Cuba’s Teofilo Stevenson, a true champion

Cuban Olympic boxer Teofilo Stevenson, left, African National Congress President Nelson Mandela, center, and Fidel Castro, right, on July 25,1991, in Havana.

Society, not just U.S. but global society, or more correctly, bourgeois culture celebrates “success.” Celebrities or cultural icons are more often actors or athletes, highly paid darlings of mainstream media who are held up for workers and oppressed people to aspire to, but only a minute number of people will ever realistically reach that goal.

It is not that being an entertainer or athlete places the person outside the more degenerate ideals of society like racism, sexism or homophobia. History is rife with examples of adored entertainers or athletes falling from grace for daring to speak against backward ways of thinking. There are even recent examples. Craig Hodges, a three-time National Basketball Association three-point shootout winner, two-time NBA champion with the Chicago Bulls, and a defensive specialist played his last NBA game in 1992 after being waived by the Bulls in the off-season. No other team would sign him.

It is presumed the reasons are because Hodges questioned then-president George Bush regarding his treatment of people of color and Hodges’ membership in the Nation of Islam.

Entertainers and athletes in bourgeois society are expected to do their jobs, as workers and the oppressed are too, and to ignore the outside world and only speak on sanctioned world events. George Clooney can support a campaign calling for intervention in Darfur because of U.S. interests in the region, but if he were to mention Palestine, he’d be lambasted.

However, outside of imperialist ruling-class centers, in countries that have their independence — even in oppressed communities inside the imperialist centers — where the cultures reflect defiance of Western world hegemony and bourgeois ideals, or in a new society with a different mode of production and rebellion against oppression, bucking the mainstream and refusal to submit to it is appreciated.

Hero to the Cuban people

On June 11, a hero to the Cuban people, an athlete known as perhaps the greatest amateur boxer, passed away at a much-too-early age from a heart attack. Teofilo Stevenson, known as Pirolo in Cuba, won three Olympic gold medals — in 1972, 1976 and 1980. He also won three world amateur golds — two at heavyweight and one at superheavyweight in 1986 — and one bronze and two gold medals at heavyweight at the Pan American games.

Muhammad Ali, known as “the greatest,” as much for his boxing prowess as for his politically principled stances on Vietnam and the Black struggle, released a message about the passing of Teofilo that reads in part, “Stevenson was one of the greatest. … Despite his never fighting as a professional, having conquered three Olympic gold medals in three different Olympic games meant that he wouldn’t have been an easy rival.”

What would have kept such a skilled athlete from turning pro and taking advantage of all the pomp and riches, which he was offered in the late 1970s? Lately there has been a stable of Cuban athletes, especially boxers, the most famous of which is Yuriorkis Gamboa, who have been lured away by U.S. agents, who constantly harass and bribe Cuban athletes wherever they go, promising them lucrative contracts worth millions of dollars.

Teofilo definitely had the skills. Some would compare him to Ali. Both were somewhat lithe for their division, didn’t lumber — a stereotype for heavyweight fighters — had supreme footwork and textbook one-two combinations.

Ali glided, shuffled and danced, popping a stiff jab, his hands held low at times, slipping punches, using his footwork to get out of harm’s way and setting up foes for his right. Teofilo didn’t use the same techniques, but worked behind his jab, moved laterally at ease, his right hand held at his chin. He would step back, slightly out of reach, the straight right being his best weapon, like a sniper in the bushes, and it took down many a target.

Teofilo had the skills and the pedigree. He was offered a hefty sum in the late 1970s to turn pro and fight an Ali whose skills were greatly diminished. No doubt, there were many who were salivating at the prospect of a Cuban defector beating a defiant Black athlete or vice versa.

In his June 12 Reflections, Fidel Castro writes, “News arrived yesterday after 4:00 p.m. No other amateur boxer shone so much in the history of that sport. He could have achieved another two Olympic titles if it hadn’t been for certain duties that the principles of internationalism imposed on the Revolution. No money in the world would have been enough to bribe Stevenson. Glory be to his memory forever!”

Principles of internationalism

Teofilo was a great boxer. The son of a Cuban mother and a father who arrived as an immigrant from St. Vincent, he started boxing at a young age. Throughout his life, he maintained his connection to the sport that brought him so much adoration. With his gold medal, he was awarded the Val Baker Trophy in 1972, given to the top boxer in the Olympics. He also was given the Honored Master of Sports of the USSR in 1972. Later in life, he became a trainer of other Cuban boxers.

More than being a great boxer though, he was a revolutionary. When offered millions to turn pro he would say, “What is one million dollars compared to the love of 8 million Cubans?”

Such a commitment would seem strange in a bourgeois capitalist country such as the U.S.; to turn down the fame and fortune would appear sacrilegious. To the people of Cuba though, it makes perfect sense. Cuba may be an underdeveloped country due to 50 years of the U.S. blockade, but destitution, institutional racism, sexism and homophobia are combated. It is because, ever since the revolution of 1959, Cuba has set about the path of constructing a new human being.

The beliefs and mores of capitalism are the foundation of capitalist society and flow from the mode of production, which is based on exploitation. It is a society based on competition. For workers and the oppressed, competition is the struggle for survival, where you are pitted against your friends, neighbors, even family members. Human beings under capitalism are different from human beings under socialism, in that the superstructure, of which culture is a part, flows from its base.

Teofilo will be remembered for his boxing prowess and for his principles as a member of a society that in 1959 set about the path of building socialism. Put in context, Teofilo’s choice makes perfect sense. It is for that and many other things for which he will be remembered.

Teofilo Stevenson, Presente!