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SearchToday in Islamophobia: In the United States, Zohran Mamdani has become the first Muslim and South-Asian Mayor-Elect of New York City in a win that many are considering “generational”, elsewhere in the country, CNN projects that Democrat Ghazala Hashmi will win the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race and become the nation’s first Muslim woman elected to statewide office, and lastly, Dick Cheney, the former VP who was one of the architects of the “War on Terror” and led the campaign for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, has died. Our recommended read of the day is by Julianne McShane for Mother Jones on how the election of Zohran Mamdani gave many Muslims, who have faced decades of discrimination, a sense of visibility and renewed hope that their identity and voice can matter in politics. This and more
United States
“He’s One Of Us”: Muslim New Yorkers Greet Mamdani’s Victory With Pride | Recommended Read
“It’s a big win for New York City, of course, it’s a big win for Muslims,” Rodriguez, 35, told me after news of Mamdani’s win broke on Tuesday night. “I’m happy to see change and that these things are possible.” “A lot of Muslims don’t feel like they have a place here,” Timothy said. He hopes that, like former President Barack Obama, Mamdani can “inspire” other Muslim New Yorkers to run for office and help “break the stigma that Muslims aren’t good people.” Throughout his historic campaign, Mamdani has been outspoken about his faith. According to the New York Times, the 34-year-old democratic socialist visited more than 50 mosques on the campaign trail, with members of his campaign visiting nearly 200. Mamdani has also addressed Islamophobia head-on, in visits to city mosques and online, detailing his and his family members’ experiences with racist attacks after former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo laughed at a conservative radio host’s suggestion that Mamdani would be “cheering” in the event of another 9/11. “That’s another problem,” Cuomo added. But the comments by Cuomo were only the latest in a series of escalating attacks, which started in earnest on the night of Mamdani’s primary upset back in June. “What a lot of this anti-Muslim rhetoric and Islamophobia has done for a lot of people in the city is that people feel like they have their Muslim identity on the sidelines,” Saman Waquad, president of the Muslim Democratic Club, of which Mamdani is a member, told me. Though Waquad said that the racist attacks “put a target on all of our backs,” she was encouraged by Mamdani’s decision to stand proud in his identity as a Muslim New Yorker. “When we see Zohran show up as a Muslim and not shy away, it gives people more courage to come out for him,” she added. “In many ways, he’s one of us.” Noting that the city is home to an estimated one million Muslims, Waquad added: “That’s a lot of folks that are going to feel seen.” read the complete article
Ghazala Hashmi to win Virginia lieutenant governor’s race, CNN projects, becoming first Muslim woman elected statewide
Democrat Ghazala Hashmi will win the Virginia lieutenant governor’s race and become the nation’s first Muslim woman elected to statewide office, CNN projects. Hashmi will defeat Republican John Reid, a former conservative talk show host and the state’s first gay statewide nominee. As lieutenant governor, she will preside over the state Senate and be able to break ties in the chamber. The role could be crucial because with her seat vacant, Democrats will have a narrow 20-19 advantage with Hashmi leaving the Senate. A Richmond-area state senator who helped flip the chamber in 2019, Hashmi campaigned on promises to stand up to the Trump administration. She is also Virginia’s first Indian American elected statewide. In that first campaign, she cited the first Trump administration’s Muslim ban as a motivator to run for office. read the complete article
Dick Cheney helped design the ‘war on terror.’ It opened a Pandora’s box that still hasn’t been closed
He was defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush during Operation Desert Storm. He was vice president under the younger Bush during the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Dick Cheney, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 84, was arguably one of the most powerful and influential US vice presidents in history. Cheney was, it was said again and again on the day of his passing, President George W. Bush’s chief operating officer. And as COO, he was one of the most forceful and outspoken proponents for regime change in Iraq – perhaps his most lasting, and darkest, legacy. “Simply stated,” he said at the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August 2002, “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” Simply stated, the Iraqi president didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. He was not amassing them to use against anyone. Yet those mythical “WMDs” were the pretext for a war and subsequent costly, clumsy, and heavy-handed occupation that opened a Pandora’s box of bloodshed, displacement, terrorism and tyranny. The box is still open. Then Vice President Cheney condemned those behind the torture scandal, while at the same time defending water-boarding as a useful means of extracting vital intelligence (many intelligence experts say water-boarding is torture, and its victims will say anything to avoid further abuse). read the complete article
Mamdani Blazes Trail as New York’s First Muslim and South Asian Mayor-Elect
In a city that is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States, a city that is still contending with the ugly legacy of post-9/11 Islamophobia, a city that has never before had a Muslim mayor, Zohran Mamdani clinched a generational victory. Mr. Mamdani’s ascent in New York City was propelled by a relentless focus on affordability and indefatigable campaigning that expanded the electorate in striking ways, mobilizing a coalition of ethnic and religious groups that have rarely been on the receiving end of such intense focus from a citywide candidate. He made bringing his economic message to the city’s hundreds of thousands of Muslims an important part of his operation, visiting more than 50 mosques, some multiple times, and hosting phone banks in Urdu, Arabic and Bangla, among other languages. His stunning victory in the Democratic primary in June was a watershed moment for Muslim New Yorkers. But in the closing weeks of the general election, many said that Islamophobic attacks against him had left them deeply concerned. In an emotional 10-minute speech that resonated beyond the city, Mr. Mamdani described painful experiences with faith and identity as a child growing up after 9/11 and said that Islamophobia was one of the few forms of bigotry that remains largely accepted in New York. read the complete article
Zohran Mamdani’s Powerful Message: “No More Islamophobia In New York” After Historic Mayoral Win
Moments after his historic win as New York City’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor, Zohran Mamdani delivered a strong message to his supporters declaring that “no more will New York be a city where you can traffic in Islamophobia and win an election.” The Indian-origin democratic socialist’s victory marks a major shift in New York’s political landscape. read the complete article
They Tried to Smear Zohran Mamdani as an Antisemite. Voters Saw Right Through It.
