Partisan rancor threatens solemn unity of 9/11 ceremony

By Gloria Pazmino, CNN

New York (CNN) — New York City’s leader at the time of the 9/11 attacks, Rudy Giuliani, says “it offends” him that current Mayor Zohran Mamdani will attend Friday’s commemoration ceremony. George Pataki, state governor during the disaster, says Mamdani should stay away. Bruce Blakeman, a candidate for governor, vows to turn his back on the mayor if he turns up.

The comments to reporters from the three Republicans follow a petition launched by a man whose wife was killed on September 11, 2001, for Mamdani to be disinvited so the 25th anniversary can be “centered on remembrance, unity, and an unambiguous rejection of the violence and extremism that defined that day.”

Mamdani, a progressive politician who became his city’s first Muslim mayor in January, has always said he would attend the ceremony at Ground Zero to remember and honor the victims.

This year’s memorial will come just three days after Mamdani’s administration released more than 170,000 documents showing that officials from Giuliani’s administration onwards — Republican, Democratic and Independent — repeatedly misled the public about air quality after the twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down.

“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mamdani said during Tuesday’s announcement of the first tranche of material. But he declined to criticize anyone by name, saying any judgment to be passed on former leaders of the city, state or federal government would be up to the public.

Mamdani has spent time in the weeks leading up to the anniversary of what he calls the “the darkest day in our city’s history” visiting firehouses who lost members of their teams and unveiling tributes for the nearly 3,000 people who died on the day and the thousands more who suffered from related and often fatal illnesses since. He designated September 11 as the city’s first official “Day of Remembrance and Service” and donned a hairnet to help volunteers pack meals for New Yorkers without enough to eat.

“I’m proud to be the mayor of this city, I love this city I love this country and what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11,” Mamdani told reporters last Monday.

But the rancor around his attendance at the ceremony has shown no sign of abating. As the names of the dead are read out, and bells tolled at tragic moments, backs may also be turned.

In some ways, the rhetoric today is similar to post-9/11 Islamophobia, said Scott Hibbard, an associate professor and chair of political science at DePaul University, who researches American foreign policy, Middle East politics and international relations.

“You can get a lot of traction out of politicizing terrorism,” he said, adding the comments were not altogether surprising from Republicans facing political headwinds ahead of the midterm elections. President Donald Trump is not expected to be in New York, but Vice President JD Vance, who has said the mayor has shown “no gratitude” towards America, is scheduled to attend.

Mamdani, who was 9 years old in 2001, has spoken passionately about how the post-9/11 era helped to shape his life growing up in New York City.

His supporters argue that calls to bar him from the ceremony are unfair.

“It’s concerning to me that the mayor is being treated differently simply because he is Muslim,” city councilwoman Shahana Hanif told CNN. “It makes me very sad that Muslim New Yorkers, who also lost loved ones, who lost first responders who were Muslim, we all lived through it and then grueling wave of Islamophobia that came after and that sadly, is still alive.”

Hanif, the first Muslim woman to be elected to the New York City Council, was also a child in 2001 and said some of her earliest memories were about members of her community who were cab drivers being assaulted.

Long before his descent into conspiracy theories and election denialism, Giuliani was known as “America’s Mayor” for what many saw as his unifying leadership after the attacks. But for many of the city’s Muslims, Giuliani was a divisive figure who helped to fuel anti-Muslim sentiment and continues to do so today.

“Who is he to tell Muslims where they belong or not?” Hanif said of his call for Mamdani to stay away from Ground Zero.

Mamdani’s critics say it is his actions that trouble them. They point to his progressive politics as well as his affiliation with Hasan Piker, the left-wing streamer and activist who said the United States “deserved 9/11.” Piker later called his remark “inappropriate” and said he was trying to make a more nuanced point about US foreign policy. Mamdani has since called the comments “objectionable and reprehensible.”

Cheri Sparacio, whose husband Tom Sparacio, a currency trader at Euro Brokers on the 84th floor of the south tower, was killed, said she was not targeting Mamdani over his religion or background. “It is strictly about the policies that he has today,” Sparacio said. “It is today that he stands with people like Hasan Piker … that is what we object to.”

Sparacio along with some other family members of 9/11 victims and two members of the City Council gathered at City Hall Tuesday to deliver an online petition signed by more than 100,000 people asking Mamdani to avoid Friday’s memorial event.

Some survivors and family members told CNN last month they may stay away from the event this year.

But there will be politicians.

As they have done for 25 years, officials will gather under a tent in the plaza, listening in as the names of the dead are read, moments of silence are honored, and an eerie silence falls over Lower Manhattan.

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