Mahmood Mamdani on how Uganda’s history shaped his belonging — and his son’s moment

Mahmood Mamdani is often described as the father of Zohran Mamdani, NYC’s next mayor. But long before his son’s political ambitions, Mamdani was a prominent scholar whose work examined colonialism and anti-colonialism in Africa.

That scholarship is rooted in his own experience as a Ugandan citizen of Indian origin who was twice rendered stateless due to political turmoil in East Africa during the 1970s and 80s.

“We were migrants, and under the colonial system, migrants were defined as non-Indigenous,” Mamdani said.

That meant people like him were never made to feel fully at home in Uganda and were stripped of core rights. Those experiences shaped a lifelong quest to understand, as he puts it, “who belongs, who does not, and how it has changed over time.”

Mamdani has been a professor of government in the department of anthropology at Columbia University since 1999.

His latest book, Slow Poison, focuses on the making of the Ugandan state post British colonialism and the two autocrats that largely shaped it. Mamdani argues that Idi Amin and the current president Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, inherited and governed within an within an intractable colonial legacy handed down from the British.

Speaking to NPR’s Leila Fadel, Mamdani discussed the book and the parallels between his experiences in exile and his son’s quest to challenge ideas of power and belonging in the country’s largest city.

Listen to the full interview by clicking on the blue button above.

The radio version of this interview was produced by Milton Guevara and the digital version was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi.