Radical Roots: Mamdani’s Father, Mahmood Mamdani, Postcolonial Scholar

Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for New York City mayor, has radical roots — notably his father, Mahmood, a prominent postcolonial scholar at Columbia University.

Mahmood Mamdani was expelled, with his family, from Uganda in the 1970s, when the African nationalist regime of Idi Amin kicked out “Asians” — i.e. people of Indian descent, many of whom were involved in trade and the professions.

Mamdani reflected in 2022 on that experience in an essay in which he said that “Ugandan Asians are a poor fit as victims,” partly because they had been a commercial elite, and partly because the expulsion allowed them entry into Britain as refugees.

He also tried to distinguish them from “settlers,” arguing that they were “immigrants” (Mamdani’s hostility to Israel is based partly on the idea of Israelis as settlers, not indigenous).

Mamdani’s X feed is filled with radical pro-Palestinian statements, such as defense of the use of terrorism:

It is unclear to what extent Mamdani is involved in his son’s political career, but he proudly backed him in a “hunger strike” for New York’s taxi drivers in 2021. He has also appeared at his son’s campaign events, on occasion (as in the lead photograph, above.)

Mamdani has also written extensively about South Africa, arguing that the famous Truth and Reconciliation Commission was too lenient in granting amnesty, and too limited by its focus on individual perpetrators and victims, rather than broader structures of oppression.

Zohran Mamdani’s mother studied at Harvard and is a Hollywood director. With immigrant origins, he nonetheless enjoyed a privileged upbringing, via Hollywood, the Ivy League, and elite private schoolsl.

The younger Mamdani owns land in Uganda, a subject of some controversy over a discrepancy in campaign finance disclosures, according to Forbes: “Whether he purchased it, was gifted it, inherited it or otherwise is unclear.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.