“With Love, Muhammad Ali”: A Your Rights Matter Obituary

Yesterday marked the untimely death of Muhammad Ali. Born Casius Marcellus Clay, Jr. on 17 January 1942, Ali discarded his birth-name upon entering the Nation of Islam in 1964; declaring that Casius Clay was “a slave[s] name” and one which he neither chose nor wanted. Not only was Ali a world-class boxer, he was a lover of the spoken word, a deeply religious man, a champion of human rights and a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and it is here, in Ali’s rich and fascinating human rights record, rather than his time spent in the ring, that we find the focus of this obituary.

Our story begins on 28 April 1967, on which day Muhammad Ali refused to fight in the Vietnam War on behalf of the United States of America. As a result, he was unceremoniously stripped of his heavyweight title and given a 5-year prison sentence.

Of his decision to refuse, Ali said:

I ain’t got no quarrel with those Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger … 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.

Legally, he claimed the status of conscientious objector based on his adherence to Qur’anic scripture. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States embraces the free exercise of religion and subsequent legislation gave potential soldiers with sincere opposition to war, based on religious training and belief, the right to exempt themselves from drafting.

Ali lodged a 6-page letter with the Draft Board, asking them to use their discretion to re-open his application. He stated that he should be entitled to exemption from drafting “on the grounds he was a minister of religion.”

The Board refused and Muhammad Ali’s appeal eventually made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the US.

In Clay v United States (1971), the Justices found unanimously in Ali’s favour. Mr Justice Douglas’s opinion is by far the most illuminating. He opined:

That belief is a matter of conscience protected by the First Amendment which Congress has no power to qualify or dilute as it did in … the Military Service Act of 1967 …

His judgement, while concise, is saturated with analysis of the Islamic conception of a just war and as such it constitutes a welcome engagement with the right to freedom of religion, the exercise of which, when balanced against competing interests, requires a high degree of understanding. This is particularly so in cases of conscience where the objector is often faced with a stark decision: betray his/her religious conviction, or face a hefty prison sentence.

In addition, and alongside the series of similar cases preceding it, the judgement foreshadowed far later developments at the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Article 9 of the Convention protects freedom of religion, but qualifies the right to “manifest” one’s beliefs in certain situations. Yet, it was not until Bayatyan v Armenia in 2011 that the ECtHR finally held, in short, that Members of the Council of Europe could no longer prosecute genuine conscientious objectors to war.

It is fair to say that were it not for courageous, conscientious objectors like Muhammad Ali and Vahan Bayatyan, unbridled and compulsory military conscription would still be entirely permissible.

Muhammad Ali’s human rights work was far from restricted to his own litigation. In 1978, he first visited the United Nations Special Committee against Apartheid. According to the UN website, he came bearing a “message of peace and spirituality” and during his visit he gave an impassioned speech to the Committee:

Regardless to man’s title, regardless to man’s wealth, rank, opposition; if the heart is not great, then he cannot be great. But, if the heart is great, that man remains great under all circumstances: rich or poor, large or small …

Implicit is the notion that we are deeper than our flesh: it is what resides in our hearts and minds that matters. An adamant practitioner of his preaching, Ali conducted various missions alongside the UN, including a successful mission to rescue a number of hostages in Lebanon in 1985 and participation in the delivery of humanitarian aid to various developing nations. Perhaps most incredibly, he flew to Baghdad in 1990 to meet with Saddam Hussein. His goal was to secure the safe return of 15 American hostages. According to the New York Post, Hussein had said at the end of the visit “I am not going to let Muhammad Ali return to the US … without having a number of the American citizens accompanying him.” He returned with all 15.

As a result of his early work for the United Nations, in 1998 the boxer was designated as a United Nations Messenger of Peace. According to the UN, Messengers are:

distinguished individuals, carefully selected from the fields of art, literature, science, entertainment, sports or other fields of public life, who have agreed to help focus worldwide attention on the work of the United Nations.

One of Ali’s most important visits as a Messenger was to Afghanistan in November 2002. He arrived at Kabul airport on 17 November for a three-day visit, during which time he would visit the Karte Sei High School – supported by UNICEF, before proceeding to a pioneering World Food Programme (WFP) women’s bakery project which was, at the time, providing bread to 250,000 vulnerable people in Afghanistan. He also met with various beneficiaries and later donors in a bid to paint a picture of the continuing need of the people of Afghanistan for external aid donations.

During and after his visit Ali dished out praise and inspiration, describing his admiration of the girls who were back in education despite the hardships they faced before his visit and of the hard work done by both charities and the people of Afghanistan to abolish poverty. In turn, Angela Kearney of UNICEF-Afghanistan described the profound impact Ali’s visit had on the children of Afghanistan.

When Ali declared, having defeated Sonny Liston in 1964, “I shook up the world! I shook up the world!” he could not possibly have known in quite how many ways he would break down social prejudice, in quite how many people he would inspire selflessness, how many Americans he would rescue, how many children he would preach to and quite how significantly he would alter our collective worldview.

No obituary could do justice to the magnitude of Ali’s celebrity as both a boxer and a human rights advocate; a celebrity which he invariably used to “help lift up humanity”. It is in the youth of today that his legacy will live on. As such, I leave the reader with an extract from a heart-warming letter written to the children of Kabul which, I am certain, is equally applicable to children the world over:

I want to thank you, my young friends, for showing me how strong you are in spite of the hardships your country still faces. You must keep that strength. You must continue to hope for a brighter tomorrow. You are the life and soul of Afghanistan.

With love,

Muhammad Ali