Zohran Mamdani's Father Defended Idi Amin Years After Dictator Expelled His Family From Uganda

Zohran Mamdani's father, Mahmood Mamdani, was one of the 76,000 people of Asian descent who were ousted by Idi Amin from Uganda in 1972, per the New York Post.

Yet, in his book Slow Poison, Mahmood softened Idi's image. He argued that the unhinged dictator's barbarities were an act of decolonization made to unify Uganda’s disparate tribes.

This was despite Idi's well-documented tribal persecutions and the killing of an estimated 300,000 Ugandans during his 8-year rule.

Mahmood also backed Idi’s support for Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who opposed Western countries and criticized Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for working with them.

This reflects “Third-Worldism,” a view that often judges leaders mainly by their stance on the West. It divides the world into powerful “bad” nations and developing “good” nations.

This view ignores crimes committed by developing nations, labeling them as either "fair resistance" or ignoring them because the West has done worse.

This very worldview even had Mahmood arguing that Idi's brutality was both inflated by the West and "informed, guided by the British and the Israelis."

Idi not only expelled Asians but also expropriated their wealth.

He reportedly justified his actions by mixing class with ethnic grievance, deriding the Asians who composed most of Uganda’s merchant class and taxpayer base as outsiders and "bloodsuckers" out to ruin the local economy.

The Ugandans who were resentful of Asians' prosperity initially reveled in their expulsion.

However, the divisive tricks did not take long for the economy to collapse, plunging the country into poverty, and Idi's brutal security services went on to target tribes like the Acholi and the Lango, which rivaled his own tribe, the Kakwa.

Despite the experience, Zohran and the Democratic Socialists of America movement continue to resist the lessons that his family's experience could have taught him about the dangers of class resentment and racial and ethnic sorting.

Rather, he uses those divisive ideas today as the Mayor of New York City.

As the outlet reports, Zohran is of the belief that the wealthiest class shouldn't exist. He also reportedly sorts people based solely on their race, considering how one of his flagship initiatives sees race as a qualification for everything, from awarding contracts to hiring, per the New York Post.