The election of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York is a giant step for South Asians and Muslims in America. It is also a victory for Socialism, that failed economic system that has seduced generations of dreamers since Karl Marx.
The promise of Socialism is to relieve humanity from the realities of Human Nature. It is an essential component of Communism as well as Fascism. Democracies often dabble in it but find that too much socialism leads to as much corruption as Capitalism and quicker to bankruptcy.
We don’t need to trot out examples like Communist Cuba or the old Soviet Union to prove this point. Argentina is an example of a democracy that went too far into socialism and is struggling to undo it.
At the beginning of the 20th Century Argentina had a higher per capita income than France, Germany and Italy, due to its thriving agricultural exports and significant European investment. Poor Italian immigrants, mostly from the northern regions, flocked to this fellow Latin nation rather than to the Anglo USA like their southern brethren did. Today, some 40% of the population has Italian roots. Italo-Argentines have reached economic and political heights including today’s President Javier Milei. Their “George Washington” was General Manuel Belgrano (1770-1810) who co-founded the republic and designed the national flag. His father Domenico was from Liguria. Two centuries later, it was Junta General Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri who started and lost the Falkland Islands War in 1982.
Argentina’s descent to the bottom had many causes, but the socialist policies of dictator Juan Peron (not Italic) greased the slide with price and wage controls, welfare freebies, and inflation. That a vast and resource-rich nation with 99% European DNA can become a debt-ridden basket case owes much to Socialism.
Yet the magic of Socialism is becoming more of a vote-getter in this country as our own immigrant population grows and younger generations grasp at the promises of “affordability,” rent freezes, and government giveaways. Add to that the media’s obsession with the wonder of Asian (both east and south) values and talent. More on that later.
I have an old cover from the NYTimes Magazine predicting Italian American ascendency in 1983 “Coming Into their Own.” That euphoria didn’t last long. The next year, while running unsuccessfully for Vice President, Geraldine Ferraro had to fend off questions by ABC News of mob ties. In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton was taped saying that rival Mario Cuomo “acts like” a Mafia figure. Suffice it to say that since those days no Italian American has come close to being a president or vice president or even a party candidate for those offices. Somehow Joe Lieberman (Jew) and Spiro Agnew (Greek) reached the Vice Presidency, and Barrack Obama became President. (Dare I say that our next paesan with a fire in his belly might be better off running in Argentina.)
The Asian ascendent narrative will no doubt fare better than ours. Importantly, they truck no media defamation. Recall how the animated series The Simpsons caved when the Indian American community condemned the character Apu who ran a convenience store in the cartoon? In Mamdani’s case the glow of his South Asian heritage coupled with protected status accorded Muslims leaves him only to defend his Socialism. He routinely denounces Columbus as a slaver (gave his finger to the statue) without conceding that his Muslim ancestors originated the African slave trade. We must educate him and fellow Muslims of this irony.
In a future blog, I intend to review the research of British journalist Justin Marozzi who is doing a yeoman’s job of revealing an even darker side of Muslim history—Islam’s regular history is already dark enough! In his latest book, Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World, Marozzi lays bare the magnitude and cruelty of Muslim slave trading. The details make the Middle Passage and American slavery pale in comparison to what Muslims perpetrated on Black Africans for 1,400 years, and on Europeans for 500 years.
Asians, Muslims, and Hindus in this country should have their histories scrutinized as much as Euro-Americans and Columbus. Let their children experience what ours do. ‒JLM
A challenging, thought-provoking column about a largely untold (and positive) story–the amazing success of the Italian diaspora in Argentina. It ranges from music (Astor Piazzolla, whom American musical critic Stephen Holden called “the world’s foremost composer of tango music”) to sports (Lionel Messi, today’s undisputed soccer star).
Linguists have even suggested that the Italian influence in Argentina has been so strong that the “Spanish” accent spoken in much of the nation has an Italian lilt.
Broad area to respond too, but one area i can focus on, is not so much on Mandami, but knowing a little about history in general, Muslim history has a big issues with forced conversions, slave raids, and colonialism too, not to mention their treatment of minorities and women in general. During the Ottoman Empire expansion,,,you either got religion or lost your head…such were the options of these so called jewels of tolerance. And that occured often in the seaside towns along Italy’s Mediterranean coast…… ..That’s not to ignore the same practice at work in historic christianity since, no one religion as a monopoly on intolerance………. .
Even now in 2025 the Middle East has pockets of slavery, and racism…..just witness the Arab slaughter of Black Africans in Sudan ..horrible…….and every once in a while a domestic escapes her place of employment in the Middle East, and shares her story of complete captivity like conditions. Likewise the native Christian communities have all but barely survived the Iraq wars. What a terrible track record, that, had this been a Western nation doing it, would be and in fact is ongoing criticism……..talk about a stacked deck………
And from a Southern Italian perspective…..those quaint villages in the hills weren’t for the tourist to enjoy but to try to protect its communities from North African Slavers and raiders…..when i tried to point all this out at the bigoted Columbus Statue hearings, it became just a skewed lost cause…..Ignorance abounds, in this area, for the sake of some weird agendas i have yet to fully comprehend.
Perhaps some of you may be aware, of a Calabrese Turkish Horatio Alger Story…..A young Calabrese kid in the 1500’s…..was captured in a slave raid, and made a galley slave for a Muslim man of war, in the Ottoman Navy…..somehow after converting to Islam, he went from gallery slave to head of the Turkish Fleet and one of the few Ottoman war boat captains to distinguish himself at the Battle of Lepanto,1571, and saved his fleet to fight again….on behalf of the Ottoman Empire and their colonial expansions (of which we hear so little about…..)
Even the fledgling USA had to fight one of its first overseas battles in its history in Tripoli “to the shores of Tripoli as the Marine Hymn goes….., to stop slave raiders and plunder Actually in alliance with the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies( one of its first US Allies…) Try teaching this in world history and just watch the absurd backlash….
We don’t win because our community is divided on politics and other issues. Our gift of creativity has worked against us; we are a house divided. There are historical reasons for this, but we live in America where in unity there is strength; we don’t seem to get it. The more secular we become the greater danger our nation faces. Socialism doesn’t work; it will destroy New York City and hurt the whole the state in the end. Will we ever learn? Will the Italian American Community realize our serious problem? We better or we’ll really lose in the end.
On a totally different subject but want to get this out while I can.
Am in my car listening to on Point radio, will be back with the hosts name.
Have an author De Stefano on talking about La Cosa Nostra still being around, etc, it’s awful.
Looking for a phone # for the show
Gloria
I saw the DeStefano full-page story in Newsday about the NBA-Mafia scandal. Bill Dal Cerro sent the paesan a letter to bring him back to reality. JLM