To serve Nigeria is not by force

Forum 7 years ago

To serve Nigeria is not by force

In the 1930s, two boxing bouts took place between fighters of the United States and German origins; both fights were proxies for the political conflicts between their countries. In 1936, when Joe Louis, an African-American, and Max Schelling, a German, met in New York to exchange punches, their fight became emblematic of the contestation between democracy the US purportedly represented and the fascism of Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

When Schelling defeated Louis, Hitler made a huge capital out of it and Americans, understanding the broader implication of their loss, wept loudly. That match was no ordinary entertainment; citizens of both countries had fervently invested themselves and their nationalistic ideals into the blows both men exchanged. The boxing arena became a symbolic space where the political legitimacy of either country was staged.

Two years later, the fighters met again. This time Louis trumped Schelling in a knockout by the third round but the sweet victory came with a bitter after taste for Americans. The match was not simply two disparate nations trying to prove their superiority over one another; it also reflected racial fissures within America. The victory of a black man over a white, regardless of his nationality, was a message to racist America about the power a black man embodies and what it could do to a white body. There were white Americans who supported Schelling against Louis because a black man knocking a white man out carried a realist import that, considering the history of their tenuous racial relationships, rightly made them uneasy.

In history, sporting activities have been a continuation of politics by other means. People have used sports to push their country’s diplomatic efforts, to launder their national image, or to force a government to a certain level of responsibility. We can recall the role sports played in challenging apartheid; sportsmen have raised their black power fists before the eyes of the world to create awareness for their cause at home; countries have boycotted games to assert their stand; Muhammed Ali called attention to social injustice in the US by refusing to be drafted into Vietnam War. When the black American sprinter, Jesse Owens, won medals at the 1936 Berlin summer Olympics, he once again (like Louis did) upset Hitler’s calculations about the superiority of the Aryan race. Countries have used the imagery of sports – healthy and disciplined bodies adhering to the principles of fair competition – to promote themselves as a healthy nation.