“The Rumble in the Jungle” Also Has Its Dark Side
On October 30, 1974, in the capital of Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Kinshasa, took place what many consider the most spectacular sporting event of the 20th century — the heavyweight championship boxing match between the reigning champion George Foreman and his challenger, former champion Muhammad Ali (whose title had been stripped in 1967, and who was banned from boxing for three and a half years after refusing, for political reasons, to serve in the U.S. Army). The legendary bout became known as “The Rumble in the Jungle.”
Before a crowd of about 60,000 people, the legendary Muhammad Ali won by knockout near the end of the eighth round.
Although Muhammad Ali’s name is now synonymous with boxing itself, that night he was not the favorite — in fact, the bookmakers gave far greater odds (4 to 1) in favor of Foreman, who was undefeated at the time. Ali was 32 years old, Foreman 25.
That night, Muhammad Ali dazzled with his new tactic, known as “rope-a-dope” — a strategy in which the boxer deliberately allows his opponent to keep hitting him while defending just enough to avoid serious damage (leaning back on the ropes), in order to tire the opponent out and then strike back with a fast and powerful offensive.
The fight broke all viewing records — it’s estimated that around one billion people worldwide watched the match. It was also a major financial success, earning the equivalent of about half a billion USD in today’s money.
The fight was organized and promoted by the well-known boxing promoter Don King. Before the match, a music festival called “Zaire 74” was held, featuring famous Black musicians such as James Brown, Celia Cruz and the Fania All-Stars, B.B. King, Miriam Makeba, The Spinners, Bill Withers, The Crusaders, Manu Dibango, and others.
But how did Don King manage to organize such a spectacle? He offered Ali and Foreman an enormous sum — $5 million each — which was an incredible amount of money at the time, so large that no other promoter would have even dared attempt such an idea. However, King didn’t actually have that much money, so he began searching for a location outside the U.S., as well as a country willing to sponsor the match.
The news reached Fred Wyman, an American political consultant whose client happened to be Zaire’s dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Wyman proposed to Mobutu that he sponsor the fight, emphasizing how it would be an excellent opportunity to promote his regime internationally — Mobutu agreed.
Looking back, “The Rumble in the Jungle” was also an important event for Black culture — Black stars dominated both in the ring and on stage (including many of the performers), and the fight took place in the heart of Africa.
However, even though the event is celebrated today as a historic moment — which it certainly was — not everything was as ideal as it appeared in the media.
As is well known, Muhammad Ali was never afraid to express his political and social views. His title was stripped because he refused to take part in the Vietnam War. He joined the Black movement Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammad (today led by Louis Farrakhan), converted to Islam, and changed his name from Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. to Muhammad Ali.
Defining Ali’s political stance over the course of his life is not simple — at times he was progressive, at others conservative, and sometimes even opportunistic.
That famous night, his host was Zaire’s dictator Mobutu Sese Seko — a particularly brutal ruler. In cooperation with Western powers, Mobutu had ordered the killing of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the newly independent Congo in 1964. Lumumba had fought for true independence and sought to nationalize the nation’s natural resources. (Congo, though one of the world’s poorest countries today, would be one of the richest if justice prevailed — its land holds enormous natural wealth, still exploited by former colonial powers.)
The U.S., Britain, and Belgium — Congo’s former colonial ruler — panicked when Lumumba announced plans to nationalize resources. Mobutu, then head of the Congolese army, was their man. With their strong backing, he overthrew Lumumba and had him executed in 1961. Mobutu then ruled Congo as a dictator until May 1997, renaming the country “Zaire” in 1971. He was overthrown by Laurent-Désiré Kabila in 1997 and died three months later in Morocco from cancer.
Although Mobutu claimed he wanted to restore Africa’s authenticity (a policy he called “authenticité”), rejecting Western influence, it’s unclear why he chose the colonial name “Zaire” for the country. The name remained until 1997, when it reverted to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Mobutu was a fierce anti-communist and, as such, an ideal dictator for the Western powers, which supported him despite the severe repression he carried out at home. He was one of the few African leaders who refused to recognize the Marxist government in Angola and harshly criticized the USSR (Moscow was the only major capital he never visited during his long rule).
The match in Kinshasa was not only one of the most famous sporting events of the 20th century, but also served to promote a brutal regime. The fact that Muhammad Ali said nothing about this surprised many observers of African affairs at the time. Yet this is perhaps not so surprising when one considers the political climate — Mobutu was a master of rhetoric and propaganda. To the Black population in the U.S., he portrayed himself as a great defender of Africa and of Black people everywhere. Ali, like many others, apparently fell for that propaganda.
Mobutu was deeply hypocritical — while promoting African culture, music, clothing, and style (elements later adopted by some Afrocentric movements in the U.S., including the Nation of Islam that Ali had joined), he simultaneously worked closely with American corporations, opening his resource-rich country to them. In the end, only those corporations, Mobutu, and his narrow elite circle became wealthy — a situation that might have been very different had Lumumba not been killed (as was the case with many other African revolutionaries — nearly everyone who tried to free their nations from neo-colonial control was either assassinated or overthrown).
“The Rumble in the Jungle” was undoubtedly a fantastic fight — and as a sporting event, it deserves to be remembered and appreciated on its own, just as art can often be viewed separately from the artist. Still, it’s important to recognize the broader historical context. There’s a reason why the fight took place in Kinshasa, Zaire, and not in another African capital — even though that night it may have seemed as if independent Africa had finally stepped onto the world stage, it was not the real Africa. The true struggle for independence was happening elsewhere, far from Kinshasa under Mobutu’s dictatorship — and those were the far greater “rumbles in the jungle.”
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