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, who leads the prominent Central Synagogue in Manhattan, took the occasion to slander the democratic socialist candidate, purportedly in the name of Jewish New Yorkers. “Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has contributed to a mainstreaming of some of the most abhorrent antisemitism,” Buchdahl said. Mamdani’s alleged antisemitism? Pointing out, in 2023, the established fact that the Israeli military has trained hundreds of members of the New York Police Department, and that the NYPD and Israeli forces have intelligence sharing agreements. The rabbi also decried Mamdani’s “false claims of genocide” in Gaza — claims shared by leading genocide scholars, and every major international human rights organization. That is, Buchdahl didn’t — and couldn’t — cite any actual antisemitism on the newly elected mayor’s part. Her problem with Mamdani, as was the case for the array of establishment Jewish voices who spoke out against Mamdani, was his criticism of Israel. Mamdani’s win marks a rejection of the consistently Islamophobic weaponization of antisemitism. I hope it is a turning point, from which other New York institutions learn. Diehard support for the Zionist project is, finally, not a sine qua non of New York City leadership. It was depressing for this Jewish writer to see significant numbers of particularly older Jewish voters back the slanders against Mamdani. The explanation, however, is simple enough: The very same Jewish figures and groups have been organizing their political lives around support for a genocidal ethnostate. With the genocide in Gaza raging, weaponized claims of antisemitism, launched by pro-Israel forces have won the day in this city for over two years. Students, workers, and other protesters stood up to decry their institutions’ complicity in Israel’s onslaught. read the complete article
Why Zohran Mamdani’s historic victory is so special
He spoke directly to New York City’s populace about his faith and personal experiences with Islamophobia, remained steadfast in his support of innocent Palestinian lives in Gaza, visited 55 mosques and attended Friday prayers. In sum, the new mayor has vowed simply “to be a Muslim man in New York City.” And on Tuesday, New York City embraced that Muslim man. “The narrative has shifted, less about blaming Muslims for everything and distraction, and more about regular Americans asking themselves questions they’ve never asked before,” Omer Aziz, an author and current Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University, told me. “New Yorkers have had enough.” Mamdani’s ascension to the highest office in the country’s biggest city is momentous for young Muslim children like mine who are constantly seeking their likeness in a very prominent, public figure — one who looks and prays like them. “That ability to see yourself in somebody who others have chosen to lead us in this explicitly American endeavor of democratic leadership. There’s something special in that,” El-Sayed told me. “The more we test the hypothesis that America can include and that America can embrace, the better our country becomes.” read the complete article
Dearborn leaders skeptical of government after alleged terrorism plot thwarted
Ever since FBI Director Kash Patel posted on Oct. 31 about the alleged thwarted Halloween terrorism plot, it's been a "here-we-go-again" moment for many in Dearborn who say they've grown too accustomed to racism and Islamophobia against their largely Arab and Muslim community. "Until these people are proven guilty, we're going to assume their innocence," Dearborn leader Nasser Beydoun said after charges were announced Monday, Nov. 3 against the two Dearborn men charged in the alleged terrorism plot. "(The government) is going to make it look as bad as possible." The FBI says that two men from Michigan − Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud − were part of a larger group that shared ISIS-related extremist materials online and in encrypted chats. Prior to the charges, Amir Makled, Ali's attorney, described the men as being video gamers and recreational gun enthusiasts. He had also said the FBI had "nothing" on the defendants and said the agency jumped the gun in arresting them. These headlines have a direct, harmful impact in Dearborn, Beydoun said. It carries the fear and anxiety of the community that there may never be an end to the anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia they've faced since 9/11 and Oct. 7, 2023. After the 9/11 attack, Arab and Muslims in Dearborn received death threats and endured other verbal abuse like hate-slurs. Homes and businesses were vandalized. Nationwide, the government has engaged in surveillance, profiling and detentions of Arabs and Muslims. read the complete article
International
Chinese Government Threatens Academic Freedom in the UK
Sheffield Hallam University in England terminated a project about Uyghur forced labor after Chinese state security officers reportedly interrogated a staff member in Beijing and a Chinese company named in a report filed a defamation lawsuit in the United Kingdom. The project was led by Laura Murphy, a professor of human rights and modern slavery at Sheffield Hallam. In February, the university removed reports from its website that Murphy and others had published at the Forced Labor Lab of its Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice and restricted her from working on Uyghur forced labor. It lifted the restriction in October. A spokesperson for the university told The Guardian in November that “following a review, we have since approved Prof Murphy’s latest research and are committed to supporting her to undertake and disseminate this important work.” The university apologized for its actions, but only after Murphy began legal action against it for violating her academic freedom. The Chinese government’s efforts to manipulate information abroad, affecting academic freedom, should be cause for alarm. read the complete article