Barring Mamdani From 9/11 Lets the Enemy Win

Last updated on: August 21, 2026 at 1:10 pm by Barbara O'Brien

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Barring Mamdani From 9/11 Lets the Enemy Win 2026-08-21T13:10:09-05:00 Barbara O'Brien

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Mayor Mamdani Belongs at the 9/11 Commemoration

You may have seen headlines saying that “9/11 families” have petitioned to exclude Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, from New York City’s annual September 11 memorial service. I want to clarify what is actually happening and explain why this petition is a very sad mistake.

First, let’s be clear that the petitioners represent only some September 11 families, not all of them. The petition was begun by a man named Giovanni Galante, whose wife Grace Catherine Galante died in the 9/11 attacks. As reported in the New York Post, Mr. Galante believes Mayor Mamdani has never properly acknowledged the attacks, which happened 25 years ago this coming September. Further, the Post reports, Mayor Mamdani has been known to associate with someone who has said that the U.S. “deserved” the attacks. Please note that there is no record anywhere of Mayor Mamdani ever saying such a thing himself. And as of this writing, no reporting has said how many of the 9/11 families have signed the petition (see Snopes and Popular Information on that point). Also, as of this writing, none of the associations representing September 11 families are promoting the petition.

Mayor Mamdani says he will attend the ceremony, which every sitting mayor has attended since the first memorial ceremony in 2002. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum says the commemoration is kept free from politics and that public officials do not deliver speeches and remain in a designated area. I assume that is true. However, I attended the first memorial service in 2002. Or, at least, I got as close as I could. I was standing near the damaged and shrouded Deutsche Bank building on Liberty Street, very near where the South Tower once stood. I had a fairly decent view. I remember that Mayor Michael Bloomberg did say a few words, and New York Governor George Pataki read the Gettysburg Address. That may seem odd, but no words could really have expressed what we all felt. The Gettysburg Address worked as well as any words could have worked.

I did not lose anyone close to me in the September 11 attacks, but I was in lower Manhattan that day. I am an eyewitness to the collapse of the two World Trade Center towers. This is personal to me. I deeply respect the anguish the families went through because of the attacks. But banning Mayor Mamdani from the ceremony is letting the enemy win.

The Enemy Is Not Islam

Much of the commentary about this controversy on social media boils down to Mamdani is a Muslim, and Muslims did this, so Muslims aren’t welcome. According to public records, there were 28 Muslims employed in the World Trade Center who didn’t come home from work that day. Are their families banned also? Are their memories not to be honored?

Americans continue to be ignorant about Islam and treat it as a monolithic religion — all Muslims think alike — when it is no such thing. I am not expert in Islam, but I do know there are two major divisions, called Sunni and Shia, and there are many sub-groups within the major divisions. These can be quite different from one another. The September 11 terrorists were Sunni, and they were part of a minority movement within Sunni called Salafi Jihadism. Mayor Mamdani, I understand, is part of a mainstream Shia tradition that has no connection to the September 11 terrorists or the Salafi movement. And no, the Mayor is not associated with any Shia terrorist group, such as Hezbollah.

Salafi Jihadism is only part of a larger Salafi movement that emerged in the 19th century. The Salafis were alarmed at the spread of western ideas in the Muslim world. They advocated a return to the traditions of the early generations of Muslims. As I understand it, most Salafis today practice an ultraconservative form of Islam but do not promote violence or even get involved in politics. I recommend an article here on Patheos, “6 Misconceptions Held about Salafi Muslims.” And you may also have heard the term Wahhabi, which I understand is a Safali movement within Saudi Arabia. But the Salafi Jihadists want to establish a global caliphate through armed conflict. It was members of this group — who are not representative of most Muslims — who perpetrated the September 11 attacks.

The Enemy Is Bigotry

What motivates the jihadists? The Salafi Jihadist movement began after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. To simplify a complex situation — many Muslims saw the invasion as an invasion of Islam, not just Afghanistan, and men from many Muslim countries joined the mujahideen, the resistance fighters. The U.S. and other western nations supplied aid to the mujahideen as part of their effort to stop the spread of Communism. But the long struggle also turned Afghanistan into a breeding ground of radicalism, and Salafi Jihadism began to spread among the Sunnis. A number of radical Islamist groups emerged from that, including the Taliban and al Qaeda. Al-Qaeda began as a logistical network supporting Muslims who were fighting the Soviets. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, al Qaeda’s leaders, in particular Osama bin Laden, continued to oppose what they considered to be corrupt Islamic governments and any foreign presence in Islamic lands. And most of that foreign presence was from the United States.

There is a long history of western interaction with Muslim nations of the Middle East going back to the 19th century, if not earlier. Much of that was with European countries, but after World War II the U.S., its corporations and its government, was a big presence, too. This is another complex bit of history. I understand that bin Laden at various times criticized the U.S. for its support for Israel, including its participation in the Israeli-Lebanon War in 1982, and its support of the Saudi royal family (which bin Laden considered corrupt). He also was outraged by the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. I understand some U.S. troops have been stationed in Saudi Arabia, with Saudi permission, since the Gulf War in 1990-1991. In the minds of bin Laden and his followers, this made the U.S. a threat to Islam.

There’s a brilliant little book published many ago titled The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. The author is Eric Hoffer, and it was first published in 1951. There’s a quotation in it that comes to mind. “Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.” I have no way to know how “empty” anyone’s life was before joining al Qaeda. But there’s no question the al Qaeda movement was fueled by what the members took to be a holy cause combined with a fanatical grievance. This is a dangerous combination.

Bigotry Is Not Appeased by More Bigotry

And this brings me to my point, which is that bigotry is not appeased by more bigotry. Bigotry just fuels bigotry. That’s why I say that banning Mayor Mamdani from the September 11 commemoration is letting the enemy win. Islam is not the enemy. The enemy is bigotry, and ignorance, and fanaticism.

Mayor Mamdani was born in Uganda to a Muslim father and a Hindu mother, both of Indian descent, in 1991. He was seven when his family moved to New York City. On September 11, 2001, he was nine years old and enrolled in elementary school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. From there, he couldn’t have seen anything but the smoke rising to the sky. He has no more connection to the perpetrators of the September 11 terrorist attacks than the Southern Baptist Convention has to the Spanish Inquisition. The only reason for wanting him banned from the September 11 commemoration is the assumption that all Muslims are somehow responsible for what happened that day. This is bigotry by definition. This is giving in to the same poison that led to the September 11 attacks. This is letting the enemy win. Not letting the enemy win would mean respectfully allowing the current mayor of New York City to take his place at the commemoration.

Not letting the enemy win requires putting aside our bigotry and treating others as individuals, not stereotypes. I come back to the Eric Hoffer quote about fanatical grievance. We must not harbor fanatical grievance or condone it whenever we see it. Even if we have no intention of committing violence, we cannot know how that grievance will spread beyond us and grow and eventually cause another senseless atrocity. The Buddha, in the Dhammapada, said, “Hostilities aren’t stilled through hostility, regardless. Hostilities are stilled through non-hostility: this, an unending truth.” Maybe we should listen.

Mayor Mamdani

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaking at an interfaith breakfast in February 2926 in front of U.S. and New York flags. Photo from the Mayor’s Office via Wikimedia Commons.

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