A couple of weeks before his election victory, Zohran Mamdani stood in front of a mosque in the Bronx. There, he gave the most personal speech of his campaign—a speech which sounded like it had been months, perhaps years, in the making.
Just days before, a New York radio host had suggested Zohran would be “cheering” if another 9/11 happened on his watch. It was the high-water mark of a rising tide of anti-Muslim hatred that Mamdani had faced since the moment he declared his candidacy last year.
Zohran’s response was defiant. He spoke about his pride in his faith. He talked about the climate of fear which, like many Muslim New Yorkers, he had faced for much of his life. And he recalled the advice of a community elder who had suggested that if he wanted to make it in politics, he’d be better off keeping his religion to himself.
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The speech took courage. Zohran could have chosen to stay quiet and spend the final fortnight of the campaign focused on his core messages, ignoring his critics’ attempts to lower the tone and use his faith to other him. Sometimes, though, we must stand up and say enough is enough.Â
Sadly, this is an experience I know all too well. I’ve never defined myself as a Muslim politician, but rather as a politician who happens to be a Muslim. My decision to run for Mayor of London was motivated by one thing alone: my determination to improve the lives of people in my city—the city I love, and which gave me everything. During my first mayoral election campaign, I promised to be a mayor for all Londoners. Yet time and again, rival candidates sought to define me solely by my faith. Days before I was elected, my main opponent even penned a newspaper article accusing me of being friends with terrorists, accompanied by an image of a double-decker bus destroyed by the horrific 7/7 London bombings.
These kinds of attacks have persisted. Rather than opposing my decisions as Mayor as those of a politician they disagree with, a small but vocal minority have tried to deride them as those of a Muslim man. Just last month, the President of the United States claimed in his address to the U.N. General Assembly that I was trying to introduce Sharia Law in London!
It is hard not to read these outlandish claims as a symptom of a deepening fear among President Trump and his allies that, in places like London and New York, this form of toxic politics does not work. The fact that both cities now have Mayors who are also Muslim is extraordinary, but—in two of the most diverse cities on Earth—it’s a bit beside the point. We did not win because of our faith. We won because we addressed voters’ concerns, rather than playing on them.
In recent years, we’ve heard a growing chorus of commentators and politicians on both sides of the Atlantic attacking cities for their liberal values. Painting a picture of a lawless dystopia, they advocate the same old authoritarian solutions—from deporting hundreds of thousands of legal migrants by removing their right to remain, to deploying the National Guard to clamp down on dissent. Ask most Londoners or New Yorkers, though, and you’ll find that this narrative falls on deaf ears.
They don’t care about the place your family are originally from or the God you worship. They are proud of the diversity of their city and don’t choose their politicians by creed, color, or culture. They choose them because they want bold, ambitious policies commensurate with the size and scale of the challenges their cities are facing. They want greener cities, where they can walk without worrying about breathing toxic air. They want fairer societies, where the size of their salaries does not determine their children’s chances in life. They want help dealing with the cost-of-living crisis. And they want a more prosperous economy where growth leaves no one behind.
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Mayor Mamdani and I might not agree on everything. Many of the challenges our cities face are similar, but they are not identical. Put policy differences aside, though, and it’s clear that we are united by something far more fundamental: our belief in the power of politics to change people’s lives for the better.
For decades, doubters have predicted the decline of London and New York. But each time we’ve faced a crisis of confidence, we’ve emerged even stronger than before. That’s not just because of the City or Wall Street, the West End or Broadway, the green lawns of Wimbledon or the bright blue acrylic of Flushing Meadows. It’s because London and New York are cities where the dream of social mobility is still alive.
Today, an affordability crisis means that dream is under threat. But Mayor Mamdani’s election shows that New Yorkers—like Londoners—know that the answer is not to renounce the values which define us. Instead, we must defend them, with policies that protect the foundational promise of our cities: that, no matter who you are or where you’re from, you can achieve anything. As some seek to turn back the clock on progress, we are standing firm. In our cities, fear and division won’t get you far. Hope and unity will always win.
