This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly, on June 27 - July 3, 2016.

The basketball legend, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, eulogised Muhammad Ali as “an indomitable spirit”. It is an apt description of the one called “The Greatest”, whose persona, exploits in the ring and outside of it emanated from a refusal to accept what was given to him, defined for him or expected of him.

His life was for him to define. Freedom is necessary for there to be choices but it takes courage, conviction and imagination to define a life lived well. The courage to act within one’s convictions, impervious to the consequences of doing so, is the indomitable spirit that so characterised Muhammad Ali.

He promoted Islam by exemplifying the “akhlak” of a Muslim — the practice of morality that is consistent with its precepts, that is by being devout in his personal relationship with God and loving all of God’s creatures.

For over 50 years, Ali was the global face of Islam, a span and reach unparalleled by anyone else in the same period. In my book, he has done more for Islam than the assorted mix of so-called religious teachers and politicians with a religious agenda. The memorial his hometown organised for him testifies to this legacy.

The ascendancy of man is the story of how that indomitable spirit breaks free to chart new paths and redefine trajectories of history. We celebrate this in literature and in economics too. The economist Amartya Sen is perhaps best known for his works on ethics and economics as they relate to social welfare and development. In his book, Development as Freedom, Sen’s central thesis is that freedom is both the primary end and principal means for development. To be free is to be developed and freedom is needed for development.

It is easy to see the necessity part of this relationship: developed societies are free ones but the sufficiency of freedom for development is typically problematic. There will be those who will argue that freedom is not for everyone. In the wrong hands, freedom is detrimental to society and therefore it needs to be curtailed. It is those with the power to do so who will decide who is undeserving of freedom. Of course, this is just plain oppression and therein lies the hindrance to development.

Ali showed through his spirit that there was something wrong with the application of civil liberties in the US, the contradictions and hypocrisy of American society and its politics back then. He became the light that shone brightly at what society chose to ignore. By doing so, he fuelled the civil rights movement that changed that country forever.

There was, of course, Mahatma Gandhi before him. A man who brought down an empire by defying it, not through violence but by claiming the higher moral ground. In 1922, Gandhi was charged with “bringing or attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government established by law in British India…” through three articles he wrote.

Gandhi pleaded guilty and proceeded to give a long statement before being sentenced. Among others, he argued, “… but I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a government which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system” and “holding such a belief, I consider it a sin to have affection for the system”. He concluded by saying, “I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is deliberate crime, and what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen.”

Gandhi then advised the judges: “The only course open to you, the Judge and the assessors, is either to resign your posts and thus dissociate yourselves from evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil, and that in reality I am innocent, or to inflict on me the severest penalty, if you believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for the people of this country, and that my activity is, therefore, injurious to the common weal.” Gandhi juxtaposed morality and the law, and appealed to the ultimate purpose of laws.

An individual or a society devoid of this yearning for freedom is one afflicted with a malady of sorts; the lack of will to act and the laziness of the mind. It does not have the heart to strive and make things better. Its spirit is broken, or missing. It reminds me of that famous line by Al Pacino in the 1992 movie, Scent of a Woman — “that there is no prosthetics for the broken spirit”. You cannot fix a broken spirit the way you can fix an amputated limb.

So, the passing of a man such as Muhammad Ali should be an occasion to remind ourselves of the importance of that innate human character as represented by its spirit to strive for freedoms and fill the heart with courage and conviction — that indomitable spirit.

Dr Nungsari Radhi is an economist and managing director of Prokhas Sdn Bhd, a Ministry of Finance advisory company. The views expressed here are his own.

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