Omfavnelsen og tilbedelsen af Muhammad Ali er et dårlig omen. Vesten har ikke udviklet sansen for hvad som er hvad: Det løfter en bokser op som symbol på noget han ikke er.

Ali var god i ringen, men hvad bidrog han med udenfor? Han hyldes nu for at han modsatte sig militærtjeneste. Nu er draft resisters helte. Man skulle måske tro at de sidste årtiers krige havde bevist nødvendigheden af et krigsberedskab. At protestbevegelsens idealisme var naiv. Vietcong indførte ikke akkurat demokrati.

Han roses i internationale medier for at han bidrog til borgerrettighederne i USA. Men han konverterede til islam og gik ind i en organisation der er racistisk og antisemitisk. Er det fremskridt?

De sortes bevægelse har haft en underside, præget af vold. The Black Panthers var det mest ekstreme udtryk, de havnede i skyderi med politiet, eller the pigs som panterne kaldte dem. Når de havnet i spjældet stod det dyktige hvide advokater klar til at forsvare dem, og dyktige journalister talte deres sag i medierne.

Sorte forfattere som Eldridge Cleaver var del af the black consciousness-bevægelsen. Den fandt sit teoretiske udtryk i Franz Fanon som mente at de koloniserte kun kunde opnå frigjøring ved at dræbe undertrykkeren. Fanon var en viktig inspirator for tressernes voldsfilosofi.

Algerierne gjorde alvor af filosofien, og gik løs på europæerne som havde bosat sig i Algerie. Massakrene begyndte lige efter anden verdenskrig. Det var en grusom krig.

Nu har Maghreb og Mellemøsten kommet efter – til Frankrig. For mange unge er det en fortsættelse de står overfor: at tage krigen hjem til Frankrig.

Det spildes på race og på religion. Hvide liberale forstår ikke at deres politiske korrekthed og besathed af antiracisme er med at lægge grunden for en ny type racisme. Antiracismens utopiske karakter er med at bidrage til et had mot Vesten og hvide mennesker, mot vestlig historie og kultur.

Hvide liberale nivellerer så godt de kan. De benytter enhver anledning til at bevise hvor begejstret de er for Den Anden. Muhammad Ali blev for dem en sådan chance. Derfor kan han udråbes til noget overmenneskelig.

Der er ikke meget overmenneskelig ved Alis familiehistorie. Kun elendighed.

Behovet for at tro på en myte er overtydelig. At man ærer fortiden er én ting, men det her er noget andet. Det fortæller om et behov i dag. Man later som om man er “kommet længer”, som man nu har nået et historisk stadium hvor man virkelig ser hvor stor han var.

I virkeligheden falder vi.

USA så chockerede på at sprintvinderne ved OL i Mexico i 1968, Juan Carlos og Tommie Smith, hævet armen og knyttnæven til Black Panther-hilsen. I stedet for The Star-Spangled Banner, knytnæven.

Det går en direkte linje fra denne bevidsthed og til pastor Jeremiah Wrights prækener i Trinity Church i Chicago, som var Barack Obamas. Wright viede ægteparet og døbte deres børn. Da USA blev rammet 9/11 holdt Wright få dage senere en præken der han sa USA fik som fortjent.

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye… and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

Later, Wright continued :

Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that, y’all. Not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people that we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.[19]

Prekenen hed The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall. Det er den eskatologiske tonen der gør blandingen av religion og politik farlig. I en anden preken der fikk stor opmærksomhed, God and Government, lister han opp USAs forbrydelser, myndighedernes løgne og beder Gud forbande USA:

The government lied about Pearl Harbor too. They knew the Japanese were going to attack. Governments lie. The government lied about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. They wanted that resolution to get us in the Vietnam War. Governments lie. The government lied about Nelson Mandela and our CIA helped put him in prison and keep him there for 27 years. The South African government lied on Nelson Mandela. Governments lie.

Wright then stated:

The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposely infected African American men with syphilis. Governments lie. The government lied about bombing Cambodia and Richard Nixon stood in front of the camera, “Let me make myself perfectly clear…” Governments lie. The government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated by Oliver North, and then the government pardoned all the perpetrators so they could get better jobs in the government. Governments lie…. The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. Governments lie. The government lied about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9.11.01 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie.

He spoke about the government’s rationale for the Iraq War:

The government lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq being a threat to the United States peace. And guess what else? If they don’t find them some weapons of mass destruction, they gonna do just like the LAPD, and plant the some weapons of mass destruction. Governments lie.

Wright then commented on God and government:

And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing “God Bless America”. No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that’s in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America, as long as she tries to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.[21][22][23][24]

Om Muhammad Alis samarbejde med KKK, som talsmand for Nation of Islam, her