By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2025 – The prospect of New Yorkers electing their first Muslim Mayor, come November, has ignited a rash of paranoid statements by right-wing US politicians, including Islamophobia– the irrational fear and hatred against Islam and Muslims.

Last week, a Republican politician caricatured America’s iconic Statue of Liberty wearing a burqa– an outer garment worn by some Muslim women that covers the entire body and face. But that internet meme, spreading across social media, was deleted after protests.

And another right-winger falsely warned that Zohran Mamdani, who last month won the Democratic Mayoral primary, may introduce the Islamic sharia law into the statute books of New York city’s five boroughs—with adulterers stoned to death in public.

If that punishment becomes a reality, one cynic jokingly predicted, New York may run out of stones—as once recounted about the fallout from Sharia law in a sandy Middle Eastern desert kingdom.

Meanwhile, President Trump, not surprisingly, jumped into the fray dismissing Mamdani as “a Communist lunatic.” That remark was a grim reminder of the spread of “McCarthyism” in the US in the early 1950s: a campaign against alleged Communists in the US government and other institutions.

Led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, the campaign, which falsely accused scores of politicians and Hollywood celebrities as “Communists”, was labeled the “search for reds under every bed”.

The 33-year-old Mamdani, a Democratic socialist and a social media star, is currently a member of the New York State Assembly from the 36th district, based in the New York city borough of Queens.

At the primary elections last month, he defeated Andrew Cuomo, the thrice-elected Governor of New York state. Mamdani’s father is a professor at the prestigious Ivy League Columbia University and his mother the celebrity award-winning movie producer Mira Nair.

Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda and his middle name Kwame was a tribute to Kwame Nkrumah, a political theorist and revolutionary, who served as Prime Minister of the Gold Coast (later Ghana) and President, from 1957 until 1966.

Mamdani migrated to New York City when he was seven years old and graduated from the Bronx High School of Science and later earning a bachelor’s degree in Africana studies from Bowdoin College.

Dr James E. Jennings, President, Conscience International, told IPS: “If New York is really a global city, having a Muslim mayor should be a welcome development. A quarter of the world’s population and almost 10% of New York’s citizens are Muslims. Where else but in the Big Apple could the United States better demonstrate our founding principles of liberty and justice for all? he asked.

First, the horror of September 11 fascinated the world, then New York’s most disreputable playboy took charge in Washington with global repercussions. Perhaps now an exemplary US citizen like Mamdani, who happens to be a Muslim, could lead our current politics in a more rational and moral way. His election might help repair frayed ties with the world’s 50 Muslim-majority countries and lead US politics out of its current anti-immigrant jingoism, said Dr Jennings.

Prejudice against Muslims, he pointed out, is hopelessly entangled with the politics of the Middle East. A clear voice like Mamdani’s is needed to speak out for justice and repudiate the “attack first” mentality of the Netanyahu-Trump cabal that keeps the US involved in unnecessary wars and fuels the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC).

“Those in New York’s Jewish community who deplore the Likud Party’s abandonment of Israel’s founding principles and repudiate the genocide in Gaza have apparently already decided to vote for the progressive candidate”, said Dr Jennings.

Ian G. Williams, President Foreign Press Association (FPA), told IPS Mamdani’s biggest electoral asset is that when asked, he answers questions directly and factually without looking over his shoulders to see what the funders and PACs think. (Political action committees and super PACs play significant roles in federal election campaigns by raising and spending money to influence elections.)

“No hedging, no pandering no Clintonesque squirming about what the meaning of “is” is. Voters will respect the courage even if they are not totally onside with the message”, said Williams former speechwriter for Neil Kinnock, whose speeches derailed Joe Biden’s 1988 Presidential run when he was caught out in unacknowledged plagiarism.

The turning point was when he fielded the “gotcha” question and redirected it against the other candidates paralyzed by fear of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States.).

When asked about going to Israel, in effect, he challenged them to explain WHY a mayor of a city with so many problems would take time off to visit an Eastern mediterranean state committing war crimes. In many ways this was more effective than chanting on a stage at Glastonbury.

It is less than a lifetime ago that JF Kennedy’s candidacy was dubious because he was a Catholic. The bigots who evoked Zohran’s Muslim background while applauding applied dogma from Opus Dei in SCOTUS are irrelevant, declared Williams, a former President of the UN Correspondents’ Association (UNCA).

Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS the attacks on Mamdani, a principled man with a solid following among people who are seeking value-based politics, are a strange amalgamation of all the tropes of the past: those that accompanied the McCarthyism era, those pertaining to any criticisms of Israel, and those that preceded and intensified after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“This hodgepodge of accusations, he said, lacks a central theme, though the real, often unstated fear is that Mamdani is a danger to the ruling classes, frankly on both sides. They are simultaneously accusing him of being a communist, an Islamist, a crazy person, and an antisemite, among a long list of ridiculous accusations”.

This reflects not only the overriding racism and foolishness that continues to control political discourse in the U.S., but also a degree of desperation, said Dr Baroud.

“The fallout of this madness is that they are repeating the same lines that many Americans are fed up with and no longer accept or tolerate. In other words, the attacks on Mamdani could very much be the reason behind his potential victory in the New York Mayoral race, which in turn will further elevate and make more meaningful the overall political discourse”.

The current level of so-called political debate is arguably the most debased in history, and it seems to be getting worse with time, where the president of what is supposed to be one of the greatest democracies in the world is making physical threats to arrest and deport popular politicians for disagreeing with him. This will bode very badly for the future in the country, thus highlighting the need for Mamdani-like politicians, declared Dr Baroud.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction, told IPS a gradual trend of lessening racism and increasing anti-racism in the United States, especially among younger Americans, has been a major factor in making possible Mamdani’s primary victory.

Likewise, overall, a reduction of ethnocentrism and increasing affirmation of multiculturalism in urban areas – contrary to the very real racism and xenophobia led by Donald Trump – have opened the door to electoral progress by progressives who are not white and do not fall into the category of Judeo-Christian heritage.

This is all to the good for the health of the society, and all to the good for the prospects of victory for genuinely compassionate and forward-looking political leaders like Zohran Mamdani.

But the big backlash against Mamdani’s victory and what it represents has just begun, he warned. “This is a longstanding kind of reactionary bigotry that has always been a motor force for cruelty and systemic injustice in this country”.

Mamdani’s win is a highly encouraging event that could foreshadow great progress for social justice and against Islamophobia in the United States.

Yet the hostility that this progress has provoked tells us that powerful attitudes and forces for bigotry are surging to roll back essential progress, declared Solomon, author, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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