In an address to his constituents on Friday, October 24, Mamdani listed a tearful bevy of indignities that Muslims faced in America in the wake of the Islamic attack against the United States on September 11, 2001. He emotionally recalled how his late aunt was fearful of wearing her hijab on the New York subway for fear of reprisals. He was happy his mosque was not burnt to the ground, but he complained that to be a Muslim in New York was to suffer endless indignities.
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In what can only be described as hyperbolic defiance, he listed the number of days remaining until the Mayoral election and then stated: I will not change who I am, how I eat, or practice the faith I am proud to call my own.”
And further: “I will be a Muslim man each of those days.”
Let us begin with the last the last proclamation, that he will be a Muslim man for each of those days. What is the fundamental intention of a mayoral candidate who is supposed to be representing the residents of New York City regardless of their race, religious creed, ethnicity, or any personal identity they align with in making such a declaration?
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Reasonable folks know what their responses would be in the scenarios outlined. They would sense the pestilential odor of tribal politics, the concomitant political and moral divisiveness that is explicit in the statements, and they would properly reject such candidates as identitarian political hacks at best.
In his defense, Mamdani was responding to what he experienced as anti-Muslim comments exchanged between his mayoral rival, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, and WAMC radio host, Sid Rosenberg. During the radio interview on Friday, October 24, Cuomo questioned Mamdani’s ability to govern and wondered how he would lead and respond if another 9/11 attack occurred on American soil. Rosenberg suggested that Mamdani would be cheering. Cuomo laughed at the comment and responded, “That’s another problem,” then continued to question Mamdani’s ability to lead in times of crisis.
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But that is not what he did. He traded moral principle for manufactured discontent in his Muslim supporters. One senses he was only too happy to be criticized so that he could use the opportunity to arouse the disgruntled sentiments of Muslim Americans and immigrants, and to incite rage in those who had not any.
America has never demanded that Mamdani change who he is, what he eats, or the faith that he is proud of. It has never demanded that of any Muslim in this country. Rather than address Cuomo directly as any mature and seasoned politician would, he seized the moment to insinuate that Islamophobia is a widespread phenomenon in the United States of America.
He has conveniently forgotten that not only are there thriving and unmolested Muslim communities all over America, but that there is a public call to prayer (adhan) for Muslims in Detroit and its surrounding communities most notably in Dearborn which has an extremely large Muslim population. Several mosques in Dearborn and Detroit broadcast the call to prayer several times a day on loudspeakers.
He seems to have forgotten that Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim elected to Congress, was sworn in January 2007 and used Thomas Jefferson’s English translation of the Quran for his ceremonial oath. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was also sworn in January 2019, and used her grandfather’s Quran for her oath as one of the first two Muslim women in Congress.
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Mamdani seems to have forgotten that the United States practices religious reciprocity which allows, among other things, him as a Muslim man to run for political office as a Muslim in a nation of Christians. The irony is not lost upon him. He knows that if Muslims were forced to live in the shadows as he claims they are, that the financial achievements and political victory that he and several other Muslims have achieved in this country would not have been possible. Could he be in the privileged position he occupies if there were forces percolating to annihilate who he is, to dictate what he eats, and to take away his faith?
He knows full well, that there is no religious reciprocity in any (and I do mean any) Muslim county in the world to the extent that it is practiced in the United States. He knows that if individuals who happened to have been Christian had launched an attack against Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indonesia, or any Muslim country, that they would have been executed and, I conjecture with a great degree of plausibility, a wave of mob attacks would have been launched against said Christians in those countries.
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People remember that after the 9/11 attack, President George W. Bush went to great lengths to repeat—almost like a religious catechism—that America was not at war with Islam or with American Muslims. He entreated the country repeatedly to respect the dignity and rights of its fellow Muslim compatriots. Bush, we remember, stated that we were at war with Islamic extremists who advocated terrorism. And he went as far as to say—much to the consternation of many—that such extremism and its attendant jihadism were incompatible with true Islam.
Mamdani wants to undo the legacy of religious toleration which exists in the United States and instill deep fear and suspicion among Muslims in America towards their country by suggesting that this toleration was a lie in the first place. He has conveniently forgotten the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
We could be observing the unfolding of a power-luster and a religious demagogue in the making. His weapon is to induce fear and loathing among Muslims in America. And we know by way of Europe and the unholy mess that continent faces with the Islamification of major countries there – such as France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway to name a few – exactly what happens when a religious minority fears and loathes its host country or the country into which its citizens were born: its residents and citizens become radicalized.
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“Londonistan,” as a moniker for London, is not a pejorative term coined by anti-Muslims. It is openly used and celebrated by several radical Islamic youths as both a descriptive and prescriptive term for the capital city of both England and the United Kingdom. The goal for Islamists is to transform the nation’s capital from a Western repository of values associated with equality, freedom, and liberty into one where all are subjugated and governed by Sharia—Islamic Law.
Every major revolution started with a seemingly anodyne gesture, an innocuous cry of the heart that ended up being a form of emotional thinking that persuaded the masses to conform to some nefarious goal or ideology.
We must remember that the Iranian Revolution involved a strategic alliance between left-wing groups and religious extremists. The common denominator that united them was not just a hatred of monarchy. It was hatred of the West and its values.
In his address on Friday October 24, Mamdani politicized and weaponized the identity not just of New York Muslims, but of every Muslim in the United States. Not only Muslims, but each supporter of Mamdani and his socialist utopian vision for a better New York are now torch carriers of Islamo-leftism. I suspect that he is not a democratic socialist in the way, say, Bernie Sanders regards himself.
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I suspect Mamdani is a socialist but a very dangerous type: an advocate of Islamic socialism that would be more in line with the socialist movements in several Muslim countries such as Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Syria under the Baath party. What did these countries have in common? They all implemented major land reform, and nationalization of industries and assets.
America, not just New Yorkers, will take a risk on Tuesday, November 4, 2024, when the next mayoral elections are held. But in particular, each New Yorker will need to ask him- or herself why they trust Mamdani to make New York a better place.
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Our civilization does not have the luxury anymore of taking political risks, for the simple reason that the democratic right to fail, which comes with such risk taking, long expired when our civilization began careening towards an irreversible decline.
* Original Article:
Mamdani Incites Muslim Rage and Resentment Against the United States