Month: November 2025

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Stranger in My Own Paradise

By

Aunul Islam, PhD (Imperial College, UK)

Synopsis:

This is a deeply personal narrative yet layered with history. What stands out is how the narrative intertwines individual memory with collective national trauma. The author moves between moments of hope (1971, independence) and disillusionment (1975, the assassination of Bangabandhu, and later political upheavals), showing how “paradise” shifts from a homeland to a fragile state of mind.

In Bangladesh, memory serves both as a unifying force and a source of division

Paradise. For me, it was never a distant dream—it was home. The land where rivers meandered through green fields, where the air carried the scent of liberation and hope. In 1972, at sixteen, I left that paradise behind, boarding a plane to the United Kingdom with a heart full of ambition and a mind still echoing the cries of victory from a bloody war of independence. Bangladesh was free, and I believed its future would be bright.

Image 1: A huge crowd celebrates the Bangladesh Liberation War

Three years later, I returned. The contrast with Britain was stark, yet I felt no dissonance. My country was poor, scarred by war, but it was mine until 15 August 1975, when paradise bled again. The Father of the Nation—our beacon of freedom—was brutally murdered along with his family in a military coup. What shattered me was not only the violence but the silence that followed. A nation that had fought so fiercely for liberty now stood mute, whether paralysed by shock or poisoned by betrayal. My dream of returning home after my education crumbled that day.

Image 2: The dark night of Bangabandhu’s assassination: how it unfolded…bdnews24.com, 15 August 2021

I tried again in 1979, hoping time would heal. But the spirit of the liberation war was fading, replaced by whispers of corruption and compromise. In 1985, I returned to settle, married, clinging to the hope that roots could still grow. Yet the soil felt strange beneath my feet. By 1988, I went back to my newly adopted paradise—the UK—carrying the ache of a homeland slipping away.

From 1995 to 2006, I made another attempt. I walked the streets of my childhood, searching for the rhythm I once knew. But the society had changed beyond recognition. The ideals we fought for were eroding; the language of freedom was drowned in the noise of greed and power. I was a stranger among my own people.

And then came the final blow. From 2006 to 2025, I watched from afar as history was rewritten. In 2024, another political upheaval erased the very memory of our liberation struggle—the foundation of our identity. The dream that had carried me across oceans was gone. My paradise was not just lost; it was betrayed.

Image 3: Celebrating the July uprising…but where is the nation heading?

Image 4: Bangabandhu Sheik Mujib’s home is destroyed as a crowd watches with a combination of fear and fascination

What does it mean to lose paradise? For me, it is not the loss of land or flag, but the slow death of ideals—the erosion of truth, justice, and memory. I fought for a country that promised freedom, dignity, and hope. Today, that promise lies buried beneath the weight of power and silence. Paradise, I have learned, is not a place. It is a state of mind—a fragile vision we carry within us. And when that vision dies, even home becomes foreign.

I am a migrant twice over—once by choice, and now by necessity. My adopted land gave me shelter, but my heart still wanders the streets of a homeland that exists only in memory. I am, and will remain, a stranger in my own paradise.

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Mamdani wears the ‘bad Muslim’ badge as a badge of honour and scores a famous electoral victory

Zohran Mamdani prevailed over Andrew Cuomo in the mayoral election of New York City (NYC) held on November 4. Cuomo, a former governor of New York state and, more importantly, a scion of the Democratic Party establishment, was easily beaten by someone who was virtually unknown a year ago. A third Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, became a rather distant third.

Young, energetic, and infused with a great deal of personal charm and charisma, Mamdani demonstrated an exceptionally high degree of oratorical skills.  He has an uncanny ability to connect with a diverse constituency.

Mandani’s election victory is as improbable as it is memorable. He is indeed destined for the history books. At 34, he is the youngest NYC mayor in over a century and the first one since 1969 to get over a million votes. Cuomo, despite being disgraced by allegations of multiple instances of sexual misconduct, decided to run for the mayoral election as a Democratic nominee, only to find that it was the unknown Mamdani who ousted him in the primaries. Cuomo, driven by pure ambition and a sense of entitlement, decided to run as an independent only to be defeated, yet again, by a seemingly upstart politician.

Mamdani is also the first-ever Muslim mayor of the largest city in the United States. He was born in Uganda to parents with Indian heritage. His mother, Mira Nair, is a globally well-known filmmaker. His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a distinguished political scientist and anthropologist who teaches at Columbia University in his capacity as a Professorial Chair.

Mira Nair

Mahmood Mamdani

Mamdani used his religious identity like a badge of honour that reflects both his political acumen and a deep commitment to fighting Islamophobia that has become rampant in US and Western political discourse. In doing so, Zohran Mamdani seems to have been inspired by one of his father’s provocative scholarly contributions, where the author makes a distinction between ‘bad’ Muslims and ‘good Muslims’.

‘Bad Muslims’ are seen as inherently anti-American and antisemitic. They are both despised and feared as ‘Jihadists’ who reject Western hegemony. They are prepared to fight an interminable war, through acts of terrorism, against both Israel and its Western allies. ‘Good Muslims’, on the other hand, are supposed to be secular and westernised and fully prepared to accept Western hegemony. They lead quiescent lives as law-abiding citizens in both the Western and Muslim worlds. They seek to remain, as Zohran Mamdani put it, ‘in the shadows.’

In the official ‘war on terror’ that was launched by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11, the underlying premise is that good Muslims need to be separated from bad Muslims through a combination of coercion and co-option. This is how anti-Americanism and antisemitism can be durably defanged. Hence, the rise of ‘Homeland Security’ (with a current budget of US$411 billion +) and a high surveillance society primarily targeting Muslims in the US-led West. Islamophobia became the norm rather than the exception.

Zohran Mamdani is certainly secular and ‘Westernised’ in the sense that he was largely educated in the United States. Still, he is prepared to step out of ‘the shadows’ by embracing the anti-establishment ethos of the ‘bad Muslim’. He openly supports the Palestinian cause and decries the genocide committed in Gaza by Israel. He uses this narrative to reinforce his ‘Democratic Socialist’ credentials where he seeks to improve the living conditions of ordinary New Yorkers through concrete measures, such as affordable rental accommodation, free public transport and universal childcare financed by modestly increased taxation of the top 1 percent of affluent New Yorkers and raising the corporate tax rate to match the rate prevailing in the neighbouring state of New Jersey.

Timorous centrist politicians in the Democratic Party must have regarded Zohran Mamdani as a misguided novice who faced certain political oblivion in a city that had the largest number of Jews outside Israel and the largest number of billionaires (more than 120) in the world in a single city. They would have chortled with derision. How could he spout anti-Israeli rhetoric, seek to tax the rich, and demonstrate his Muslim credentials?

It seems that Zohran Mamdani had the last laugh against his detractors. He read the mood of the electorate much better than his Democratic fellow travellers. More than 30 per cent of Jewish New Yorkers voted for Mamdani – no mean feat for someone painted as a Jew-hating politician. As he observed in his victory speech:

“I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologise for any of this.”

Of course, Zohran Mamdani has a long journey ahead. His powerful political opponents, including President Trump, will not quietly accept the electoral verdict. After all, multiple billionaires poured more than US$40 million into Andrew Cuomo’s campaign coffers. The pro-Israeli lobby will not wither away. Anti-Mamdani forces will be relentless in discrediting and vilifying a politician who is both a ‘socialist’ and a ‘bad Muslim’. Will they prevail? Only time will tell.