No, Zohran Mamdani Isn't a 'Third Worldist'

"The next mayor of New York City is a foreign-born, Muslim socialist. Zohran Mamdani's rise to power inspired a fevered effort to describe what he is. Many conservatives have declared him an Islamic communist. But it's unlikely the secular Mamdani, who enthusiastically campaigned in gay clubs, is a jihadist. The communist accusation has more legs, as Mamdani is a self-declared socialist, albeit a milquetoast "democratic" kind."

"Riboua defines Third Worldism as "a postcolonial moral project born in the mid-twentieth century that recast politics as a global uprising against Western hegemony." She claims it's characterized by anti-imperialism, anti-bourgeoisie sentiment, anti-capitalism, and antisemitism. It redefines the proletariat as the "world's oppressed peoples" rather than industrial workers. It aims to achieve liberation not merely as political emancipation, "but as the rebirth of the human spirit itself.""

"The essays present an interesting overview of the ideology, its intellectual proponents, and how it shaped the Algerian Revolution. But it fails to tie all this into what Mamdani actually believes. Nothing he has said is cited in either Substack. There is a paragraph that interprets his stance on landlords as fueled by anti-colonialism, but that's it. It's just assumed that Mamdani wants to overthrow Western hegemony and replace it with a Third World dictatorship of the proletariat."

Zohran Mamdani, a foreign-born, Muslim socialist and mayor-elect of New York City, drew intense conservative attacks portraying him as an Islamic communist and dangerous leftist. Critics advanced a "Third Worldism" accusation and defined it as a postcolonial moral project opposing Western hegemony, characterized by anti-imperialism, anti-bourgeoisie sentiment, anti-capitalism, and antisemitism. The account redefines the proletariat as the world's oppressed peoples and frames liberation as the rebirth of the human spirit. The claims lack direct evidence tying Mamdani to those beliefs; his statements are largely uncited, and interpretations rest on assumption.

Read at The American Conservative