Cape Town may be half a world away from New York City, but it played a formative role in the life of Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old who has just won the Democratic primary to become New York’s next mayor.
If elected in November, he will make history as the city’s first Muslim mayor.
Mamdani, now a rising political star in the US, spent several of his early school years in Cape Town, attending St George’s Grammar School in Little Mowbray.
The school, founded in 1848, proudly celebrates him as one of its own – a boy who once sat in Sub A and Standard 1 classrooms, now poised to take on one of the most powerful civic leadership roles in the world.
Zohran was enrolled at St George’s Grammar School in 1996, 1997 and 1998, while his father, academic Mahmood Mamdani, was director of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town.
One story from that time has stuck with the family. When asked in class what colour he was, while his classmates answered “white”, “Black” or “coloured”, young Zohran replied simply: “mustard.” “I found it most touching,” his father recalled.
Born in New York but raised partly in Uganda and South Africa, Mamdani returned to the United States where he is now shaking up the political establishment with a bold and unapologetically progressive agenda.
A self-described socialist, Mamdani’s campaign was Initially dismissed as a long shot, Mamdani’s campaign has surged into the mainstream, driven by slick social media messaging and growing discontent among younger voters facing economic strain
His promises to bring sweeping reforms: free public buses, universal childcare, a rise in the minimum wage, and affordable housing – all to be funded through increased taxes on the wealthy.
His candidacy has received strong endorsements from major progressive figures including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders, positioning him as a face of a new, more left-leaning Democratic Party.
Mamdani is also a fierce critic of Donald Trump and has pledged to make New York a “model for the Democratic Party”.
His background is as politically rich as his campaign rhetoric.
Mamdani has acknowledged his “privileged upbringing”, shaped by constant discussions of politics and global affairs.
His mother is award-winning filmmaker Mira Nair, while his father is widely known in South African academic circles for the so-called ‘Mamdani Affair’, sparked by his attempts to decolonise the curriculum at UCT in the late 1990s.
Both parents are outspoken intellectuals, known for their critical views on imperialism and settler colonialism. These views could place them – and by extension, their son – under political scrutiny.
But despite their influence, both parents insist that Zohran’s campaign is very much his own. “He has not turned to us for political advice,” they say, though they may now find themselves pulled into the spotlight as their son steps onto the world stage.
Lifestyle
