Zohran Mamdani: The Electrifying New York City Mayoral Candidate

A reflection of Zorhan Mamdani's stimulating speech concerning the good that is possible for an entire community, not just some people but all the people.

I had been meaning to watch an interview of Zohran Kwame Mamdani ever since he came to the fore as a leading figure in the upcoming Democratic mayoral primary for New York City. When I perfunctorily logged on to YouTube last week and saw that The Breakfast Club had put out an interview with Mamdani, I immediately clicked the thumbnail and listened. Zohran’s name may be new to America, but in Uganda, the Mamdani name has been revered in academic circles, political leadership and in general society for decades because of Zohran’s well-known father, Mahmood Mamdani, an Indian-Ugandan intellectual giant.

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I’m still not sure whether this is correlated but growing up sharing the same birthday as Denzel Washington also meant the occasional reminder from my mother about ‘Mississippi Masala’ – a movie starring Sarita Choudhury and Denzel, and directed by Mira Nair who happens to be Zohran Mamdani’s mother and Mahmood Mamdani’s wife.

My mother told me about a house across from where she and my father lived at the time, owned by a kind Indian man in Bugolobi, the late Motorsport legend Jamil ‘Jimmy Dean’ Mohamed. Part of ‘Mississippi Masala’ was shot at his home, and a trailer was habitually parked outside my parent’s home, which I imagine was was quite exciting. Following an invitation from Mira Nair, my parents attended the film’s preview being shown at the National Theatre on Dewinton Road.
When I shared Zohran Mamdani’s interview with my mother, she asked how old Zohran was because she distinctly remembered a brunch hosted by his parents at their home, when she was pregnant with my brother. At the gathering, my mother discussed home births with a few women but she couldn’t remember if it was Mira Nair or a friend of hers who was pregnant too. Within a couple of days, my brother was born, and when she relayed the story to me, it solved the mystery of who the fellow expectant woman was.

Sarita Choudhury and Denzel Washington in ‘Mississippi Masala’ (Source: The Criterion Collection)

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I wasn’t sure what to expect watching Zohran Mamdani on The Breakfast Club but I was very, very surprised by how galvanised I was from listening to him. It was similar to the feeling Michelle Obama evoked in 2016, even for those of us observers who are either indirectly or explicitly affected by American politics.
In spite of many worthwhile conversations and public talks hosted and given by Michelle Obama, it was this speech in support for Hilary Clinton at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) that made everybody think, “Wow, what a woman!” It propelled Michelle Obama beyond what she certainly was - a high-achieving, intelligent spouse to a Head of State - into a public figure of equally-warranted admiration as President Obama (and thus, equally warranted animosity). Even Republicans were afraid that she might have considered running for President in 2024 and subsequently ruined their chances for victory.

The energy I got from Zohran Mamdani’s interview and Michelle Obama’s speech previously, resulted in a feeling beyond passive interest and appreciation, which I now realise was the infectious presence of a fighting spirit contained within both of them. This fighting spirit, in two different times, was bursting forth to declare that people were being too complacent concerning human ideals – whether it was hateful language excused as a rejection of political correctness in 2016, or the near impossibility of a decent living in an increasingly financially-hostile world in 2024.

Mamdani’s insistence that affordability is achievable in one of the most expensive cities in the world becomes so radical and thrilling because we have all accepted predatory capitalism as just the way of the world. Hope is a very gallant thing to have when so many forms of injustice are considered normal, and Mamdani reminds us that there is still light in what feels like engulfing darkness.

Prevailing, extreme capitalistic conditions lead to despair. When there is no time to worry about others’ suffering because you’re concerned with your own survival, humanity is reduced to sole preferences and superficial ideas.
Sitting in traffic towards Accra, whether in public transport or in a personal vehicle, I watch women sell water, peanuts and maize in bowls on top of their heads, and men sell small car parts and chargers in hand held containers or wave soft cloths for purchase, used to wipe away sweat.
Once, in Uganda, I was driving to drop my cousin off in Rubaga and we got stuck in unmoving traffic. A man pretended to be mentally and physically unstable, stumbling next to us, before he lucidly ripped one of the side mirrors off the car with strength I was surprised he had because of his waifish build. As I watched him disappear into a trench a few hundred metres ahead, I turned to my right to receive a pity shrug from the taxi driver next to us.

Whenever I watch people hustle under hot Ghana sun weaving through traffic with their merchandise, easing the lives of commuters who might not have had time to think of hydration until they see large containers of sachet and bottled water, or who won’t have time to go to the market to look for certain goods, or who won’t have time to eat because they are also on their own grind, I ultimately end this observation by saying, or thinking, that no one should have to work to the bone to earn some form of a livelihood.
If I say this out loud, my husband reminds me to appreciate their industriousness. “If this is the reality, how do you adapt and make something of it?” He might ask. “If this is the hand you are dealt, born in a growing African economy, or in a poor country of any kind, you have to survive, you have to make a way for yourself,” he might add.
While I might remember the man who stole my side mirror in traffic and consider that this was one of the ways he made something for himself, likely because he did not have many other choices.

