The Mamdani plot twist

The 111th mayor of the world’s financial capital will be a Muslim-American Democratic Socialist immigrant of South Asian and African descent named Zohran Kwame Mamdani. This sentence would have been inconceivable 10 or maybe even just five years ago. Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor and first person of South Asian descent to lead the city in its 400-year history. But this is not just a historic moment for New Yorkers; it is a seismic moment for the Global South too. Zohran has never shied away from his identity, and has in fact openly embraced it. Who thought that the world would ever hear ‘roti, kapra and makan’ being discussed in the context of a New York election or an American politician would be doing interviews with Pakistani media in Urdu? But Zohran’s embrace was not limited to fellow Muslims or ‘desis’, it also included every other immigrant group in one of the most diverse cities on the planet, as he promised to take on sensitive issues like discrimination, unjust policing and equality. More importantly, he did so at a time when racism, xenophobia – and particularly Islamophobia – are running rampant in the US. He did it at a time when his country was literally arming and funding a genocide that targeted predominantly Muslims. But that did not stop him from confronting how wrong this was, even going as far as promising to honour an ICC warrant and arrest Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever came to New York.

However, the core of Zohran’s campaign remained affordability and economic justice. He is an avowed Democratic Socialist who has promised rent freezes, universal child care, free buses and higher taxes on capitalism’s many millionaires and billionaires. His victory is a repudiation of the unconstrained greed of Wall Street and its denizens. And this is essential. Saying all the right things about diversity and discrimination is no good if one cannot actually improve the lives of minorities, most of whom happen to be poorer and working class. All of these factors made Zohran controversial and the magnet for a lot of right-wing hate. But his victory was never a close-run thing. He was the clear favourite from the get-go and, when it came to voting day, he did not underperform, handily beating the combined vote percentage of both of his opponents. As his campaign progressed, for some it became less about ‘this could never happen’ to ‘this must never happen’. How could we allow a Muslim to run New York after 9/11? How could we let a man who criticises Israeli atrocities and Zionism take charge of the West’s financial capital? These were the kinds of questions that haunted many of Zohran detractors and his victory will be nothing short of an existential crisis for them.

Their sense that the US might be moving beyond their politics of hate will only be deepened by the fact that Zohran came to power as part of a wave of liberal women and minorities. This includes Democrat Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, now the state’s first woman governor, Mikie Sherril who became New Jersey governor and, most notably, Ghazala Hashmi, now the lieutenant governor of Virginia and America’s first Muslim woman to be elected to state-wide office. The platforms of all three of these candidates overlaps with Zohran’s, but none have gone quite as far as him in pushing the political boundaries. It is hard not to feel giddy. However, one must remember that such promise has been betrayed before in America. Remember Obama? The US empire could not have survived for so long if it did not have an uncanny ability to co-opt even its most popular and energetic critics. Already, the titans of Wall Street are promising to ‘work with’ the man voters have put in office to take them on. It is hoped that this new wave of promise , especially Zohran, will not fall for old tricks.