People

Float Like A Butterfly
Sting Like A Bee
Mohammed Ali
1942 - 2016

DYA SINGH

Mohammad Ali, arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer, and certainly the most charismatic ever, died on June 3, 2016.

I had always been fascinated by Mohammad Ali since he first burst into the limelight as Cassius Clay and humbled the harder-hitting and bigger Sonny Liston in 1964, claiming the heavyweight title at the young age of 22.

The loud mouthed but extremely talented black 'young upstart' who not only stuck his neck into the proverbial lion's den time and time again, by taking on heavy-weight boxers who had greater brute punching strength than him, and beating them, but also used his boxing talent to galvanise a generation of African-American youth towards discovering themselves.

The man who coined famous phrases like 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee' and 'black is beautiful' took on the white-American establishment as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War on religious grounds. He converted to Islam in his quest to discover his true identity.

His objections were that the Vietnamese had never enslaved his people, nor were they mistreating his people. If there was an enemy, it was the white-American establishment.

Of course, not everyone, not even some of his own black brothers and sisters agreed with him, but then - 'it marag payr dairymaid / sir deejai kaan na keejai'. (Once you have set foot on your own chosen path and vision, then even if the whole world turns against you, do not deter.)

And he did not deter, though getting his title stripped from him, being jailed, and losing millions in earnings in the process.

Then he rose again, like the proverbial phoenix, first beating Joe Frazier in reclaiming his heavyweight title and then successfully defending it against the hard-hitting George Foreman.

Of course, speaking out for African-American identity, he also urged black youth to marry within their race - an issue that even the Ku Klux Klan agreed with him! To him, his identity, his true identity, not the one given to him by the white man, was most important and that was his vision for his people besides coming out of poverty.

He made boxing an internationally accepted sport - and it will appear that that recognition will die with his passing away because no other boxer since has had the kind of charisma and drawing power that Ali had. He even fought world boxing title fights in other countries to raise not only the profile of the sport but also draw world attention to the down-trodden, especially his own people, in Africa. (I think people will remember his famous 'Rumble in the Jungle' where he did the near impossible by defeating George Foreman in Zaire in 1974 on his famous comeback to world boxing.)

I draw a parallel here with our own quom.

Though as Sikhs we only number 30 million, we are facing issues of identity, now that we are a global community (quom) with roots in every land.

Each Sikh has to ask himself/herself if one is an Indian, a South Asian … a Punjabi … an American, Australian, Briton, Canadian, eetc. … or a Sikh first.

My answer is quite simple. I am a Sikh first, an Australian by nationality, and proud of my Punjabi ancestry. Sikhs in the subcontinent might not like that but especially as time goes by, they all have to accept that they are first Sikhs, and secondly nationals of their place of residency - the country which provides them their living.

Our 'role models', the Mohammad Ali's of the Sikh community, need to understand that and champion that cause. They should not only become highly successful in their chosen fields of endeavour but take a leaf out of Ali's book, and champion global Sikh identity at the same time.

I guess I would not expect much from Sikh sporting 'role models' in India - like cricketer Harbhajan Singh or Navjot Singh Sidhu, because their focus, if there is one, is for Sikhs in India. But, our role models globally need to be conscious of their role for the future of the global Sikh quom.

I know of many who hold the Sikh way of life close to their hearts and I applaud them - actor and businessman, Waris Singh Ahluwalia in USA, rapper 'L-fresh' Sukhdeep Singh and wordsmith Sukhjeet Kaur Khalsa (the later two from Australia), to take but a few examples.

In Canada, we have some heart warming examples like Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan, young and charismatic politician Jagmeet Singh, just to name two.

I salute the role models we already have and the future Mohammad Ali's of the global Sikh way of life.

Mohammad Ali, like all of us puny humans, had his faults, but the drive and passion he had, his vision and his mission to improve the lot of his African-American community, urging them to understand their roots a little better, maintaining their true identity and educating their future generations in their true identities and being proud of who they are, cannot be doubted.


June 14, 2016
 

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