Qamar Bashir
When Zohran Mamdani declared that he was not apologetic for being Muslim, immigrant, or young, he did more than assert personal pride. Speaking in New York, a city that hosts the United Nations and anchors global finance, he gave voice to a generational shift that has been quietly building across Western democracies. For decades, immigrants—particularly Muslims and people of color—were advised to soften identity, mute faith, and avoid visibility in exchange for conditional acceptance. Mamdani rejected that logic outright. His message was simple and disruptive: visibility is not a risk to manage; it is a civic right. That declaration resonated far beyond city limits because it named a shared experience millions recognize but were taught not to articulate publicly.
This refusal to remain invisible marks a turning point in immigrant political psychology. The old bargain promised tolerance in exchange for silence, but it never delivered equality. A younger generation has decided that restraint does not produce belonging; participation does. Across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe, immigrant and Muslim leaders are stepping into public life without apology, claiming rights already guaranteed by constitutions but unevenly honored by societies. What makes this moment consequential is not a change in law, but a change in posture. The question is no longer whether immigrants can assimilate quietly, but whether democracies will accept citizens who insist on full and visible membership.
The backlash has been swift and revealing. In the United States, chants of “go back to your country” have re-entered political discourse, often directed at citizens—naturalized or native-born—who happen to be nonwhite or Muslim. The phrase collapses under constitutional scrutiny. The Fourteenth Amendment is unambiguous: anyone born or naturalized in the United States is a citizen entitled to equal protection. There is no legal hierarchy between a white immigrant from Germany and a brown immigrant from Pakistan if both hold citizenship. The Constitution does not recognize ancestry, religion, or skin color as criteria for belonging. When exclusionists invoke “we” against “they,” they are not making a lawful claim; they are expressing an ideological preference unsupported by constitutional order.
The same contradiction appears across Western societies. In the United Kingdom, citizenship law makes no distinction between a citizen of Irish or Polish descent and one whose family came from Somalia or India. In France, republican principles formally reject ethnic or religious hierarchies. In Canada, multiculturalism is embedded in public policy. Yet the rhetoric of “we” and “they” persists. This reveals the true fault line: not law versus immigration, but law versus an imagined nation defined by race and culture rather than citizenship. The demand that immigrants leave—even when legally indistinguishable from any other citizen—exposes anxiety about status, not threats to legality.
That anxiety intensifies when immigrants move from invisibility to competition. For decades, immigrant labor was tolerated, even welcomed, so long as it remained concentrated in low-status sectors—driving taxis, cleaning offices, harvesting crops, staffing hotels. Western economies depend heavily on this work. But the discomfort grows when immigrants and their children compete openly for political office, executive authority, and intellectual leadership. The issue is not presence; it is parity. The shift from tolerated utility to equal competition unsettles assumptions about who is entitled to lead.
Economic data underscores this dynamic. Immigrants make up nearly one-fifth of the U.S. labor force and are overrepresented in essential blue-collar jobs. At the same time, more than a quarter of foreign-born workers are employed in high-skill fields such as medicine, engineering, and technology. This two-ended presence disrupts stereotypes of immigrants as permanent dependents. They are not merely sustaining economies from below; they are contesting power at the top. The resulting tension is often reframed as cultural conflict, but its roots lie in competition over opportunity and influence.
Demography adds another layer. Muslim and immigrant communities across the West are younger on average than white majorities and tend to have higher birth rates, largely because of age structure. Research consistently shows these gaps narrow with education and income over time, yet demographic momentum is politically potent. Rather than discuss convergence, populist movements amplify fear, casting ordinary population change as existential threat. Against this narrative, the new immigrant leadership emphasizes citizenship over biology. Belonging, they argue, is not inherited by bloodline but exercised through participation.
Misunderstandings about law and culture further inflame the debate. In the UK, for example, sharia councils are often portrayed as parallel legal systems undermining state authority. In reality, they function primarily as voluntary religious mediation bodies in personal matters and have no power to override national law. The controversy illustrates how easily fear replaces fact. The emerging immigrant leaders are not demanding legal exceptionalism; they are demanding equal protection and dignity within existing constitutional frameworks.
Crime statistics are similarly distorted. Variations in arrest and incarceration rates across groups reflect complex factors—age distribution, socioeconomic deprivation, neighborhood effects, and policing practices. Simplistic narratives that equate minority presence with criminality ignore these realities. The unapologetic generation understands this history of distortion, which is why its rhetoric centers on due process, constitutional rights, and equal treatment rather than appeals for tolerance.
What Mamdani’s words crystallized is the end of managed identity. Earlier generations believed safety lay in invisibility. Today’s leaders argue that invisibility never guaranteed safety—only silence. They replace caution with confidence: know your rights, claim your space, and compete openly. This posture is not radical; it is constitutional. It insists that democratic promises apply without qualification.
The significance of this moment lies in its transatlantic scope. From New York to London, from Toronto to Paris, immigrant and Muslim voices are echoing the same refusal: no apology for faith, origin, or age. This is why the reaction has been intense. The shadows are emptying. Communities once encouraged to hide are stepping into public life with assurance.
The challenge facing Western democracies is therefore stark. Citizenship either means equality under law, or it becomes a racialized privilege. If constitutions are taken seriously, there can be no lawful “we” empowered to expel a “they” among fellow citizens. As unapologetic immigrants step into the light, the meaning of belonging must expand to match the law. If it does not, the contradiction will haunt Western democracies far more persistently than immigration itself.
Qamar Bashir
Press Secretary to the President (Rtd)
Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France
Former Press Attaché to Malaysia
Former MD, SRBC | Macomb, Michigan, USA
