A Boxer, a Soldier, and the Politics of the Body | Muhammad Ali and Idi Amin

Written by Juwayn Keane

Ali A. Mazrui’s article "Boxer Muhammad Ali and Soldier Idi Amin as International Political Symbols: The Bioeconomics of Sport and War" examines Muhammad Ali and Idi Amin Dada as two strikingly different yet revealing case studies in what he calls the “bio-economics” of sport and war. Through a boxer and a soldier, respectively, both men became powerful international symbols who embodied intersections of race, class, sex, technology, and culture.

Photo via Unsplash. Artwork by Thomas Hardy (1898).

Mazrui begins by noting how both men were initially underestimated. Ali as an outspoken young fighter and Amin as a low-ranking soldier yet each rose to global prominence. They shared personal traits of devout religious faith, physical fearlessness, and a willingness to use colourful language against their foes. Both also experienced vulnerability as global figures, facing assassination threats or threats of being knocked out in the ring while maintaining their fearlessness and minimal personal security, which further enhanced their aura of courage.

Bioeconomics and the Body: Race, Class, and Physical Performance

A central theme of the article is the role of race. Mazrui highlights that global boxing has been overwhelmingly dominated by Black men, particularly from the African diaspora in the Americas rather than from Africa itself. He suggests this stems from the dual experience of African American, relative affluence of being American combined with a historical background of degradation and subjugation, which fostered both opportunity and resilience. War, like sport, has also been racialized and gendered, with Black men rising to a proportion of one quarter  in the ranks of the United States Army however this is said to be linked to class, lack of alternative careers.

Class is another crucial factor. Amin, coming from a lower-class background, built his power through a militarized structure that lacked international credibility but carried real coercive force due to stigmas of being low class. In contrast, sports such as boxing, unlike elite sports like tennis, have been more accessible to working-class youth, allowing Ali to refine his craft early and intensively. Class therefore shapes both entry points and the meanings attached to athletic and military power.

Rules, Make-Belief, and the Technologies of Power

Technology distinguishes their trajectories further. For Ali, Mazrui discusses communication technologies,particularly television and radio, broadcast his fights, personality, and political stances to a global audience, amplifying his symbolic power. For Amin, Mazrui discusses technology meant for destruction: the tools of warfare that allowed him to rise. Mazrui uses this contrast to highlight how the same element, technological modernity can serve different purposes depending on the field.

Both sport and warfare share rituals, rules, and elements of make-believe. War is often romanticized, much like sport. But Mazrui emphasizes a key difference: Ali respected the rules of the ring, while Amin increasingly eroded the rules of war, turning to brutality and state violence to sustain his authority. 

Religion and Black Assertion

Religion shaped their identities in different ways. Amin was underprivileged due to being a Muslim from young. Ali’s conversion to Islam came later and was rooted in resistance to his underprivileged life ,racial oppression in the United States . By rejecting his “slave name,” Cassius Clay, joining the Nation of Islam, and associating with figures such as Malcolm X, Ali asserted a more autonomous Black identity during the civil rights era. Which contrasts with how how Amin used religion to consolidate political power. Mazrui sees this as part of the “religious version of Black assertion”, where faith becomes both a source of dignity and political strength.

Masculinity, Sex, and the Politics of Violence

Finally, sex and gender are central to Mazrui’s argument. Both war and sport have historically privileged men, with women relegated to subsidiary roles through centuries of gendered social conditioning. Even as women gain entry into these spaces, men continue to hold a monopoly over their symbolic and material power. Ali and Amin, as hypervisible Black male figures, embodied this masculine dominance in their respective fields.

Mazrui ultimately uses Ali and Amin to illuminate how individuals can become international political symbols through their bodies, their backgrounds, and their interactions with structures of race, class, sex, technology, and power. Their lives reveal not only the intersections of sport and war, but also the broader global hierarchies that shape who becomes visible and how.