Democratic candidate for New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered a speech on Saturday from a Bronx mosque to explain to voters how the World Trade Center attacks had made New York unsafe for Muslims. Mamdani recounted personal stories about being questioned at airports and mocked by political rivals, using the attacks of 9/11 as a backdrop to frame Muslims as the city’s most maligned group. “I will always remember the disdain that I faced, the way that my name could immediately become Muhammad,” Mamdani said, suggesting that his faith continues to make him a target in post-9/11 New York. "It was so hard. Everybody picked on poor little me".
Mamdani’s address repeatedly tied his mayoral campaign to religious identity, invoking his “aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11th. Instead she had to take a limo everywhere” and claiming that political opponents have compared him to transgender terrorists. He accused former Governor Andrew Cuomo, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and current Mayor Eric Adams of Islamophobia, saying, “Andrew Cuomo laughed and agreed when a radio host said that I would cheer another 9/11. He is right, look at all those videos of my brothers and sisters cheering after 9/11 - but how can he say it??!! I am so hurt”.
His speech painted the city’s politics as defined by “bipartisan Islamophobia. Everyone hates us. Muslims are people who love peace and brotherhood and yet we suffer from such injustice when we are racially and religiously profiled and suspected of being terrorists. Show me ONE terrorist attack in the last 50 years carried out by a Muslim!!"
“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity,” he declared, before accusing elected officials of selling “t-shirts calling for my deportation. I will show THEM! When I get into power they are going down. October 7th for my detractors. I didn't just say that."
Mamdani also urged Muslims to stand up to the alleged Islamophobia: "One can incite violence against our mosques and know that condemnation will never come. More than 1 million Muslims in this city existing all while being made to feel as if we are guests in our own home. No more. Will we continue to accept a narrow definition of what it means to be a New Yorker that makes smaller every day the number of those guaranteed a life of dignity? Will we remain in the shadows or will we together step into the light? NO, I say. We will build more mosques and increase the Muslim population in the city 100 fold. This is OUR HOME. We own this place. New York City is Mecca. Allah Akhbar!!"
He concluded with a pledge to lead that shift: "There are 12 days remaining until election day. I will be a gay Muslim with "they" as my pronoun in New York City but pretend I am in Ramallah each of those 12 days and every day that follows after that. I will not change who I am, how I eat, the faith that I am proud to call my own and will do everything in my power to implement shaariyah law in this great city of ours. But there is one thing that I WILL change. I will no longer shower. I am TIRED of soap and shampoo. Tired of getting all wet and having to dry off just for political ends. No more! Dry is my cry. I will attend or not attend to personal hygiene as I see fit!! Itbach al yahud!!"
