Who really came home?

One of our earlier discussions on what decolonization involved was the idea that decolonization is a form of homecoming, and that the process of colonization involves a claim to time and the progression of history, where the colonized are disrupted and removed from it.

When Muhammad Ali traveled to Zaire, he was going "home" in the sense that he identified himself with the African people of Zaire. They were "his" people, and he truly acted and treated the area like a home. On the surface of it, it looks like he came "home".

However, I argue that the actual homecoming was for the audience in Africa. Muhammad Ali's represented the home, and it was his arrival in Zaire that was the true homecoming. To understand this, you need to look at the nature of the fight and how his participation characterized it.

This fight was mired in controversy. For one, the location was problematic given that Zaire was then ruled by Mobutu, an authoritarian ruler. Muhammad Ali wasn't exactly beloved by the American media then either - he'd been arrested for choosing not to participate in the Vietnam war. All this, coupled with the fact that the fight was located in Africa, meant that the event was somewhat divorced from the main sporting world of the West. Fanon talked about the colonized world being a "Mannichean World" divided by borders. Here too, you had the presence of some kind of division. That forced the event to not be a western or white event, in a sense.

The fight was also legendary - this was Ali's first major fight after being debarred from competitive boxing and he was fighting against the current heavyweight champion. In all sense and purpose, this was a massive event not just in the history of boxing, but in the history of sports in general (at least, according to Wikipedia!). No matter who you are, if you care about sporting history, you knew about it!

However, Muhammad Ali's presence is what makes this unique. While the event was unquestionably African in that the overwhelming presence (in terms of the audience, musicians) and the organization was African. Several things about Muhammad Ali make him the figure of this homecoming and not his African opponent.

Muhammad Ali welcomed Africa with open arms. He was charming, funny, honest and convicted in everything he said. When he said these are my people - you know he means it. When he feels proud on his plane to Africa, noting that the passengers, stewardesses and pilots are African, you can hear the pride shine through his voice. You can see the pilot can't help but look back at him and grin. Ali made the African people a part of this event in a way that only he could. At his lowest moment in the actual fight (after what I think was the third round, when his tactic of using right hand leads doesn't work very effectively and he takes a bit of a beating from Foreman) he turns to the people during the break and shouts "Ali Bomeya! and they shout back. In short, his connection with the African audience was so strong that he relied on it when he was vulnerable. Foreman didn't connect with the people like this. O.J Simpson literally said "I'm not black, I'm OJ!"

This fight was already separated from the Western world, Ali took it and gave it a unique character that wasn't just unique to Africa, but unique to the experience of being black. It didn't matter that he was actually African American. By making the largest sporting of the times gain such a character, he healed the aforementioned "disruption" that was such a core part of the process of colonization. The story of boxing could now no longer be told without referencing an event that was black in character.
Additionally, this happened without any of the psychological damage identified by Fanon as being part of the condition of the colonized. Where you feel a sense of inferiority and other otherness as a result of being constantly aware of the fact that you are black. Ali was extremely confident and he projected this. There was no inner dilemma for him, and I believe his presence and conduct at the event made it infectious and a central part of the character of the event.