Post by Fr David Neuhaus SJ | 19January 2026
“The core challenge is to explore a form of the state other than that of the nation-state, one that will make possible a democratic and inclusive order and a way out of the cycle of civil wars.” (353)
I have just finished reading Mamdani’s 2020 Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. It is a thought-provoking work that has challenged my thinking and pushed me to a greater coherence in analysing our situation in Palestine/Israel. The book also presents parallels between South Africa and Palestine/Israel that open up horizons. I strongly recommend this book as an important contribution to understanding the world we live in.
The book is composed of five main chapters:
1. The Indian Question in the United States
2. Nuremberg: The Failure of Denazification
3. Settlers and Natives in Apartheid South Africa
4. Sudan: Colonialism, Independence and Secession
5. The Israel/Palestine Question
In his introduction, Mamdani describes the evolution of the idea of the nation-state in Europe, firmly linking European nationalism with the spread of settler colonialism. He then identifies the United States as a settler colonial state, highlighting the genocide of the native people in the United States, defined by the settlers as “Indians”. In broad strokes, he describes the history of the killing of the ‘Indians” and the marginalization of the survivors of the genocide, confined to artificially created “tribal lands’ (reservations). Mamdani makes settler colonialism and the story of native peoples in the United States central to not only understanding the United States but also coming to grips with the nation-states that took the United States as a model, among them both Apartheid South Africa and Zionist Israel.
Modern nationalism, imposing a fusion of nation, state and society, created identities that pretend to be stable and permanent. However, Mamdani insists that these identities are not ahistorical but rather political, the result of the manipulation of cultural differences to create national identities that become intransigent and sources of conflict.
In this context, Mamdani makes an important distinction between settlers and immigrants. Immigrants arrive in a new land unarmed, seeking to integrate into a society they recognize as their new environment. They learn the language and the local customs and seek to find their place within the existing social system. Settlers come armed with weapons and an agenda to take over the territory. They are not only in search of a new homeland but seek to establish a state that grants them privilege and power.
Overcoming conflicts that result from the clash between settlers and natives must involve re-imagining the state. Moving forward involves dismantling the divisive identities, discourse and structures spawned by nationalism and colonialism. Mamdani posits that all members of society, whether victims, perpetrators, beneficiaries, bystanders, or exiles, must be included in an expanded political process that leads to true democracy. All members of societies torn apart by conflicts based upon nation-state modalities, the inclusion of some and the exclusion of others, can be defined as survivors. In this vision of things, “only survivors can shape a common future.” (346)
One of Mamdani’s points of analysis in seeking the transformation of nation-states is the distinction between the criminalization of perpetrators as opposed to the fundamental political transformation. Dismantling regimes that promote discrimination, marginalization, occupation and genocide must not be substituted with imposing supposed justice for perpetrators. This individualizes responsibility for the horrors committed by the state, leaving dominant mechanisms unchallenged.
Instead of foisting responsibility on individuals who are put on trial once the regime has been defeated, what is necessary is a complete reformulation of the political community—victims and perpetrators, bystanders and beneficiaries—all defined as survivors. Common residence in the territory and the commitment to build a shared future that transcends the political identities of settler and native is the way towards a reconciliation that can promise a better future. Mamdani engages in a riveting comparison between the Nuremberg trials (exemplifying the criminalization process) and the South African CODESA negotiations (which dismantled Apartheid).
The penultimate chapter of Mamdani’s book reads closely the case of Palestine/Israel, pointing a way beyond the present conflict. He insists that, parallel to the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa, Israel must dismantle the ethno-centric system that results from Zionist ideology. He writes, “The call for de-Zionization is a recognition that, in a democracy, the majority cannot be culturally or biologically determined—it cannot be racial, ethnic, or religious. A democratic
majority has to be a political majority, an outcome of the political process and not its unchanging starting and ending point. Only a democratic process of majority formation can give every minority the assurance that it can one day hope to persuade enough of those outside its ranks to forge a new majority. Indeed, there cannot be a permanent majority or minority in a democratic state.” (322).
PS. Mahmood Mamdani is the father of Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York. At the end of his book, the father mentions the son: “And Zohran, our son, who understands that the time has come to go out and join those impatient to change the world.” (388)