New Delhi: On 16 July, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered the keynote address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation. In his speech, he spoke about solidarity and cited the example of Umar Khalid.
“Why must we wait as Umar Khalid enters his sixth year of captivity in Delhi—a political prisoner jailed under the same manufactured charges of terrorism levelled against Madiba,” asked the NYC mayor.
Speaking at the foundation’s inaugural Nelson Mandela Global Leadership Forum, Mamdani said the solidarity that Madiba (a nickname for Mandela) showed for others helped South Africa “envision a future different than the past.”
“It is only through that solidarity that we can do the same,” he said.
He cited Omar El Akkad book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This (2025) to say that after the horrors have passed everyone claims they stood in solidarity.
“Eventually, almost everyone will claim they opposed so much of the injustice that they justify today. But justice is not measured by where we stand after history has issued its verdict. It is measured by where we stand when the verdict is still being rendered,” Mamdani said.
He added that people should not wait for a time when it is convenient to show solidarity.
“Why must we wait to practice solidarity until it no longer costs us anything? The responsibility of answering those questions honestly and fully rests upon each of us. It is a responsibility of drawing solidarity further into our lives, our politics, the way we walk through the world,” he said.
He asked how many more Palestinian children must the world watch die and how many more months must Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya suffer in an Israeli detention, before coming to the JNU student leader who has been languishing in prison since September 2020.
Khalid was arrested under the UAPA charges for alleged conspiracy in the 2020 Delhi riots along with Sharjeel Imam and others. While their trial is yet to begin, Khalid’s bail pleas have been repeatedly rejected. Khalid, a student activist, and Imam took part in the anti-CAA protests in Delhi in 2019.