![]() Daulatzai contrasts his idea of a “Muslim International” with race scholar Paul Gilroy’s famous concept of the “Black Atlantic.” Gilroy challenged the idea of a diaspora defined and separated by national origin, instead emphasizing the hybridity of survivors of the Atlantic slave trade, who belonged as a result to both Europe and Africa. 4 The concept draws attention to the relationship between intellectual histories of US Black Radicalism, Black Internationalism, Third World decolonization, and the Muslim portions of the Third World - sitting at their intersecting center a four-way Venn diagram. By then his public persona had transformed from a “dangerous” member of a transnational network to a “goodwill” ambassador for the American presidency.īefore proceeding further with the film, I want to examine the idea of a “Muslim International,” developed by Sohail Daulatzai. Only a little while later Ali’s politics would shift too - away from his 1960s critique of empire fueled by America’s besieged Black bodies, to an embrace of US exceptionalism at the end of the decade. The Georgia peanut farmer’s ethos (“I’ll never lie to you”) suggested a path of redemption for the American project. In the coda to the Bangladesh trip, we find him enthralled by Carter’s “new” America. Ali himself was enervated by financial hardship, years of physical punishment from landed blows, and a long exile from the sport. In the dying sprawl of the Cold War, the transnational crises of Iran and Afghanistan unraveled many more certainties. Although Vietnam had galvanized antiwar protestors, the subsequent war in Cambodia presented a messier geopolitical equation. The Vietnam War had ended in a dramatic defeat for the United States, and the White House was occupied by Jimmy Carter, the Nixon antithesis. By 1978, the contours of a widely shared, anti-imperialist platform had started to blur. The international reality had started shifting as well. Even if it had been, the position would have been an odd fit with the distinctly pro-American sentiment of the government in 1978. 3 His earlier opposition to racism in the United States, and its overseas empire, was little understood inside Bangladesh. The live telecast of two of his fights (some of the earliest live transmissions in the new country) made him one of the first foreign celebrities to gain wide recognition in the country. In Bangladesh, Ali was seen as a world class athlete. If they had, they might have learned that the country founded on socialist principles in 1971, after suffering a series of military coups after 1975, was rapidly becoming more conservative Muslim nation. Ali’s entourage may not have thought it necessary to study their destination closely. Perhaps Ali did not properly understand the new reality of the region he was visiting, fixed instead on dream of solidarity between Black Americans and the Muslim Third World. But the exchange was taking place in a country whose geopolitical tilt had recently shifted away from the USSR, drawing closer to American influence. Ali was positioning his new citizenship as an antidote to his relationship with the United States, fraught especially following his refusal to fight in Vietnam and the ostracism that followed. I wish the camera would pull back, so we could see the Bangla officials’ startled facial expressions. Now, if they kick me out of America, I have another home. The dialogue that ensues is revealing.Īli: “Can I use this all over the world?”Īli: “Thank you so much. 2 A few moments later, an official presents Ali with a Bangladeshi passport, making him the “country’s newest citizen” (13:27). Right: Ali meets General Ziaur Rahman.īefore we have time to ponder the implications of the scene, the grating narration (“Bangladesh lies to the south of China”) guides us to Ali’s first encounter with Bangladesh’s president, General Ziaur Rahman. The radical possibilities of such a figure have already begun to recede, as the fiery and transformative political possibilities of the 1960s gave way to the reversals and defeats of the later 1970s. In fact, in 1978 we are already too late. Not just a member of the Ummah, that is, but an oppositional cosmopolitan subject that Ali’s public persona had helped connect to the Black American experience. ![]() The officious British narrator, journalist Mark Alexander, sits next to Ali and tells the audience he has the privilege of “accompanying Muhammad Ali on this rare pilgrimage.” (11:04) 1 Looking at such an image, one can easily see the boxer, the way he perhaps still saw himself at that time - as a roving Muslim International. A moment later, the stewardess serves him a glass of orange juice. He is looking out the window, although the flight has not yet begun its descent. IN 1978, MUHAMMED ALI WAS TRAVELING TO BANGLADESH. Our first sighting of him is inside an airplane, in wide business class seats. Muhammad Ali holding Bangladesh flag at press conference.
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