Boxer Muhammad Ali during a training session at the Territorial Army Centre in White City, London, May 29, 1963
AS WITH the “Santa Clausification” of Martin Luther King over the years, so the Santa Clausification of Muhammad Ali has served to elide from his life and legacy, almost completely, the man’s radical consciousness and the positions he took based upon it.
We are all familiar, of course, with Ali’s stand in opposition to the US imperialist war in Vietnam, and of how he sacrificed the prime years of his boxing career in taking this stand.
He became a worldwide symbol of defiance against the injustice perpetuated by his government abroad, and a champion of the black liberation struggle at home.
JOE DWYER of Sinn Fein reflects on the links between the Irish and Cuban struggles for independence and on Castro’s personal engagement with the cause of Irish freedom
The struggle for Palestinian freedom has become a defining issue for everyone committed to justice, democracy and peace, says PETER LEARY ahead of the Stop the War International Conference on Saturday
RAMZY BAROUD looks at how entire West Bank communities have been shattered, their social and physical fabric deliberately dismantled by Israel to enable its formal annexation
How can we claim to be human while our countries still support and defend the massacres in Palestine, asks HUGH LANNING