The Mamdani Effect

On a Tuesday evening in Cairo, the screens were on fire. A crowded downtown café was glued to the Liverpool–Real Madrid match, eyes tracking every touch by Mohamed Salah – the young man who carried his name from a village in Egypt to the stands of Anfield in Liverpool. He became a symbol of a simple idea: that someone from the East can change the game in the West.

Between a counterattack and an excited commentator, the conversation suddenly shifted from football to politics. One of my friends, scrolling curiously through his phone, said: “By the way… who’s that Arab guy who’s about to become the governor of New York?”

I smiled. The question reflected not just confusion between New York City and New York State, nor between a mayor and a governor. It revealed a deeper longing – a desire to see a face that resembles ours, even just a little, at the head of one of the world’s most powerful cities.

As the match neared its final whistle, another moment was approaching thousands of miles away: the results of the New York mayoral election. Amid the café noise and the European stadium chants, my memory drifted back to the spring of 2023 – to the first time I visited New York.

I had known about New York long before I saw it: from the tiny apartment in the famous TV series Friends, from endless shots of yellow taxis in movies. When I entered the city at night via Queensboro Bridge, it felt like stepping into a scene I already recognized.

Skyscrapers rising confidently into the sky. A city that glows with its own noise, as though redefining the meaning of opportunity every minute.

Instinctively, I reached for my headphones and played Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind.” Some may find that a cliché, but in my head, I was repeating:

There’s nothin’ you can’t do

Now you’re in New York

Yes – here, no one waits for you or pays any attention, yet everyone can become something in New York.

The city wasn’t exactly the city of films – it was something bigger: a city of ideas. But I didn’t really find myself there until someone advised me: “Go to Queens, to Steinway Street. That’s where people smell like our homes and our Cairo mornings.”

I went. Among Arab shops, the sound of shawarma sizzling improvisationally, and the smell of roasted coffee from decades-old Lebanese stores, I found a different America: an Arab and Muslim community that wasn’t on the margins – but part of the pulse.

“From you and for you”

After his victory, Zohran Mamdani stepped on stage, placed his hand on his chest, and said in Arabic: “From you and for you.”

One sentence crossed an ocean.

A young Arab stocking shelves in a Brooklyn grocery store heard it. A mother in Cairo heard it and wished her son could find a place worthy of him.

It shrank the distance between “here” and “there.”

It wasn’t just a phrase – it was a mirror. For every immigrant searching for meaning.

And yet, reactions across the Arab world weren’t unified. Naturally.

Mohamed ElBaradei – former IAEA director and Nobel Peace Prize laureate – wrote on X about a “democracy that inspires hope and restores faith in social justice.”

Alaa Mubarak, son of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, congratulated him, writing that New York had gotten its first Muslim mayor.

Journalists, analysts, activists – even those who only follow politics through trending topics – suddenly dove into deep discussions.

But amid the hype, a question emerged – one the region knows too well: What does Mamdani’s win actually mean?

Is it a victory for Islam? A success story for immigrants? A political win for the Left?

Or a social shift at the heart of America?

A commenter on Threads wrote bluntly: “It’s nice you’re happy a Muslim won, but don’t burden the man with symbolism he didn’t choose. He wasn’t elected to represent Islam, but to represent specific political and social values.”

Another replied: “This isn’t an Islamic victory. It’s a victory for the idea that you can be human in a place that lets you become what you want.”

Even before the win, some Arabs started referring to Mamdani as “Arab.” But the truth is: he’s Ugandan of Indian origin, Muslim, married to a Syrian-American artist.

This confusion was no accident.

In our region, we are constantly searching for a voice that sounds like us – sometimes before we ask whether we really resemble it. But what’s beautiful about Mamdani’s story is that he didn’t win because of his identity – won despite all its complications.

A campaign built in the streets, not in the party headquarters

Mamdani’s rise wasn’t a story of money or – massive party machines. It was a story of doors knocked on. Young people handing out flyers. Grandmothers making sandwiches for volunteers. University students debating his ideas on the subway.

In one campaign video, Mamdani spoke Arabic directly to Arab voters: “

We are here.

Your voice matters. Your voice is powerful.”

We were not used to American politicians talking to us – not because we were unimportant, but because we didn’t know that we were important.

An 80-year-old woman named Carla said something that explains a lot: “Many of our leaders are old. Their hearts are in the right place, but they’re far from the pulse of reality. We need a young voice. We’re not afraid to try.”

A sentence that reveals something still distant in our societies: Trusting young people – not just to chant, but to lead.

Between Cairo and New York… the same old question

When I returned to Cairo months later, I went from a city of endless possibilities to a city that knows me and contains me – yet tests my patience every day.

In New York, doors open if you knock long enough. Here, there are many doors – but you never know which key starts the story.

One question haunted me: Why can someone like Zahran Mamdani rise there, and why does the path here feel so long?

Is the problem the political system? Society? Institutions?

Or is it… us?

I asked this to a friend with deep experience in public messaging – Mahmoud Al-Hawari, former spokesperson for international organizations and a trainer in strategic communication. He nodded and said: “Success like this is not made by an individual. It’s made by a system that lets the individual try without being punished for trying.”

He meant that Mamdani didn’t win because he was a lone genius – he won because there was a system that absorbed the attempt and rewarded boldness instead of fearing it.

That sentence put everything in its place: Our problem is not that we lack capable people. Our problem is that the path is narrow – and risk is treated as danger.

Could we ever see a “Zohran” in the Arab world?

Maybe. But not before we change our idea of politics.

Not before we understand that identity matters – but policy, ideas, and organization are what produce power.

There will come a moment in the Arab world when someone’s rise to global office will inspire us – not compensate for our frustrations.

Zohran is not a “Muslim hero who won in the West.   He is the product of a system that believes in ideas before individuals. Citizenship before identity. A future shaped through the ballot box – not above it.

Hours after the results, my mom forwarded me a viral Facebook post: “Zohran is 34, married, and now mayor of New York. What’s your excuse?”

I laughed – then felt that small sting my generation knows too well.

I’m also approaching 34. I’m not a mayor. I don’t know my exact career map.

I’m standing, like many, on the threshold of a slowly forming future.

But I wasn’t disappointed – because beneath the joke is fear of time, and hope that we leave a mark before the curtain falls.

The Middle East celebrates Zohran because he reflects something inside us – a dream not to remain at the margins of the world.

But he is also a mirror, telling us the truth: We will not reach a similar moment until we learn to trust, build institutions that protect rather than destroy, and give opportunities not to claim we have them – but to see what we do with them.

Maybe everything can be summarized in his sentence: “From you and for you.”

Because democracy is not a ballot box or a slogan or a moment of applause.

It is a relationship.

It begins when we believe that we make politics – not that politics is fate shaping us.