Remembering Muhammad Ali’s message of peace

Ten years after his passing, Ali’s words remind us of what we must do amid today’s conflicts and divisions. On June 3, 2016, legendary American boxer Muhammad Ali passed away at the age of 74. Ten years after the world said goodbye to him, his voice still echoes – not in the roar of a crowd or the rhythms of a boxing ring, but in a hallway just outside my office at the United Nations. There, on the wall, hangs a watercolour painting he made himself of the UN headquarters – a gentle, almost tender rendering of the building that has come to symbolise the world’s longing for peace. Ali painted it in 1978 and presented it personally to UN officials, calling it “a gift of peace”. It is more than an artwork – it is a bridge between his public courage and his private conviction that peace is humanity’s highest calling. The brushstrokes are simple. The sincerity behind them is unmistakable. It is a testament from a man who understood, better than most, what it meant to fight for dignity far beyond the ring. In a letter that accompanied the painting, Ali wrote words that still stop me in my tracks: “Service to others is the rent we pay for our room here on Earth.” I see that line every day. And every day, it reads less like a quotation and more like a summons – a challenge to reflect on what we owe to one another in an era of fracture, inequality and conflict. Ten years after his passing, why does his message feel even more urgent? Because we are living in a moment when peace feels increasingly fragile – battered by wars, strained by rising hatred, tested by the unchecked expansion of new technologies and with the rights and safety of women and girls increasingly under threat. And yet Ali’s painting speaks to something disarmingly simple: Peace remains possible, but only if we are willing to make it our personal responsibility. Ali knew the cost of speaking out when silence was safer. He was vilified for refusing to fight in Vietnam and punished for standing up to racism and injustice at home. But he never surrendered, using his fame to amplify truth rather than silence it. When he brought his painting to the UN, he was making the same point he made with his life: Peace requires courage – not only the courage of the fighter, but the courage of the peacemaker. What moves me most today is that he entrusted that message to the United Nations. On difficult days – and there are many – I look at that painting and remember that peace is forged by those who refuse to accept violence as the final word. His depiction of the UN is humble and hopeful. Perhaps that is how he saw us: a flawed family of nations striving, against the odds, to live up to our shared ideals. As we mark a decade since his passing, I find myself asking: What would Muhammad Ali demand of us today? I believe he would tell us to fight for each other, not against each other. To defend human rights with the same resolve he brought to his own convictions. To stand with the oppressed, speak for the voiceless and keep choosing peace even when anger feels easier and indifference more convenient. Ten years on, Ali’s painting reminds us that peace is something we must nurture and safeguard day by day through our words and our work. That is the rent we pay. And it is the gift that each of us still has the chance to offer to a world aching for peace. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.