The grey-haired Hajj Muhammad Najeeb Abu Khatwa has not worn gloves, entered a ring or even watched a live boxing match since 1979, when Gaddafi banned the sport due to its “brutality”.
Nearing sixty, Najeeb, together with Africa’s former boxing champion, Muhammad Boshkewa, has revived the Libyan Boxing Federation. The duo secured an unequipped training hall and, with ten beginners, started training with Boshkewa, who is using boxing gloves he last wore over forty years ago.
Libya’s boxing heyday
The grey-haired Hajj Muhammad Najeeb Abu Khatwa has not worn gloves, entered a ring or even watched a live boxing match since 1979, when Gaddafi banned the sport due to its “brutality”.
Nearing sixty, Najeeb, together with Africa’s former boxing champion, Muhammad Boshkewa, has revived the Libyan Boxing Federation. The duo secured an unequipped training hall and, with ten beginners, started training with Boshkewa, who is using boxing gloves he last wore over forty years ago.
Libya’s boxing heyday
Najeeb started boxing in 1967 when he was 13 years old, 160 centimetres tall and weighed only 80 pounds.
He then joined the Nujoom al-Wahda Club in Tripoli and trained for several months with Khalifah Kabour, amid older and more experienced players. In the same year, Najeeb moved with his family to Bayda, eastern Libya.
Boxing hadn’t been one of the activities offered in the only sports club in Bayda. Then, in 1969, Essa al-Abd, a police officer from Benghazi, introduced the sport to Bayda and trained Najeeb and a number of the city’s youth.
Boxing was at the peak of popularity at the time. Najeeb remembers that people of all age groups used to stay up late and watch matches with the world heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali’, which were broadcasted on Libyan television.
In the 1970s, Libya achieved important results at the international boxing level. Abdulqader Ameri won the World Military Championship, Mahmoud Boshkewa won the African Championship and Fathallah Mustafa won the Arab Maghreb Championship. Youssef Kweder went professional in Los Angeles and was featured in a February 1972 article in the Evening Outlook: “Libyan touches in the Golden Glove Championship” in which it said, “Don’t mess with Youssef.”
In 1974, the legendary American world champion, Muhammad Ali, visited Libya and played a number of spectacle matches with Libyan boxers.
Gaddafi’s TKO
The success of Libyan boxers, however, collided one day with a decision in 1979, based on a saying mentioned in Chapter III of Gaddafi’s Green Book: “Sport is a public activity that should be practised rather than watched.”
This utterance cost Libyan football, martial arts and boxing unlimited losses, as they were described as brutal, and disappeared for the rest of the Gaddafi era.
Najeeb describes Gaddafi’s decision as a knock-out to the sport. Since boxers were no longer allowed to practise, some participated in other sports that suited their physical qualifications. Others followed the physical trainer qualification course, which was arranged by the late Abdulsamee Makhlouf, the boxing team trainer. Some abandoned sports altogether.
“When boxing was banned,” says former boxer Muhammad Boshkewa plaintively, “sport circles were so disappointed because we had just put our feet on the right track and started to sow what we had reaped since Libyan boxers started to win international medals.”
When Boshkewa was boxing actively, the sport was the second most popular one after football. When a football match coincided with a boxing match in Benghazi, the Football Federation used to ask the Boxing Federation to postpone, it until the football match had ended.
Boshkewa and his fellow boxers realized early on that the former regime was fighting stardom and deliberately ignoring athletes. The team didn’t receive official receptions at the airport upon returning from international tournaments. Athletes did not have access to good nutrition and services at preparation camps closed prior to international matches.
Boshkewa painfully remembers how the former regime executed his fellow boxer Muneer Manna during the political executions in the 1970s and imprisoned his other colleague, Mustafa Far, for many years for a ‘framed’ political accusation, according to him, to exclude them.
Boshkewa spent nine years as a boxer then other nine years as a football referee, during which time he became an international referee. He retired, however, after being physically attacked by Gaddafi’s son, Saadi, during a football match in the Libyan League, in which Boshkewa had been the referee.
Boshkewa’s voice was trembling and his eyes were full of tears as he recalled the story. “They stopped my career in boxing then as a football referee,” he commented, “But they don’t own sports. It’s in my blood.”
Boxing’s comeback
Despite the enthusiasm in reviving boxing, many obstacles remain, including the lack of equipped training halls, referees and trainers.
“We need a lot,” Najeeb said. “We need trainers. We need capacities. These things need money that should be provided by the federation. If available, we will produce championships in a matter of three years,” he explained.
The greatest obstacle however, is the current political situation, which has occupied the transitional authorities with more pressing issues such as security, economy and international relations. Najeeb, Boshkewa and the other boxing legends will have to wait just a little bit longer before the sport can make a proper comeback.
