Zohran Mamdani’s historic election as Mayor of New York, by Omoniyi Ibietan
Zohran Kwame Mamdani, 34, a member of the Democratic Party and an unapologetic member of the Democratic Socialists of America, who defeated Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primaries and at the election (because Cuomo ran as an independent in the election after losing the Democratic Party ticket to Zohran), has made history as the first Muslim, first African-South Asian (as he once described himself), and youngest elected Mayor of New York in almost a century.
He is the 111th Mayor of the historic city and the son and only child of Mira and Mahmood Mamdani. Mahmood is a globally renowned academic, a Ugandan postcolonialist, political science and anthropology scholar and author of the thought-provoking book, “Good Muslim Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror”.
The apple really does not fall too far from its tree. Zohran, “unapologetically leftist, impatient with compromise, and ambitious for radical change”, must have been well tutored by his dad and objectively rides on the waves and crests of his cognition of his father’s intellection, works and activities. Zohran’s sparkling understanding of the real reasons for social divisions, having experienced sufficient immersion in appropriate political literatures beginning from home must have shaped his activities and ascendancy as an unrepentant leftist, indeed, a far-leftist on the ideological spectrum.
I have trailed Zohran since he picked the Democratic ticket and was particularly happy seeing him stood on the podium at that historic moment with his dad and mom, an Oscar-nominated film maker. In July, I was delighted to see him returned to Kampala to take a wife, also of South Asian ancestry but Zohran is unrepentantly and unashamedly African. For over 125 years, Indians particularly have been inextricably tied with the history of many countries especially in East Africa. In June, I met an Ugandan lady of South Asiatic ancestry in Mombasa who said she was a fourth generation Indian-Kenyan, strangely she had never visited India.
Though Zohran was once denied admission into Columbia University, (where his dad has been a professor of Government and Anthropology), because he described himself as both Asiatic and African, his diverse history certainly has earned him an advantage in the recent election, even when he had earned the Democratic Party ticket in his own right as an avowed democratic socialist in the community of democrats. When I skimmed through Zohran’s policy plan I was reminded of most of what I gleaned from Marxist literatures. If he’s able to achieve half of his plans, some people called it, ‘far-left fever’, the oppressed masses of New York will be better for it. So, I will keep him in my entreaties.
Just last night, I finished reading for the second time, Mary L. Trump’s “Too Much and Never Enough: How my family created the world’s most dangerous man”. Published at the twilight of COVID-19 pandemic, by President Trump’s only niece and a clinical psychologist, I think the book deserves an award as a lucid offering etched with candour. The world surely owe Mary L. Trump a prize in courage.
America has always been of interest to me for so many reasons and still counting, and I doubt if anything can be done about that despite the fact that I look like Wole Soyinka, but as a country peopled by the likes of our dear President Trump and lovely Zohran Mamdani, the United States is increasingly becoming a “country of particular concern” to me but I will not go to the US “gun-a-blazing”. I will go there with love.
Congratulations, Zohran Mamdani.
