This column first appeared in Malta Today

The minute New York mayor Zohran Mamdani was elected on the Democratic ticket, social media was awash with an ugly backlash from certain quarters.

The cue is in his name, his non-Caucasian appearance and his roots. Mamdani is a Muslim, born in Kampala, Africa to Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair and Ugandan scholar Prof Mahmood Mamdani. He has lived in NY since he was 8 years old and became a naturalised American citizen in 2018. The new mayor’s wife Rama Diwali, herself a renowned illustrator, was born in Texas to Syrian Muslim parents from Damascus.

But who cares about the impressive accomplishments of this dignified family, right?

Those who are triggered by anyone who is not white (even though their own complexion might be closer to Arabs and Africans then they would like to admit) saw the various shades of brown and freaked out: OMG! immigrants! They flew into immediate panic mode, spreading the usual alarmist rhetoric.

I have no idea whether Mamdani is going to make a good mayor or not – but all I know is that if I were a New Yorker, I would be more comfortable with him, an articulate man who fights for the working class, than with having as a President a bumbling orange man who acts like he has just stumbled out of a bar at 3am with a hooker on each arm.

The hate is real, however, and it is very worrying because most of it is based on flimsy, often inaccurate, perceptions and it is spouted by those who judge people purely on their ethnicity. What also amuses me (but also drives me to despair) is that all the Maltese pontificating on this and other immigrant-related issues have no clue that they would probably be treated with exactly the same contempt and prejudice if they chose to make America (or any other Western country) their home.

Do you think the average dark-skinned Maltese landing in the mid-West, for example, with an obvious “foreign” accent and strange customs would be accepted with open arms? Yes, I said ‘strange’ because, believe me, much of what we consider normal would be considered weird in a country where most people are either not religious or else follow a branch of Christianity (i.e. Protestant, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, etc) which does not have the same heavily symbolic rituals as Catholicism.

Have you ever watched the faces of tourists as they attend a Good Friday procession? Well I have, and it is the same fascinated but perplexed expression which we have when we see Muslim men pouring out of a mosque on a Friday. As for our other uniquely Maltese ways, which have nothing to do with religion, those too would be looked at as odd.

The Maltese, like all immigrant communities, have always carried their traditions with them, but those who adapt the most and who are the most accepted are those who shed a lot of what they left behind in their country of origin and embrace the ways of their new country. It is also this which leads to a lot of inter-generational clashes between immigrant parents and their children, who are second-generation, who often cannot see eye to eye on a variety of issues. (This can likewise be the inspiration for a lot of humour – if you have ever watched stand up acts by British or American comedians whose parents were immigrants you will know exactly what I mean.)

Of course, I completely understand that anything which is “different” is hard to adjust to and that the learning curve has been steep. But with the movements of people migrating across the globe, inter-marriage and children born out of different ethnicities, it is futile to keep trying to segregate others into convenient boxes. A multi-cultural world is the reality not only in New York (which was basically built on immigrants) but pretty much everywhere, as we are keenly aware of ourselves.

Since the election of Mamdani, however, I can sense the temperature of anti-Muslim rhetoric has been heating up. Obviously, it goes without saying that the fear of terrorism perpetuated by radical Muslims is a legitimate one. But the cue is in the word radical, in the same way that there are Christian extremists who commit murder, sociopath serial killers who kill at random and mass shooters who open fire in schools. Generalising to include an entire religion or race is only stoking the fires of an already volatile situation.

It’s like saying that all Maltese men pose a danger to their wives or girlfriends just because our most horrific domestic violence murders have been by these men.

I’ve also read the statistics about the crime rates in London which are being circulated, claiming “40% of sexual crimes in London last year were committed by foreign nationals.” However, these figures were subsequently debunked by The Guardian in August of this year, which pointed out that the figures released by the Met Police did not refer to those who were found guilty, but to the number who were brought to Court. It is also becoming apparent that reporting the ethnicity only when crimes are committed by non-whites is further fuelling this belief that the migration from certain countries has led to more crime.

Before too many people get too hot under the collar however, when crimes are committed by foreign nationals I completely agree with deporting them, and in fact I would go one further and not let them serve their sentence there – our prison is bursting with criminals as it is. A recent news report stated that between 2021 and last August, 5,481 irregular immigrants were made to leave the country after serving their sentence. Of these, 2,298 were deported back to their country of origin, while the others were sent to other EU Member States.

Unfortunately, countering the ingrained racism against certain nationalities is an uphill struggle if someone has made their mind up, built an impenetrable wall and will not budge from their position. In fact, I can practically guarantee that this column will attract the inevitable hate-filled comments by those who probably just read the headline and went berserk without getting past the first paragraph.

This knee-jerk reaction will hardly make any difference though – it will still remain a multicultural world, and we just have to learn how to live in it.