor called out, “I suppose you heard the news, Chris Hani has just been shot. Murdered.” Suddenly, the idea of observing the sad spectacle of a shuffling childhood hero lost its uncertain allure. Ali had been a figure of mythological proportions; Hani, to me, flesh and blood. The job became an emotion-suppressing duty.
When we arrived at the airport there were several hundred Ali watchers on hand, almost all black, and they too were trying to reconcile their shock at the morning’s news, with the anticipation of seeing the man. At first, from those who knew me, it was lots of “Hey, bra, terrible news”, but then a curious thing happened. We were there to see Ali and were not about to have a Polish Nazi pissing on our parade and so, gradually, we allowed Muhammad to take over.
Finally, we spotted that famous, fatter, but still-handsome face and the crowd pressed in, reaching out, touching. He moved slowly, his body heavier than before. After a long, crushing shuffle, he took his seat. There were speeches and prayers including one from an ANC Youth Leaguer who reminded us of Hani, and we were all jolted back to reality. Ali, who no doubt had never previously heard of Hani, spoke in his painfully slow, quiet whisper about Allah, and about how for so long he’d wanted to make this trip, and how grateful he was finally to get the chance. Though I was relieved at his lucidity I thought he was doing no more than going through the motions, and then, suddenly it all changed.
His eyes flashed, he smiled playfully. “Let me take on one of your boxers now,” he said, and then Dingaan Thobela had his moment to join Muhammad. Ali’s eyes flared and he changed pace, springing to his feet, and began pumping out his fists in fast combinations, grinning broadly in his enjoyment at his own joke. The punches all stopped just short of Dingaan’s head. The lightweight fired back similarly, and Ali blocked in mid-air, sprightlier than any of us expected.
If you ever require evidence that the “general intelligence” measured by IQ tests is nothing of the sort look into Ali eyes for a few seconds.
Here is a man who consistently measured 78 on his “Intelligence Quotient” tests, and yet, even more than the street suss, the wit, the rhyme, the mockery and self- parody, the intellectual coherence and debater’s propensity of his youth, here was a highly intelligent man of real depth.
As he sat there sweating lightly, he returned to a contemplative mode, but those few minutes were evidence enough for me that no matter how much the punches and the Parkinson’s Syndrome had affected his speech, his mind was as sharp as ever. Sharper in some ways, because there was a look of wisdom behind the smile. I’d seen my share of punchy boxers whose powers of reasoning had been addled by the accumulation of punches but not this Ali. I was relieved and moved, and I am a little ashamed to say that I returned to the office with my head filled with Muhammad, and, for the moment, emptied of Chris and I’m sure that most of us who were there felt the same temporary relief.
What these two vignettes might illustrate is that this is a man who has an immense impact on those he touches. I’m sure every one of the thousand or so who packed that airport had a tale to tell of his significance in their lives
However, it is worth back-pedalling a bit here. There is a tendency to deify Ali, remove the paradoxes and to strip him of the harsher side of his flawed humanity. As a boxer he was “sublime”; as a political figure “heroic”, as a thinker “brilliant”, and as a person, well, truly magnificent. Even his doggerel becomes “poetry”.
Tone it down by a few decibels and there is a case for the airbrushed version. I could rattle on about his speed, timing and unorthodox defensive brilliance in the ring, as well his ability to absorb punishment – and look at the men he beat: Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and, most remarkable of all, George Foreman.
Certainly he changed his own sport forever. He had a major stylistic influence on boxing and without him it would have taken far longer for boxers and other sports stars to find their own voice. He was also the first global sports star – for over a decade or so the world’s most famous person – and through his use of this perch he opened the way for the Michael Jordans and Tiger Woods of today.
Far more significantly, he offered hope and direction to millions through his example in seizing control of his destiny and defying the white establishment, (most notably through choosing jail over the army – though he was never actually imprisoned).
And yet in each of the zones he inhabited he was far from flawless. As a boxer Ali was an “armpuncher” and a “headhunter” who had trouble with unorthodox pressure fighters. He was knocked down twice on his way up by men we’d consider small cruiserweights today and aside from the aging, alcoholic Liston, who may well have taken a pair of “dives” against Ali, he was never tested at his peak, from 1964 to 1967. After his return in 1970 he was only in prime condition for a handful of fights and his record was inflated by some stinker verdicts in his favour (most notably against Norton and Jimmy Young).
He was not always the best of human beings either. He once slapped around his first wife Sonja, as well as his father and his cornerman Bundini Brown. He was extraordinarily sexually voracious and his attitude to women could most generously be described as antediluvian. He was also cruel – way beyond the call of duty – to several of his opponents and seemed to take pleasure in hurting them.
As a religious figure, he fell under the spell of a nasty little fraudster, Elijah Mohammed, adopted his most outlandish beliefs on everything from racial purity to divine spaceships circling the earth. When it was demanded of him, he callously snubbed his closest friend in the movement, Malcolm X.
Even his stand on the Vietnam War was more hesitant than sometimes portrayed, and when the Nation of Islam split (he followed the Malcolm route towards conventional Islam), his political naivity became apparent – backing rightwing Republicans because they seemed nice to him, for example.
So then, a flawed hero, like all the rest, whose every yin had its yang. Cruel, kind, silly, wise, myopic, visionary, self-centred, altruistic. Yet what emerged from this conundrum was of immense significance through his roles as innovator, rule breaker and inspirer. By the time he beat Foreman in Zaire in 1974, the Vietnam War was almost over and mainstream America had transformed its hate into love, and so Ali was transformed from a symbol of resistance to “mere” iconic celebrity.
What is remarkable is that in this era of nanosecond memories, when the shadows of all other sporting icons seem to shrink or disappear, the man who created the sporting soundbite has outlasted all the rest; the boxer who floated like a butterfly has acquired gravitas; and the words of the now almost-silenced “Lip” are played – over and over again.