"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 after so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”
These remarks were made by boxing icon Mohamed Ali on April 28, 1967 in his famous refusal to join the US army draft to fight in the Vietnam War.
The boxing heavyweight champion remains to me the greatest athlete of all times, both on and off the ring.
Ali was a conscientious objector, or as he puts it: "I know where I’m going and I know the truth, and I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”
He found it bizarre that he would enroll in a fight that wasn’t his, alongside an army which was oppressing his people.
‘If I want to die, I’ll die right here, right now, fighting you. You my enemy, not no Chinese, no Vietcong, no Japanese. You my opposer when I want freedom. You my opposer when I want justice. You my opposer when I want equality. You want me to go somewhere and fight for you? You won’t even stand up for me right here in America, for my rights and my religious beliefs. You won’t even stand up for my right here at home.’
Africans have been enlisted into wars that did not concern them, and fought on the side of their enemies and against their potential allies. In the end, as expected, they weren’t invited to partake in the triumph’s celebration or the sharing of spoils – except perhaps the famous WW-2 ‘dessert’, that Sénégalais sharpshooters were allegedly served by the French, as proudly revealed to us by President Macky Sall
About the period when Ali was resisting the Vietnam War, the world was divided between the Pro-USSR communist block and the Pro-USA capitalist block. Countries were being asked by the two superpowers to pick sides.
The aforementioned Vietnam War was a result of that rivalry, and at home in Africa, the capitalist block supported the oppression of our people.
For instance, the capitalists supported the apartheid regime in South Africa, in former Rhodesias (North Rhodesia: Zambia and South Rhodesia: Zimbabwe), in Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Malawi, etc.
The USSR and, particularly Cuba supported African liberation movements in all these countries and in Guinee Bissau and Cabo-Verde, Angola, and many more.
Once a leader had allied with the capitalist group he (they were always men) could do as much harm to his people as he pleased with full protection of the capitalist block.
However, aligning with the communist block meant spending many years of a lengthy and costly struggle in the bush for independence. In fact, dictators used to label their opponents ‘communist’ to attract western wrath on them.
Rwanda’s Inyenzi, South African Africa National Congress (ANC) and Namibia’s South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) initially were not ‘communist’ per see; they were just movements fighting for their self-determination. They became ‘communist’ by necessity – so to speak.
Many African heroes were assassinated on the suspicion - verified or not - that they wanted to turn their newly independent countries towards the communist bloc: Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Samora Machel, Amilcar Cabral, etc.
On November 9, 1989, the Berlin wall, which divided Europe into the two blocks fell and two years later, on December 26, 1991, the cold war officially ended with the collapse of the USSR and the independence of countries that formed the Soviet Union.
Ever since, yesteryear rivals, have strived to define their interests then endeavor to join others in the ‘Concert of Nations’ to promote individual and common goals. Russia has been consistently applying to join the European Union (The West), while major political parties in the said West espoused ‘socialist ideals’; in other words: The cold war is over!
Telling this long story I wanted to urge Africans to take this opportunity, in times of global ideological uncertainty, while our ideological masters are grappling with their own theories, Africans should define their cause; a common purpose
The last time Africa defined a common goal was during the cold war; Kwame Nkrumah then declared: ‘We face neither East nor West; we face Forward’. By that Dr. Nkrumah meant that we do not want to be entangled into alien ideological wars, while our people remain poor. We face towards development and progress.
That time is here again. While US President Donald Trump may be more vocal in these times, he isn’t at all the hallmark of the spectacular dysfunctions of democracy across the globe; far from it.
Europe is much more ravaged. Italy, Britain, more so, Eastern Europe, face chronic political instability that are forcing them to adopt policies that visibly contradict democratic ideals; at least as they were preached to us.
Things are so bad, that the debate is framed to justify nativism, xenophobia, racism and neo-fascism as mere quests for self-determination against the European Union; in other words, Anti-democracy is the new European democracy.
In the meantime, no African leader, scholar or influencer has had the courage to say: I aspire for NO DEMOCRACY! I aspire for fairness, justice, progress, peace, stability, freedom and overall happiness for my people, but I can attain all that without your visibly dysfunctional system. Yes, I am undemocratic and proud to be!
Karl Marx wanted the working class to control the means of production, our generation should strive to have means of communication. Today, they are in the hands of ‘the capitalist’ – so to speak, but his soft power has weakened.
We are on the verge of missing a golden opportunity to fulfil Bob Marley’s redemption dream: A permanent and total emancipation from mental slavery.
The writer is a Senior Research Fellow, Governance, at the Institute of Policy Analysis and Research (IPAR).
The views expressed in this article are of the author.