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Hearing Zohran Mamdani speak helped me solidify what I try to say in the endless debates I have with my husband over the economic structures of African countries and cities. I suppose I was trying to say we don’t have to work within these systems. We can truly re-think them and remember that suffering is not a guarantee to success, so easing it isn’t a way of cheating this praised, man-made system of hustling to the bone.

My mother likes to use the horse character of Boxer in ‘Animal Farm’ to explain the fate of some good-intentioned, tunnel-visioned people if they aren’t too careful. I find myself thinking of Boxer too when the hustle is out of control. It shouldn’t have to be. I am married to someone who is energised by hustle and solving the capitalist puzzle. He is fortunate to repeatedly find the strength to jump over what I perceive global capitalist blockades, with a similar mindset of many other successful people. He has understood these systems as straightforward and unpretentious. To him, they may as well be the economic equivalent of “What you see is what you get.”
Him and I do balance each other’s perspectives. Long ago, we were once entirely aligned, until, as he often puts it, he entered the real world. I am still stuck somewhere in between hope and reality.

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Zohran Mamdani is an energising reminder that it’s possible to create and advocate for governance and policies that ease the lives of ordinary people. We shouldn’t be forced into thinking that the only policies that work are the ones that justify and humanise extreme capitalism.
Extreme capitalism could be the antithesis of collectivism, and therefore the antithesis of what it means to be African. Extreme capitalism bases value on accumulated capital, not on urgent need.
Whenever I try to express this sentiment, I remember the time I tried playing one of my brother’s video games (I believe it was Fallout), which began with a quiz to categorise any player. The end of the quiz announced my player as a priest.

When Zohran Mamdani explained his rationale of how bus transit in New York City could be free, I never once thought of him as extremely compassionate, nor did I compare him to a member of a religious order. I simply thought his outlook on how to improve his city was thoroughly researched, grounded in the city’s context, and creative. For some reason, finding ways to reduce people’s suffering is first considered naively compassionate before it is ever perceived as possible. We seem to accept that (non-guaranteed!) individual wealth must be earned with incredible strain.
When leaders who are supposed to be enactors of collective human governance attempt to cushion the blows of life and economic hardship, they are accused of being soft and unrealistic. They are challenged more than others who ask us to remain rationally expectant, instead of hopeful for more.

In his interview, Mamdani brought realism to compassionate policies that are often labelled ‘socialist’ so that they deter people who value individual freedoms. However, Mamdani does not run away from the label. He firmly yet calmly addresses its inaccurate perception and clarifies his ideas as fundamentally Democratically Socialist. Perhaps his Indian and African heritage empowered him.

Indian communities have long been known to involve family and friends in collective wealth-building. African community is perhaps the most important part of African identity, so much so that losing it is to be labelled unAfrican (It is why people unconcerned with social belonging are easily termed as foreign, or ‘bazungu’).
In 2024, nine out of eleven countries that were most likely to help strangers were from Africa - Uganda being one of them.

Zohran, carrying both his Indian and African background in name and upbringing, may be able to bring certain collective cultural customs in his plans for New York City - he’s certainly describing them in his rousing words. No wonder it’s so jarring for voters and observers alike to hear such optimism when the world seems so cynical and divisive.

After a long time, Mamdani is helping people realign political choice to collective good, and away from surface, individual protections.

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It’s always a risk writing about people when they are constantly evolving. Situations occur that could turn them drastically away from where they began.
In High School, several people assumed my real name was ‘Tesi U West’ because of how often I used it in various non-national/international exams and on the front of all my notebooks. This was before Kanye West’s unfortunate public utterances and choices in recent years.
When my father asked why I liked him so much, I played the album ‘Graduation’ for him on a road trip to the village. I started with the song, ‘Everything I Am,’ my favourite at the time, and felt validated when he laughed at the line “People talk so much sh*t about me at barbershops, they forget to get their hair cut.”

My Uncle Natty, who passed away this week on June 14^th, never stopped calling me ‘Tesi U West’, often laughing at me and teasing me about how ridiculous it was that I was so serious about the name, and subtly reminding me about how horribly my initial adoration has aged.
In any case, some things should not always be about the person themselves, but what they created and what they inspired in you.

No one can determine who Zohran Mamdani will be in several years, nor what he will say, nor what political party he will belong to. What is important is to breathe in the very fresh air of the direction he wants to take his adopted city. In the cynicism that only predatory capitalism can create, we might be suspicious of any good intention, anyone willing to help us live easier. “What’s the catch?” we might say.
In Mamdani’s case, even as observers and non-NYC inhabitants, I think we can put down our shields and believe in the ideas he espouses, embracing the exhilaration of what it could mean to live better lives together.

In the meantime, I hope his campaign posters start including a thunderbolt in them to signify his captivating energy. As I write this, Bernie Sanders has endorsed him and Ugandans are paying attention to their son who went abroad and is now making a change. Seventeen years ago, and for eight consecutive years, Kenyans claimed Barack Obama with fervour and delight. Now, it’s time for Ugandans to do the same for another Mamdani; the electrifying Zohran.