MAMDANI HAD STRONG FEELINGS ON POLITICAL SUBJECTS
Mamdani’s father had known hardship. In 1972, Mahmood Mamdani and his family were among tens of thousands of people of Asian descent whom Uganda’s dictator Idi Amin expelled from the country, accusing them of exploiting the economy.
Mahmood fled to Britain before returning to Uganda after Amin’s fall.
Despite his young age, Mamdani had strong feelings about major geopolitical topics, Beyanga and Namanya said.
Namanya recalled one conversation about foreign aid, a subject at the centre of US political discussion this year following US President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
While liberals condemned the Trump administration’s moves to slash aid to poor countries, the young Mamdani had a sceptical view of foreign assistance rooted in leftist critiques of the system as benefiting donor countries at the expense of their purported beneficiaries, Namanya said.
“Zohran was the first person, which is odd because I was older than him, to explain to me how aid to African countries was a sham,” he said.
